“The Cholulteca People Are Not a Dump”: Predation, Waste, and the Defense of Life in Cholula, Puebla

Abstract

This article analyzes the Cholula Intermunicipal Landfill as an expression of institutional damage within the framework of territorial reorganization promoted in Puebla, Mexico, during Rafael Moreno Valle's six-year term (2011-2017). Based on a socio-historical genealogy and documentary and newspaper analysis, the cumulative effects of waste infrastructure on Nahua and peasant territories are examined, as well as the practices of defense and care articulated by the Cholulteca peoples. The study shows that the landfill operated as a civilizing device of discard and that its community closure, the decree of the peoples, and the creation of the Free Palestine Forest constitute practices of political care that interrupt the normalization of damage and reconfigure the boundaries between territory, waste, and common life.