Activity: Small ethnographic practice

On September 19, an earthquake of 7.1 magnitude occurred in central Mexico and severely affected states such as Morelos, Puebla and Mexico City. Civil Society organized itself quickly to help in various aspects, from removing rubble, helping in food collection centers, as well as clothing, medicines and basic necessities.

Near my house, there is a meeting point where volunteers are invited to help Tetela del Volcán, a small town in Morelos, at the foot of the Popocatépetl volcano, so I decided that it would be interesting to go and do this little ethnographic practice there. Also, I was interested because, somehow, it is related to my research topic, because it is an organized group of people who appropriate social networks as a communicative and propagation strategy.

We left Mexico City early in the morning with a truck full of groceries and two vans full of volunteers. Already there, we divided the tasks, some focused on providing recreational workshops to the population, others dedicated to the organization and classification in the collection center and others join «The Topos Mexico» (a nonprofit rescue brigade composed of volunteers and with bases in the civil citizenship, conformed after the earthquake of 1985).

The people of the town were very grateful, they even prepared food for the volunteers and they came to talk with us. I knew a very little of the town but as the end of the day, I could understand that it is a population in very vulnerable conditions, not only because of the recent earthquake, the mudslides as a result of heavy rains and the consequences of living near a volcano, also because their poor conditions and social marginalization.

One of the trucks was failing, so it was decided to spend the night in the hostel of the town and return the next day to Mexico City. That allowed me to meet the organizers and talk to them. It turns out that this is a group of students who have been organized and fighting for social justice for a long time. They also have various social projects that focus on the social development of the community.

I decided to go to a meeting that was held a few days later to organize the next brigade and decide on the next actions to follow. Even though the meeting lasted three and a half hours, I realized that they were very well organized and that they all provided important insights from their different approaches. There are students of natural science, social science, visual artists, architects and even an Argentine girl who is also very involved.

It is planned to carry out a comprehensive reconstruction of the town, not only from the rebuilding of houses, also from a social and cultural aspect. Interesting ideas were mentioned such as the creation of community centers from which a cohesion of the population can be propagated. It is mentioned that among the population is perceived a tiredness to the political class and that in these circumstances is more noticeable since there have been no answers by the municipal government. This is why it seeks to provide residents with the capacity to be self-managed and able to appropriate their own reconstruction.

In the meeting se defined the creation of commissions in charge of logistics, transportation, recreational workshops, reconstruction, diffusion, reconstruction and even, it was proposed to create a commission in charge of the regularization of education for children who are not attending classes.

I think it is a very enriching project in various aspects and can provide me with information about solidarity networks, as well as the appropriation of cybernetic social networks, because a diffusion commission was formed, and is responsible for propagating the project by the social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Here I share the link of the organization´s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AcopioPopularTetelaDelVolcan/

Thanks for reading!
Feel free to comment.
Regards, Paula.