Pesticides et reconfigurations du « bien vivre » au Chiapas, Mexique

Based on ethnographic research with organizations working on environmental protection and women’s rights as well as traditional midwives in the State of Chiapas, this paper analyzes the ongoing metaphor of life and death in discussions on pesticides and environmental degradation. This vocabulary is in line with indigenous peoples’ philosophy of buen vivir (the good way of life). It appears particularly in women’s discourses, who are in charge of the care work necessary to the reproduction of life (reproductive work, care of family members and nonhuman beings as well as medicinal plant knowledge). In Mexico, over a hundred highly hazardous pesticides are still authorized. This article shows how, in Chiapas, where the Zapatista experience of “another world” instills activist practices, considerations on the harmful consequences of pesticides on the environment and human health become a path towards creating other futures.