Productive Ecology
The unauthorized communities living within the boundaries of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve (REBIMA) are at the heart of ethical and political issues that lead us to question a certain number of assumptions about the possible place of indigenous peoples in conservation projects. Based on ethnographic work conducted in the region over the past twenty years, the author identifies and explores three of these issues. The first concerns the use that can be made of a protected area as a reserve of virtualities as well as a reserve of resources, as a space where traditional practices can be included, but also projects not yet defined. He then examines how the mobilization of the idea of a « productive ecology » by the members of these communities is a way of entering into a dialectical, but ultimately destabilizing, relationship with the image of the good indigenous conservation subject, which is omnipresent in the dominant narratives of REBIMA. Finally, the author discusses how the productive projects referred to in this paper cannot be confined to local aspirations, but are part of a broader dialogue, particularly with the Mexican State, on resource rights and land management.