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Geographic Rift in the Urban Periphery, and Its Concrete Manifestations in Morelia, Mexico

Abstract / Resumen / Resumo

Capitalist urbanization is recognized as an important aspect of environmental change and conflict in Latin America. Marx’s theory of metabolic rift can offer powerful insights into the alienated mediation of society and nature underlying the socio-ecological contradictions and conflicts associated with urbanization, but has been under-utilized in urban political ecology. Building on the concept of geographic rift, we demonstrate how urbanization as both a metabolic process in itself and an important factor in other social-metabolic processes implicates capital’s fundamental contradictions in alienation from the land and its use-values and the subordination of human needs to capital accumulation. After developing the basic theoretical contours of these concepts, we provide an illustrative example of their concrete manifestations in urbanization of the periphery of Morelia, Mexico. We conclude with a discussion of how metabolic-rift theory strengthens the radical critique of sustainability in urban political ecology and encourages struggles to defend the material conditions of human development within the capital system, while pointing to the need for structural change to bring about the conditions necessary for a conscious, sustainable social metabolism.

La urbanización capitalista es reconocida como un aspecto importante del cambio ambiental y conflicto en América Latina. La teoría de la ruptura metabólica de Marx puede ofrecer una visión poderosa de la mediación alienada de la sociedad y la naturaleza que subyace a las contradicciones y conflictos socio-ecológicos asociados con la urbanización, pero ha sido subutilizada en la ecología política urbana. Partiendo del concepto de la ruptura geográfica, demostramos cómo la urbanización como un proceso metabólico en sí misma y como factor importante en otros procesos metabólicos sociales implica las contradicciones fundamentales del capital en la alienación de la tierra y sus valores de uso y la subordinación de las necesidades humanas a la acumulación de capital. Después de desarrollar los contornos teóricos básicos de estos conceptos, proporcionamos un ejemplo ilustrativo de sus manifestaciones concretas en la urbanización de la periferia de Morelia, México. Concluimos con una discusión sobre cómo la teoría de la ruptura metabólica fortalece la crítica radical de la sostenibilidad en la ecología política urbana y alienta las luchas para defender las condiciones materiales del desarrollo humano dentro del sistema capitalista, al mismo tiempo que señala la necesidad de un cambio estructural para crear las condiciones necesarias para un metabolismo social consciente y sostenible.

figure1georift.tif (124 kB)
Figure 1: Conceptual representation of peri-urban expansion as a process of geographic rift. The waves of destruction and reconstruction of territory follow a helical rather than strictly cyclical pattern, with a secular tendency towards intensification and expansion.esent in all instances of urbanization.

Figura_2_citycontour.jpg (19431 kB)
Figure 2: Map indicating the three primary contours of urbanization in Morelia’s periphery (center, inner periphery, outer periphery) and the general time frame within which their urbanization occurred, as well as the seasonal and permanent (irrigated) agricultural areas into which the city is expanding. (color version)

Figura_2_citycontour_BW.jpg (37984 kB)
Figure 2: Map indicating the three primary contours of urbanization in Morelia’s periphery (center, inner periphery, outer periphery) and the general time frame within which their urbanization occurred, as well as the seasonal and permanent (irrigated) agricultural areas into which the city is expanding. (black-and-white version)

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