Territorial Conflicts in the Chatino (kitsé cha’tnio) Communal Space of Santiago Cuixtla, Nopala, Oaxaca

Abstract

This article aims to analyze community strategies and practices for land negotiation and purchase in the Chatino community of Santiago Cuixtla, Oaxaca, expressions that take a political form as a struggle for territory to maintain possession of communal lands and confront the dispossession of Indigenous territory. The research employs the category of social space as its analytical axis, following Lefebvre and Santos, to examine how land ownership constitutes a social relation that is simultaneously present, past, and future. The methodology combines qualitative interviews with agrarian and communal authorities with documentary review of historical archives, including the National Agrarian Registry and the General Archive of the Nation. Findings reveal that in the 1950s, the Chatinos undertook collective land purchase from the Casa Valle estate as a strategy to restore part of their territory dispossessed since the colonial era. This process involved community assembly agreements and the gradual incorporation of mestizo and Afro-Mexican populations as comuneros to strengthen territorial defense. The study also documents the boundary conflict with San Pedro Mixtepec, derived from omissions in the 1972 presidential resolution, which persists to this day. It is concluded that territorial conflicts in Indigenous territories have deep historical roots in dispossession and displacement, and that peoples develop medium- and long-term strategies combining legal struggle, community organization, and land purchase to preserve their territory.