Colonization and Coloniality

The formation of the state and modern society in the Candelaria River Basin

Abstract

The objective of the review is to show the contributions of the book, Colonization and Coloniality in a border jungle, by Rosa Torras, to the historiography of the Yucatan Peninsula, in particular, and to the current of thought on modernity and coloniality, in general. The work combines documentary research and oral history to reveal the population process of the Candelaria River as one of the least worked regions to the southwest of the Peninsula. The results show that the colonization of the tropical forests of that region can be seen as the construction of modernity through the interrelated processes of state and capital formation. That is why the construction of state sovereignty, regulated territoriality and the "imagined community" in the south favored the interests of the Carmelite landed elite; In other words, colonization did not follow the path of settlement, but rather the occupation of the territory via private property owners and the establishment of an extractive forest economy that linked the region to the international market and promoted the accumulation of the oligarchy.