Mexico

A delegation visited London to talk about Indigenous struggles in Mexico and the state of human rights in the country today, and to build ties with organizations and activists in the UK. 

This list, put together for LAB by Camila Vergara Ruiz on the 10 year anniversary of the Ayotzinapa case, gathers informative resources to help us understand the forced disappearance of 43 students in Iguala in 2014. The list includes books, a podcast, a web platform and a documentary film.

Wirikuta is the most important sacred place for the Indigenous Wixárika people in the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. This place, which is of great importance for biodiversity and culture, is threatened by mining companies. The community has been fighting a legal battle to annul the 78 contracts threatening the site’s existence. They hope the Mexican judicial system will rule in their favour.

A new project, ‘Archiving Real-Time Literary Responses to the Covid-19 in Latin America’, is housed at the University of Birmingham. aims to document some of this literary production in this exceptional period of global history. It will make a body of viral literature in Latin America available through open access for future researchers and the wider public before it is lost.

The Kanan Ts'ono'ot collective is making history in Mexico by demanding that cenotes be granted legal status and the Maya people named as their guardians against threats posed by industrial farming.

New film by Judy Jackson tells the story of the ABBA House migrant shelter in Celaya, Mexico.

Members of Ejido El Bajío, in the Gran Desierto de Altar, Sonora, have been fighting for almost 20 years against a gold mining company that is destroying the fauna and flora of their beautiful but delicate surroundings.

The community of San Juan Bautista struggles against a gas pipeline and in defence of their lagoon, their land, and their existence as an Indigenous people. This is the story of the women embodying their resistance.

Ledy Pech Martín is a Mexican Indigenous beekeeper who led the fight against the multinational giant, Monsanto, and won. She is an environmental defender who has worked tirelessly to raise awareness over pesticide use and its effects on the natural habitat of bees, as well as the honey supply that is crucial to the livelihoods of indigenous Mayans in the Yucatán peninsula. 

Taking place over the course of one fraught day, Totém immerses the audience in the world of seven-year-old Sol, as her family prepares for...