No life, no land: Homicide and dispossession in Mexico

Landscapes of dispossession: Criminal justice and property rights in Mexico (2015–2020)

“…Nevertheless, the literature also indicates that dispossession practices are not always associated with criminal, military, or paramilitary armed conflicts, and even less do they necessarily imply immediate physical violence. Dispossession practices are also constructed upon a heterogenous set of unequal power relations, where the dispossessed subject is in a permanently disadvantaged position in relation to the dispossessing actor, due to class (Harvey, 2012), gender (Bairenmann et al, 2007; Méndez Gutierrez and Carrera Guerra, 2014), community origin (Lizárraga Morales, 2008; Janoschka, 2009; Sequera and Janoschka, 2012; Jackiewitz and Craine, 2010; Blázquez et al, 2011), capacity to exercise violence (Gutiérrez Sanin and Vargas Reina, 2016; Meneses-Reyes et al, 2021) or social capital (Gutiérrez Sanin and Vargas Reina, 2016; Lu et al, 2017). Analyzing dispossession practices as a crime also implies an effort to explain where and how frequently the population will use the criminal justice system as a means of recovering dispossessed property, and what rules and procedures dispossessed owners should follow to access a judicial remedy.…”

“…Furthermore, the report of a crime of dispossession does not mean that it has been resolved by a judge, and even less, that a peaceful restitution of property has occurred. To ensure this, the dispossessed need to overcome various barriers and procedures, including the burden of confronting the possible dispossessors, who may be affiliated with criminal organizations linked to an increase in homicides in their area of operation (Meneses-Reyes et al, 2021; Gutiérrez Sanín, 2014).…”

“…One of the main implications for conceptualizing dispossession as a crime, is the observation of the social practice through the lens of the State (Scott, 1998), that is, as a social construction mediated by various actors who exercise the power to impose their imagination on the way in which they believe space should be distributed and function (Azuela et al, 2005). As a legal category, dispossession is as old as the regulation of the limits of ownership and territory (Cramer and Richards, 2011; Peña-Huertas, et al, 2017; Gutiérrez Sanín, 2014; Meneses-Reyes et al, 2021). However, it is important to recognize that the various form of land takeover follow different trajectories and conform unique political configurations (Lu et al, 2017).…”

“…The existence of certain legislative restrictions that define dispossession as a crime, as well as its spatial-temporal qualities, mean that it is unlikely that the number of reports of dispossession as a crime will vary considerably within a short lapse of time, and even less so within the same space (Meneses-Reyes et al, 2021). In fact, evidence shows that in contemporary societies, official registries of dispossession change rapidly in situations of war, internal armed conflict, or during times of serious violations of human rights (Cramer and Richards, 2011), that is, in particularly dramatic and violent situations.…”