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This paper explains why, two years before the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, urban dwellers living in poverty in Mexico and Cuernavaca continue having the informal land market as the fundamental route of access to the housing in a period in which mortgage credit has had the greatest expansion in history. Informal employment and wages below 2.6 times the minimum wage are identified as causes of their exclusion from market supply, while federal subsidy programs for informal workers have a low impact and do not affect land prices. The crisis of 2009 meant the stagnation of an apparent advance of the formal on the informal urbanization. For the case study, the association between poverty and economic and urban informality is verified, while data from an applied survey provide details about the characteristics of the inhabitants, their satisfaction at becoming homeowners, progressivity in the housing construction, their level of access to micro-financing for housing improvements and personal expenses, and of their residential mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking into account the concept of imagined water communities elaborated by Benedict Anderson (1983) in this paper, we have studied cases about originary communities that have developed identity processes and collective legitimacy forms through the ownership and property of water resources. Through this perspective it was possible to identify how communities located within the State of Mexico territory have gained power and have had empowerment of water resources. These communities have also gained other capabilities such as control, management, access and the collection of water users payment for the drinking water service they receive. Through imagined communities perspective it also helps to identify identity processes and legitimacy processes within originary communities. This paper concludes that access, operation and management of the drinking water supply service by water committees is useful to built water communities that become active participants in the relationship State-nature. This paper was elaborated with information obtained from interviews carried out in 2008, 2009 and 2010 in three communities from the State of Mexico. These communities share similar characteristics in terms of their water management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender, environment, and development approach proposes the study of women's fights and obligations toward natural resources, as well as institutions and property relations that govern the access to such resources within specific socio-environmental contexts. From this viewpoint, this paper studies the fishing activities of native women and men from Veracruz, Mexico, focusing on two processes: the gender construction of the fishing arts and the gender socialization in fishing activities. This paper shows that both processes make women specialize in certain water resources, which are important to securing feeding to their communities. An environmental policy with a gender perspective will be able to visualize woman roles in food provisioning, and to strengthen their control over the resources they currently manage, based on the environmental knowledge women have about them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text studies the shared meanings inside an emerging social mobilization for the defence of water at the Cuenca de México (CM). This work stems from a doctoral research on such a mobilization's recent developments (2005-2009) and its potential social reflexive influence. The shared meanings analysis applied here serves on one hand to identify and rank the mobilization's main ideas and proposals. On the other hand, this paper assesses the mobilization's critical and constructive input to the present political and social order at the CM region. Indeed, the mobilization's recent development is indicating that water's social action and organization are growing at the CM, and that social conflict and unrest against the water's ruling definitions and uses are increasing too. This text is divided in three sections: first, a case study presented with central theoretical and methodological considerations; second, the mobilization's shared meanings analysis and main results, and third, some conclusions about the mobilization's main challenges and how its potential social reflexive influence is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this work is to identify some indicators of social capital in the sector of the aquaculture industry in the Northwest region of Mexico. Based on a theoretical model grounded in the social capital approach and network analysis, the article explores how social capital is being constructed in the aquaculture in Northwestern Mexico. Using a methodology that combines various documentary sources and information obtained from 48 interviews and 72 questionnaires applied to aquicultural SME, academic institutions and government agencies, this paper presents empirical evidence that suggests the existence of a social capital in construction in the mentioned region. It concludes that greater interaction between aquaculture producers, academia and government, could strengthen the existing social capital stock and, through this channel, contribute significantly to the development of this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]