333
relevant acknowledging the individual who recounted it. When complete oral stories
are published, the Comcaac elder should be co-author of the publication with a
complete description of his source of knowledge.
The Comcaac have much to teach about how to conceptualize the environment as
part of us, they do not refer to nature as a resource to be used, extracted, or appropriated; moreover, their land is their ancestors’ bodies and their oral stories reveal an
entanglement between objects, people, nature phenomena, animals, and plants. As
a millenary indigenous community with a vast socio-ecological memory, they have
lived through change and uncertainty, developing the capacity to learn from crisis to
respond and adapt to global socio-environmental changes. Therefore, the Comcaac
are the key players to achieve integrated assessments, define conservation, restoration, management and development projects, and guide and inform adaptive management and policy development.
The different transformative waves experienced by the Comcaac people in this
becoming have forged, out of different intercultural dialogues, a paradoxical, yet
fascinating environmentality. Whereas the connection between environmental
knowledge and territoriality was drastically altered as the ihiizitim systems collapsed and the relationship between Comcaac subsistence practices and their environmental resources was redrawn by the arrival of new technologies, the
implementations of new forms of land tenure (ejidos) and their insertion in marketoriented economies (commercial fishing and wildlife management) changed the
panorama. The emergent Comcaac leadership are renegotiating the different ecological and capitalist forces that determine their livelihoods by framing their
decision- making processes in cultural logics and principles of appropriation of their
environment embedded in their ancestral ecological knowledge; a set of principles
and information crystalized in the hundred songs that all children, adults, and elders
continue to sing at every fiesta, puberty ceremony, or new year celebration, but perhaps more importantly, every night, when the lights go out and the desert prepares
to sleep.
Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the many members of the Comcaac Indigenous
Community that have supported and collaborated with them. They also thank their respective affiliations for their support. NMT thanks her Cátedra CONACYT ID Number 6133 as part of the
project 615. And RRV appreciates the support provided by the Anthropology and Museum Studies
at Central Washington University.
References
Álvarez-Borrego S (2002) Physical oceanography. In: Case TJ, Cody ML, Ezqurra E (eds) A new
Island biogeography of the sea of Cortés. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 41–59
Bahre CJ (1980) Historic seri residence, range and sociopolitical structure. Kiva 45:197–209
Basurto X (2005) How locally designed access and use controls can prevent the tragedy of the
commons in a Mexican small-scale fishing community. Soc Nat Resour 18(7):643–659
Basurto X (2006) Commercial diving and the Callo de Hacha fishery in Seri territory. J Southwest
48(2):189–209
18 Social Cohesion and Environmental Governance Among the Comcaac of Northern…
relevant acknowledging the individual who recounted it. When complete oral stories
are published, the Comcaac elder should be co-author of the publication with a
complete description of his source of knowledge.
The Comcaac have much to teach about how to conceptualize the environment as
part of us, they do not refer to nature as a resource to be used, extracted, or appropriated; moreover, their land is their ancestors’ bodies and their oral stories reveal an
entanglement between objects, people, nature phenomena, animals, and plants. As
a millenary indigenous community with a vast socio-ecological memory, they have
lived through change and uncertainty, developing the capacity to learn from crisis to
respond and adapt to global socio-environmental changes. Therefore, the Comcaac
are the key players to achieve integrated assessments, define conservation, restoration, management and development projects, and guide and inform adaptive management and policy development.
The different transformative waves experienced by the Comcaac people in this
becoming have forged, out of different intercultural dialogues, a paradoxical, yet
fascinating environmentality. Whereas the connection between environmental
knowledge and territoriality was drastically altered as the ihiizitim systems collapsed and the relationship between Comcaac subsistence practices and their environmental resources was redrawn by the arrival of new technologies, the
implementations of new forms of land tenure (ejidos) and their insertion in marketoriented economies (commercial fishing and wildlife management) changed the
panorama. The emergent Comcaac leadership are renegotiating the different ecological and capitalist forces that determine their livelihoods by framing their
decision- making processes in cultural logics and principles of appropriation of their
environment embedded in their ancestral ecological knowledge; a set of principles
and information crystalized in the hundred songs that all children, adults, and elders
continue to sing at every fiesta, puberty ceremony, or new year celebration, but perhaps more importantly, every night, when the lights go out and the desert prepares
to sleep.
Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the many members of the Comcaac Indigenous
Community that have supported and collaborated with them. They also thank their respective affiliations for their support. NMT thanks her Cátedra CONACYT ID Number 6133 as part of the
project 615. And RRV appreciates the support provided by the Anthropology and Museum Studies
at Central Washington University.
References
Álvarez-Borrego S (2002) Physical oceanography. In: Case TJ, Cody ML, Ezqurra E (eds) A new
Island biogeography of the sea of Cortés. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 41–59
Bahre CJ (1980) Historic seri residence, range and sociopolitical structure. Kiva 45:197–209
Basurto X (2005) How locally designed access and use controls can prevent the tragedy of the
commons in a Mexican small-scale fishing community. Soc Nat Resour 18(7):643–659
Basurto X (2006) Commercial diving and the Callo de Hacha fishery in Seri territory. J Southwest
48(2):189–209
18 Social Cohesion and Environmental Governance Among the Comcaac of Northern…