This article seeks to challenge the notion that the concept of agro‐extractivism be restricted to crops destined for export with little or no processing. Based on a study of agave and tequila production in Mexico, it argues that the domestic processing of biomass does not change nor necessarily compensate for the negative social and environmental impacts of upstream agricultural activities; it can in fact add to them. We seek to demonstrate this to be the case for industrialized agave–tequila production by adopting an approach that traces the flows of materials, pollutants and money, taking into consideration the degree to which transnational companies control the agave–tequila value chain, the portion of tequila that is exported, technologies, company–farmer and company–worker relations, relevant public policy, and environmental and social impacts. We analyse the polluting consequences of industrialized tequila production and show how the expansion and intensification of agave production since the mid‐1990s has been characterized by increasing volumes of biomass extraction, the emergence or exacerbation of different forms of environmental degradation, the marginalization of small‐scale agave farmers, and deteriorating working conditions for agave‐field workers. In addition, we briefly discuss traditional mezcal production as a socially and ecologically sustainable alternative model.

Mexico faces multiple water quality challenges, both in terms of the water supplied to the population as well as surface and underground water sources. Problems with drinking water supply affect the population in diverse ways, from associated health risks to high levels of intermittency in service to the poor perception of the quality of piped water – leading to high levels of bottled water consumption. In this text we explore the issue of drinking water quality in three contexts in the state of Jalisco: in Guadalajara, the state’s main urban area, in the peri-urban municipality of El Salto, and in the mid-sized city of San Juan de los Lagos. Our analysis explores drinking water regulations, the water quality monitoring undertaken by state and local authorities, access to information, as well as the actions and perceptions of water service providers. Looking at cases of indirect reuse of wastewater as well as groundwater sources with high levels of fluoride and arsenic, we argue that the foregrounding of water quality is key to illuminating social inequalities in access to water and in teasing out power relations prevailing in current hydrosocial regimes. We conclude that this hydrosocial cycle of drinking water is characterised by prioritising access to water for economic actors, facilitated by lax regulations and minimal enforcement, as well as by the systematic neglect by government authorities at all levels of the protection of watersheds and aquifers, and of water quality issues generally.

Research in urban political ecology has been important in recent decades in understanding the complex socionatural processes entailed in urbanization, exploring the local and global linkages of the production and consumption processes of urban metabolism. While these studies have explored diverse networks and artefacts in this metabolism, little attention has been paid to the flows of the pollution of water and air, particularly of the industrial emissions that are also key to the socionatures of urbanization in industrialized regions of the Global South. In this paper, we explore two interconnected nodes in the metabolism of the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area in Western Mexico. These are key sites for the flows of resources and emissions, with different levels of social discontent and conflict related particularly to the health impacts of water pollution. Here, government authorities tend to deflect attention from industrial- and city-level sources of pollution, focusing instead on proximate sources and household emissions. Organized social resistance, on the other hand, calls attention to powerful industrial actors and speculative urban development while taking action to imagine new socio-ecological configurations in the region. We focus on the role of the state in maintaining socio-ecological inequities, and the lessons that can be learned about urban metabolism by expanding the frame to include industrial processes in the shaping of urban socionatures.

En este texto, la pretensión es hilvanar una explicación teórico-conceptual de la degradación del río Santiago, en Jalisco, a partir de las nociones de “corrupción institucionalizada” y “mito de las multinacionales”. Para ello, partiendo del enfoque de la “neoliberalización de la naturaleza”, examino el ambientalismo de mercado como una respuesta a las crisis ecológicas engendradas por la tendencia de la producción capitalista, y en particular de su forma actual neoliberal, a degradar sus condiciones de producción y a la naturaleza más ampliamente. Posteriormente analizo la adaptación del ambientalismo de mercado “para países pobres” de maneras que empoderan al sector privado en la regulación ambiental; para ello tomo como ejemplo la regulación mexicana. A partir de la investigación de campo, asimismo, presento un resumen de algunos datos empíricos que sustentan la hipótesis de la corrupción institucionalizada. Finalmente, las conclusiones versan sobre cómo la regulación de las descargas industriales en México refleja el sesgo del ambientalismo de mercado en su versión “para países pobres”, que se basa en supuestos no verificables del cumplimiento de las empresas transnacionales, o lo que propongo llamar el “mito de las multinacionales”.

La Cuenca Alta del río Santiago alberga el Área Metropolitana de Guadalajara, uno de los principales corredores industriales del país y uno de sus ríos más contaminados, el Santiago. La contaminación de este río ha desatado un conflicto socioambiental donde organizaciones de las comunidades ribereñas de El Salto y Juanacatlán denuncian la expansión urbana e industrial descontrolada que ha convertido a este territorio en una zona de sacrificio. En este artículo exploro las contradicciones y ausencias de una estrategia de nivel estatal iniciada en 2018 para el río Santiago, y el papel del Estado en términos más generales en la gestión y el aprovechamiento de una crisis ambiental para facilitar los procesos de acumulación capitalista en la cuenca fluvial. La actividad industrial se ha expandido en la región desde que se lanzó la estrategia del río y durante el período de la pandemia de covid-19. Al mismo tiempo, la estrategia de recuperación del río no sólo ha sido deficiente en acciones para controlar o reducir las fuentes industriales de contaminación. Una visión cortada y utilitaria de los recursos hídricos margina los temas de la fragmentación del río a través de represas y desvíos, y de la extracción no controlada de aguas subterráneas. En este artículo, enfoco el análisis en el papel del Estado como una institución “creadora del ambiente” (environment-making) (Parenti, 2016), al adoptar una narrativa de crisis ambiental para justificar inversiones en infraestructura de tratamiento de aguas residuales al mismo tiempo que políticas de atracción de inversiones y la escasa fiscalización ambiental agudizan las causas de la crisis socioambiental en la cuenca.