Abstract

VENTURA LUNA, Silvia. The Migration Experience as It Relates to Cargo Participation in San Miguel Cuevas, Oaxaca. Migr. Inter [online]. 2010, vol.5, n.3, pp.43-70. ISSN 2594-0279.

This article provides an overview of the ongoing effects of migration on municipal governance and community organization in the Mixtec town of San Miguel Cuevas in Oaxaca, Mexico. Legally constituted as a self-governing indigenous municipality, Cuevas has recently been reconstituted as a transnational community whose citizens now reside mainly in Cuevas and Fresno, California. Increased circular and permanent migration to the united States since the late 1980s and the customary law (usosy costumbres) enforced in the community, situates its migrants in a complex array of familial and community obligations that require fulfilling civic and ceremonial obligations (cargos) in order - to maintain one's citizenship and residence in Cuevas and to have access to its communally owned lands and other resources.

Keywords : migration; Mixtec; customary law; cargo system; San Miguel Cuevas, Oaxaca.

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