PERFORMANCE E MOBILITAZIONE, CASO FRENTE DE PUEBLOS EN DEFENSA DE LA TIERRA

With the intent to construct an airport in order to replace Mexico City’s older one, the federal government, led by Vicente Fox in 2001, published a series of expropriating decrees that reduced the integrity of certain small towns in the region of Texcoco, one of which is San Salvador Atenco. The population of San Salvador, a people of deep cultural roots who have a past of social struggle, succeeded after nine months in stopping the project thanks to the mobilization set forth by the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra (FPDT). Il Frente de Pueblos is a paradigm among Mexican social movements not only because of its practical success, but also for having confronted economic and capitalistic globalization with resources that appeal to identity, to the primary sources of meaning for the people, targeting the customs of the people which they then translate into their political strategy of direct action. This work attempts to define performance in the context of social movements in general and seeks to establish, in particular, its link with the world of ritual and with the construction of meanings in the political strategy of the FPDT. Adopting as an axis the theory of Jeffrey Alexander (2006), who defines cultural performance as a process through which the actors explain the meaning of their social situation, we describe here the performance set forth by the FPDT during the social drama experienced at Atenco, distinguishing between the internal structure of the FPDT and the relationship between the elements of the internal structure. The thesis seeks to make a sociological investigation, aiming to discover how dramatic expression of the FPDT’s political contestation receives fuel through collective rites and the history in San Salvador Atenco, in the threatening context of the construction of the airport.