Collaborative science and knowledge co-production in struggles for territory and life: insights from Mexico

The Mintsïta Gardens Ecological Community (MGEC) in Morelia, Mexico, has strengthened its community and sustainable living project by incorporating and mobilizing concepts, data, and analyses from environmental geography and other scientific fields. Here, we analyze the motivations, achievements, limitations, and tensions experienced by both the MGEC and supportive academics during their collaborative science and knowledge co-production initiatives. Our methodological approach is based on militant ethnography, in-depth interviews, and a review of academic and gray literature concerning the MGEC. Based on our findings, we argue that collaboration aimed at the co-production of knowledges between academics and the community, and the subsequent political mobilization of such knowledges, has played a key role in the community's struggle to defend life and its territory in a context of environmental conflicts. Drawing on political ecology, decolonial theory, and science and technology studies, our analysis offers valuable insights for similar collaborative research endeavors with communities and environmental movements in Latin America and the broader Global South.