Abstract
The Comcaac have inhabited the central coast of the Sonoran Desert in Northern Mexico since time immemorial. Acknowledging the value of their continuous presence and the adaptations it has generated, scholars have documented for decades the intricacies of their environmental knowledge—a complex corpus of socio-ecological relations in constant refinement and transformation. Yet, a crucial point missing within these efforts is the recognition of the ways in which the colonial encounter and the eventual incorporation of this indigenous people into a market economy in the twentieth century drastically re-organized the ways knowledge and power flux locally—an acknowledgement that consequently challenges scholarly understandings of traditional knowledge as extemporal. As old system of reciprocity and collective accountability transformed under new forms of social organization, the individualistic inclinations that characterize the Comcaac society were drastically exacerbated by capitalist logics, producing in turn new forms of power and governance that stand at odds with previous social logics and balances. The present chapter sheds light into the existing tensions that define Comcaac livelihoods in order to better understand the social creation and transformation of environmental knowledge while reflecting upon the vulnerability and resilience that characterizes the different governance systems of the Global South dryland regions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
After the Mexican revolution (1910–1917), the government established a collective land reform program in which lands were expropriated from large private owners and redistributed to landless peasants. Ejidos are a form of communal property in which land was distributed to a group of peasants (or fishermen in this case), where land ownership resides with the ejido community rather than the individual. In fact, the redistribution reform law stipulated that the redistributed lands remained the property of the federal government. The administration and management of these lands and their resources are collective. In 1991, however, the federal government passed neoliberal regulatory changes that allowed, among other changes, the sale of ejidos. Nonetheless, ejidos remain the second largest form of land tenure in Mexico (Valdez 2006).
- 3.
Socio-ecological systems understood as complex adaptive systems, where the relationship between humans and nature is based on interconnections among system parts whose interlinkages and their dynamics create new, so-called emerging properties with synergistic effects compared to the original system elements (Berkes and Folke 1998) Linking Social and Ecological Systems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- 4.
Traditional knowledge understood as the result of countless observations and empiric experiments by nature observers that has been transmitted orally or through writing, which has value of its own, is contextual and historically variable (Berkes 2009).
- 5.
Biopiracy refers to the use of traditional knowledge without permission and the appropriation of genetic resources by individuals that seek monopoly control in the search for new bioresources (http://www.etcgroup.org/issues/patents-biopiracy).
- 6.
Both the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Nagoya Protocol that is part of the Convention on Biological Diversity employ published data as a source to verify the ownership of this knowledge by the different indigenous groups: https://www.wipo.int/tk/en/; https://www.cbd.int/abs/doc/protocol/nagoya-protocol-en.pdf.
- 7.
References
Álvarez-Borrego S (2002) Physical oceanography. In: Case TJ, Cody ML, Ezqurra E (eds) A new Island biogeography of the sea of Cortés. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 41–59
Bahre CJ (1980) Historic seri residence, range and sociopolitical structure. Kiva 45:197–209
Basurto X (2005) How locally designed access and use controls can prevent the tragedy of the commons in a Mexican small-scale fishing community. Soc Nat Resour 18(7):643–659
Basurto X (2006) Commercial diving and the Callo de Hacha fishery in Seri territory. J Southwest 48(2):189–209
Basurto X (2008) Biological and ecological mechanisms supporting marine self-governance: the Seri callo de hacha fishery in Mexico. Ecol Soc 13(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02587-130220
Berkes F, C Folke (1998) Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Berkes F, Seixas CS (2005) Building resilience in lagoon social-ecological systems: a local-level perspective. Ecosystems 8(8):967–974
Berkes F (2010) Indigenous ways of knowing and the study of environmental change. J R Soc N Z 39(4):151–156
Bowen T (1976) Prehistory: the archaeology of Central Coast of Sonora, México. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona Number 27. Tucson
Di Peso C (1955) Two Cerro Guaymas Clovis fluted points from Sonora, México. Kiva 21(1–2):13–15
Di Peso CC, Matson DS (1965) The Seri Indians in 1692: as described by Adamo Gilg, S.J. Arizona West 33(I):33–56
Felger RS, Moser MB (1970) Comcaac use of agave (century plant). Kiva 35(4):159–167
Felger RS, Moser MB (1971) Comcaac use of mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa var. torreyana). Kiva 37(3–4):53–60
Felger RS, Moser MB (1973) Eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) in the Gulf of California: discovery of its nutritional value by the Comcaac Indians. Science 181:355–356
Felger RS, Moser MB (1974a) Columnar cacti in Comcaac Indian culture. Kiva 39(3–4):257–275
Felger RS, Moser MB (1974b) Comcaac Indian pharmacopeia. Econ Bot 28(4):414–436
Felger RS, Moser MB (1985) People of the desert and sea. Ethnobotany of the Comcaac Indians. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson
Felger RS, Wilder BT, Romero-Morales H (2012) Plant life of a desert archipelago: flora of the Sonoran islands in the Gulf of California. University of Arizona Press, Tucson
