The Dignity of the Ejido and the Struggle of the Ejido de Tila for Land and Recognition

The Dignity of the Ejido and the Struggle of the Ejido de Tila

Abstract

This essay analyzes the struggle of the Ejido of Tila, Jalisco, to preserve ejidal dignity in the face of neoliberal agrarian reforms implemented in Mexico since the 1990s. Ejidal property, established after the 1917 Agrarian Reform as a collective model essential for rural stability, faces an individualistic logic imposed by certification programs such as PROCEDE and FANAR. According to Robles Berlanga (2013), these policies transformed social property into parceled property, generating internal divisions and territorial fragmentation that threaten collective governance and community identity. From a socio-critical approach, the text examines the tension between the right of ejidatarios to decide collectively over their territory and policies that promote privatization under the discourse of "modernizing" the countryside. It is argued that the individualization of property not only weakens social cohesion but also increases socioeconomic inequalities within rural communities. The struggle in Tila is presented as a defense of the land as a symbol of autonomy, solidarity, and historical permanence. The essay concludes by vindicating the concept of ejidal dignity: the inalienable right of communities to sustain a collective and autonomous life in resistance against market logics. In this way, the preservation of the ejido transcends economics to become an act of political and social emancipation against contemporary territorial dispossession.