Unclean and Unnatural: Garbage, Conservation Space, and Expectations of Development in Coastal Yucatán

Abstract

Garbage disorders the city. Biosphere reserves reorder nature. This dissertation examines both of these concepts by focusing on the role of garbage in small cities enveloped by conservation space on the northwestern coast of Yucatán, México. Drawing from over two years of ethnographic research in Yucatán, I examine the historical and political relationships that produce garbage, conservation spaces, expectations of development, and gendered work. This project also points to the importance of mixed methodologies and multiple voices in political ecological and feminist geographical research by using a combination of methods, including oral histories and interviews, surveys, and policy analysis. My findings elucidate: how urban garbage is conceptualized and managed in protected coastal wetlands, how women produce new socio-environmental subjectivities through garbage projects, and the degree to which informal garbage use redefines urban and conservation space and creates alternative development possibilities.