Griffen WB (1959) Notes on Seri Indian Culture, Sonora, México. University of Florida Press, Gainesville
Hernández-Santana G, Narchi N (2018) The seri traditional food system: cultural heritage, dietary change, and the (Re) awakening of dietary resilience among coastal hunter-gatherers in the Mexican Northwest. In: Price LL (ed) NE Narchi coastal heritage and cultural resilience. Springer, New York, pp 135–182
Johnson JT, Howitt R, Cajete G, Berkes F (2016) Weaving Indigenous and sustainability sciences to diversify our methods. Sustain Sci 11:1–11
Malkin B (1962) Seri ethnozoology. Occasional papers of the Idaho state college museum, Pocatello
McGee WJ (1971/1898) The Seri Indians of Bahía Kino and Sonora, Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 17th Annual Report, 1895–1896. The Río Grande Press, Glorieta
Marlett S (2007) Las relaciones entre las lenguas ‘hokanas’ en México: ¿cuál es la evidencia? In: Buenrostro C et al (eds) Memorias del III Coloquio Internacional de Lingüística Mauricio Swadesh. UNAM/INI, Ciudad de México, pp 165–192
Marlett SM, Astorga de Estrella ML, Moser BM, Nava F (1998) Las canciones Comcaac: una visión general. Cuarto Encuentro Internacional de Lingüística en el Noroeste 1(2):499–526
Martínez-Tagüeña N (2015) And the giants keep singing: Comcaac anthropology of meaningful places. Dissertation, The University of Arizona
Martínez-Tagüeña N, Torres LA (2018) Walking the desert, paddling the sea: Comcaac mobility in time. J Anthropol Archaeol 49:146–160
Moser EW (1963) Comcaac bands. Kiva 28(3):14–27
Moser C (2014) Shells on a Desert Shore. Mollusks in the seri world. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson
Moser EW, Marlett S (2010) Comcáac quih yaza quih hant ihíip hac: Diccionario seri- español-inglés. Plaza y Valdés Editores, Mexico City
Nabhan GP (2003) Singing the Turtles to Sea: The Comcáac (Seri) Art and Science of Reptiles. University of California Press, Berkeley
Narchi NE, LE Aguilar-Rosas, JJ Sánchez-Escalante, DO Waumann-Rojas (2015) An ethnomedicinal study of the Seri people: a group of hunter-gatherers and fishers native to the Sonoran Desert. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed 11(1): 62
O’Meara C (2010) Comcaac Landscape Classification and Spatial Reference. Buffalo State University of New York, Dissertation
Ostrom E (2000) El gobierno de los bienes comunes. La evolución de las instituciones de acción colectiva. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City
Rentería R (2006) Los bordes indomables; ritualidad e identidad etnica entre los Comcaacs o Comcaac Bachelor Thesis. Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia
Rentería R (2009) Hunting on the slopes of Tiburon: bighorn sheep’s market-oriented conservation in Northern Mexico. MA thesis, The University of Arizona
Rentería R (2015) Ethics, Hunting tales and the multispecies debate: the entextualization of nonhuman narratives. Vis Anthropol Rev 31(1):94–103
Reynolds JF, Stafford Smith DM, Lambin EF (2007) Global desertification: building a science for dryland development. Science 316:847–851
Sheridan TE (1996) The Comcáac (Comcaacs): people of the desert and sea. In: Sheridan TE, Perezo NJ (eds) Paths of Life. American Indians of the Southwest and Northern México. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp 187–212
Sheridan TE (1999) Empire of Sand. The Comcaac Indians and the Struggle for Spanish Sonora, 1645–1803. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson
Shreve F (1964) Vegetation of the Sonoran Desert. In: Shreve F, Wiggins I (eds) Vegetation and Flora of the Sonoran Desert, vol 1. Stanford University Press, Stanford, pp 1–45
Smith WN (1947) Seri Field Notes, 1947. Unpublished manuscript filed at Tucson. the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections
Smith WN (1966) Seri Field Notes, 1966. Unpublished manuscript filed at Tucson. the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections
Valdez R, Guzmán-Aranda JC, Abarca FJ, Tarango-Arámbula LA, Sánchez FC (2006) Wildlife conservation and Management in Mexico. Wildl Soc Bull 34(2):270–282
Van Devender TR, Burgess TL, Piper JC, Turner RM (1994) Paleoclimatic Implications of Holocene Plant Remains from the Sierra Bacha, Sonora, México. Quatern Res 41:99–108
Waters MR, Stafford TW Jr (2007) Redefining the age of Clovis: implications for the peopling of the Americas. Science 315(5815):1122–1126
Wilder BT, Felger RS, Romero H (2008a) Succulent plant diversity of the Sonoran Islands, Gulf of California, Mexico. Haseltonia 14:128–161
Wilder BT, Felger RS, Van Devender TR, Romero H (2008b) Canotia holacantha on Isla Tiburón, Gulf of California, Mexico. Can Underwrit 4(1):1–7
Wilder BT, Felger RS, Romero H, Quijada-Mascareñas A (2007) New plant discoveries for Sonoran Islands, Gulf of California, Mexico. J Bot Res Inst Tex 1:1203–1227
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the many members of the Comcaac Indigenous Community that have supported and collaborated with them. They also thank their respective affiliations for their support. NMT thanks her Cátedra CONACYT ID Number 6133 as part of the project 615. And RRV appreciates the support provided by the Anthropology and Museum Studies at Central Washington University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Martínez-Tagüeña, N., Rentería-Valencia, R.F. (2020). Social Cohesion and Environmental Governance Among the Comcaac of Northern Mexico. In: Lucatello, S., Huber-Sannwald, E., Espejel, I., Martínez-Tagüeña, N. (eds) Stewardship of Future Drylands and Climate Change in the Global South. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22464-6_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22464-6_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-22463-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-22464-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)