¡Nosotros queremos la tierra! Despojo y resistencia en la costa nahua, el caso de la comunidad de Santa María Ostula, en Michoacán, México

The analysis of the current agrarian conflict between the indigenous people of Santa Maria Ostula and the small, mestizos owners in La Placita allows us to elucidate the processes that community members have implemented over time to defend their communal lands. The agrarian dimension is the starting point of understanding: 1) the complexity of disputes among diverse actors and interests, in order to appropriate and exploit the highly-coveted natural resources belonging to the Nahuas on the Michoacan coast; and 2) distinct forms of dispossession that began in Colonial times and continue today. These dimensions are examined in light of the processes that David Harvey calls ‘accumulation by dispossession’. Tourism and mining projects, plus illegal economies, accompanied by public security policies of the “counterinsurgency” type, are just some of the challenges that members of the community of Santa Maria Ostula –in the state of Michoacan, Mexico– face today.