The Unseen Consequences of Ejido Land Transfers: Proliferation of Normative Dissonances

Abstract

The legalization of ejido land alienation is the most radical change promoted in 1992 with the amendments to Constitutional article 27. This change, which is only possible when the ejido property becomes “a mild form of private property,†did not led to the land-tenure transformations expected by policy makers. The sum of amendments to article 27 have, nevertheless, unleashed multiple discrepancies between the law, the custom, the everyday social practices and individual and strategic behaviors. From a case study in a southern Yucatan ejido, this article aims to make intelligible the meaning and unexpected outcomes of ejido land alienation in a Maya and rural ejido in the neoliberal context.