Political Ecologies of Cattle Ranching in Northern Mexico: Private Revolutions

List of Figures

Figures 1.1 Regional map of Sonora 2 1.2 Map of the Río Sonora Valley 20 1.3 Men in Black Hats? 23 2.1 Barbed wire and territoriality 34 2.2 An old Catholic Church in Baviácora, Sonora 41 2.3 An early rock corral near Moctezuma 45 3.1 A rancher at his natural spring 67 3.2 Labor allocation on ranches 74 3.3 Animals on la milpa 76 3.4 Jesús, back on the ranch again 82 4.1 Sinaloan thorn scrub invading pastures 98 4.2 Bulldozer ecology and buffelgrass 108 4.3 A landscape of desire for ranchers 111 4.4 Buffelgrass along a Sonoran roadside 113 4.5 A fence does matter. 121 5.1 Gender on parade and in the making 131 5.2 The construction of rural femininity 132 5.3 Delicia, with husband and son, in discussion 139 5.4 Male horse culture at a race 145 6.1 Long wave fluctuations between private and communal visions for Mexican land tenure 153 6.2 The “fat ranch” of the Sarellas in Banámichi, Sonora 174 7.1 Buffelgrass narratives: Wanted dead, not alive. 178 7.2 A political march under way 189 7.3 Religious iconography embedded in the landscape 192 7.4 Ranching remains one of the most desired lifestyles in rural Sonora. 196 Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are by the author. ...