Claves para decodificar un actor colectivo

El caso del movimiento de San Salvador Atenco

Abstract

In October 2001 the Mexican president Vicente Fox issued 19 expropriating decrees to carry out one of the most ambitious projects of his administration: the construction of a new airport in Texcoco, State of Mexico. Against this decision, a group of organized peasants (“ejidatarios” ) initiated an intense movement to revert the imminent despoilment of land involved in the government project. This article intends to elucidate the factors that conditioned the constitution of the atenquense subject. The historiographic trends of the Subaltern Studies and the reflections of the British historian E. P. Thompson serve as an interpretative framework to approach the analysis of this collective actor, produced by the intertwinement of tradition and modernity.