Biopolitics and Biosphere Reserves: contentious (im) mobility sites. An ethnographic approach

Abstract

This paper uses the concept of sites of contentious (im)mobility to highlight the centrality of mobility for bio-politics. The article draws ethnographic evidence from the study of conservation and ecotourism practices in the Biosphere Reserve of Ría Celestún (Yucatán, México). Through the ethnographic attention to two disputes, the article shows how the biopolitical project associated to the conservation of biodiversity and the development of nature tourism has transformed the ria and the beach into two spaces of contentious immobility in which global flows (of people, capital and labour) are condensed and in which specific groups fight to stay still. In so doing, these groups use the global referents of biodiversity for their own local interests.