Making the Coast Pacific: Oilseeds, Environmental Violence and Justice in Guerrero and Sinaloa, 1900-1960

Porter, Jayson Maurice

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-btn7-1h34

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Making the Coast Pacific: Oilseeds, Environmental Violence and Justice in Guerrero and Sinaloa, 1900-1960

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Making the Coast Pacific is an environmental history of violence against places, plants, and people. Mexico's Pacific Coast region was a key site for oilseed agriculture and industrialization, which resulted in environmental violence and injustice. Since the region with Mexico's largest population of afro-descendants, Costa Chica, was also Mexico's leading producer of cotton, sesame, and coconut at varying times between 1890 and 1960, these crops serve as consistent, methodological points for mapping race and power on the coast. They help us imagine the environmental realities of black farmers. More broadly, the semi-arid and subtropical savannas of the Pacific were ideal for cotton, sesame, coconuts, and other oilseeds. Before, during, and after the rise of petroleum, these plants helped grease the wheels of industry. Mexico's post revolutionary government intended for oilseed development to make the coast pacific, in the sense of establishing law and order, but this agricultural modernization had the opposite effect; it engendered multifaceted forms of environmental violence. Oilseed development increased the presence of agrochemicals, soldiers, and corporations in the countryside and created the conditions for direct, structural, and ecological forms of violence. Companies like Bola de Nieve made fortunes manufacturing soap and vegetable oil at the expense of rural oilseed farmers. Oilseed development is particularly violent because of the interchangeable role of various oils in manufacturing soap making, processed foods, and countless commercial and industrial products. Arsenic, aridity, and armed guards were other recurring actors in this history. The technological and environmental history of oilseeds shows how agriculture changed during the Mexican Revolution in ways that shaped the Green Revolution and eventually biofuel expansion. The transnational nature of the oilseed industry reconfigures our understanding of rural Mexico's historical role in the global economy.

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