In the middle : mediators of faith-based transborder development in Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract

In this thesis I ask how transborder migration from the Oaxacan Mixteca has connected Indigenous communities with faith-based sustainable development organizations in the U.S. I focus on Guadalupe Miramar Yucuhiti, a coffee-producing community in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca and characterize residents' experience of migration as transborder. This term not only registers the crossing of physical international borders, but also highlights Mixteco migrants' crossing cultural, ethnic, and class borders. Transborder migration from Miramar to the fields of large-scale commercial farms in the northwest United States has linked this community with the Vista Hermosa Foundation, a foundation started by Cheryl and Ralph Broetje. The social justice-minded couple runs both their business and faith-based development organization with a ministry philosophy that emphasizes service. Using a feminist political ecology methodology, I investigate the meshwork linking the Broetje's foundation with the transborder community characterizing Miramar. My case study illustrates the key roles played by development mediators who share the Broetjes' desire to serve the needs of these communities. Two mediators, Chuck Barrett and Melanie Lopez-Grewal facilitate the sharing of knowledge, funds, and communication. My thesis examines how they arrived in their current positions and the ways they deploy their different bodies and identities to translate, literally and culturally, the needs and ideas of a trans border Indigenous community.