Repression and Resistance in Nochixtlán, 2016: Stories about Motivations and Effects

Abstract

This paper focuses on the protest of villagers in Asunción Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, on June 19th, 2016, and the police repression carried out. It seeks to account for: 1) the motivations and factors that influence the emergence of collective action and 2) the effects that this event had in its immediate context. I recovered information from six semi-structured interviews conducted with participants in the protest and from the construction of a catalogue of contentious events based on its hemerographic analysis and the social mobilization process in which it participates. Despite the reduced number of interviews and their length, the complementarity of the accounts retrieved with the hemerographic data, human rights reports and the historical analysis of the environment, allow this research to glimpse analytical keys to the emotional motivations for protest and resistance. Likewise, it provides evidence of the physical and psychological repercussions on the injured and their families, as well as the change in the social environment of the community.