Road infrastructure: construction, financing and resistance, in Mexico and Latin America

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between the construction of highway projects and processes of social resistance that occurred from 2002 until 2012, by analyzing the articulation of scales in the production of space. First, it describes  the development phases of land transport infrastructure in Mexico and the links with scale financing mechanisms in Latin America. Secondly, in the same scaleit describes the resistance process against mega- infrastructure projects and it explains this in the context of the crisis of over-accumulation on a global scale and of original accumulation on the local scale. Finally it analyzes the social resistance process against federal highways projects in Mexico following its systematization according to the impact scale, the degree of complexity, objective and subjective impacts and chronological arrangement; and concludes with a set of reflections that seek to develop methodology for assess the social usefulness of highway projects and their distinction from those which might be unnecessary.