Male Transnational Migration and its Linkages to Land Use Change in a Southern Campeche Ejido

Claudia Anne Radel, Utah State University
Birgit Schmook, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur

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The Journal of Latin American Geography is published by the University of Texas Press. HTML fulltext available through remote link via Project Muse.

Abstract

This paper describes findings of a case study examining linkages between emerging transnational migration patterns and land-use transformations in an ejido in the southern part of Mexico’s Campeche state. Qualitative data were derived via in-depth interviews of a stratified random sample of 26 households. The ejido’s experience illustrates the linkages between migration and land-use change at an early stage in a community’s migration experience. Prior cash cropping of chili, leading to accumulation of relative wealth for certain households, facilitated the initiation of migration, while recent chili cultivation failures have motivated it. Early migration, in turn, is associated with an increase in investment in certain agricultural inputs and a decrease in the rate of chili cultivation, with implications for deforestation and forest recovery.