Book Manuscript Entitled: Grieving Geographies, Mourning Waters: Race, Gender, and Environmental Struggles on the Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico (Under contract with University of Illinois Press).
Winner of the National Women´s Studies Association (NWSA) and University of Illinois Press, First Book Prize (2021),this manuscript explores the ecocide of the Chacahua-Pastoría Lagoons in the Pacific Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, and its economic, social, and emotional impact on Black and Indigenous women. Based on 14 months of fieldwork in the region, I argue that mestizaje—an homogenizing project and the foundational myth of the Mexican nation-state––shapes how Black and Indigenous communities experience violence and the dispossession of their lands, through what I call necro-mestizaje. The potential loss of the lagoons and the loss of community members due to violence are related social phenomena that produce collective grief that is both racialized and gendered and manifests acutely in Black and Indigenous women’s stories.
Black and Indigenous women in the region seek to transform their personal and collective grief into political mobilization and seek strategies for the continuation of the life of their communities, their land, and the water. I name these spaces of grief as grieving geographies. These women create inter-ethnic alliances (like mutual-aid initiatives) and perform collective care towards the lagoons to disrupt the economic, social, and political consequences of ecocide.
This book manuscript is aligned with activism, feminist methodologies and collaboration with Black and Indigenous women’s organizations and community labor. My research methods include participant observation, oral histories, semi-structured interviews, and participatory community mapping.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
2021 Rodríguez Aguilera, M. “Grieving Geographies, Mourning Waters: Life, Death and Environmental Racialized Gendered Struggles”. Feminist Anthropology Journal 3 (1): 1–16.
2018 Rodríguez Aguilera, M. “Diálogos hemisféricos entre feminismos del Norte y Sur: Genealogía de feminismos críticos latinoamericanos.” In Realidad. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades. No. 151. Universidad Centroamericana de San Salvador (UCA).
Book Chapters
2021 Rodríguez Aguilera, M. (2021) “Senti-pensando la Antropología: mi experiencia y contradicciones en el pensar-hacer” in Antropologías feministas en México: epistemologías, éticas, prácticas y miradas diversas. UNAM, UAM, UNACH, Mexico.
2016 Rodríguez Aguilera, M. “Tras el rastro de los 43 nosotros” in Juventud(es), regímenes de sensibilidad y disidencia. Narrativas estéticas y morfologías disidentes. Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, México (UACJ).
2014 Rodríguez Aguilera, M.“Resistencia desde adentro: Mujeres indígenas y vida cotidiana en el CERESO de San Miguel” in Más allá del feminismo: Caminos para andar. Coord. Márgara Millán. Red de Feminismos Descoloniales, Editorial Pez en el Arbol, Mexico.
Other Academic Publications
2020 R. Aida Hernández Castillo, López Nájera V., Millán, M., Rodríguez Aguilera, M. Mora Bayo, M. “María Lugones: feminista descolonial, diaspórica y peregrina. LASA Forum. Vol. 51. Issue 4. Latin American Studies Association official publication. Pp. 38-41.
2018 Rodríguez, M. and Mirna Estrella “Mexiko und Zentralamerika angesichts legalisierten Rassismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit in den USA: Übergänge, Herausforderungen und Formen des Widerstands” in Wissenschaft & Frieden Journal, January printed edition, Germany. https://wissenschaft-und-frieden.de/seite.php?artikelID=2263
2013 Rodríguez, M. “¿Racismo y sexismo en México? Voces de mujeres indígenas desde su cotidianeidad” in Senti-pensar el género. Perspectivas desde los pueblos originarios. Coord. Sylvia Marcos, Georgina Méndez Torres, Juan López Intzín, Carmen Osorio Hernández. Red Interdisciplinaria de Investigadores de los Pueblos Indios de México, Asociación Civil, Red de Feminismos Descoloniales, Editorial La Casa del Mago. Guadalajara, México.
2013 Rodríguez, M. “Mi caminar en el CERESO de Atlacholoaya” en Libertad anticipada. Intervención feminista de escritura en espacios penitenciarios. Colección Revelación Intramuros III. Comp. Aida Hernández Castillo. Astrolabio Editorial. CIESAS, CONACULTA, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, México.