Polyphonic encounter for the water in a marginal urban area in southeastern Mexico

Abstract

This writing accompanies the voices of diverse urban sectors converging
in the meeting to declare the Nichi’ix, La Hormiga spring a Sacred Place in
the Jovel basin, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. This theme had not been addressed
and its approach is ethnographic for a narrative where oral statements are
essential, as well as aesthetic expressions and interpretive comments. Through
concepts of Bakhtian translinguistics, we can attend to this polyphonic and profoundly
aesthetic meeting where the Comunidades Eclesiales de Base (CEB), tsotsil
traditionalists, civil representatives, environmental groups, government authorities
in the area of ecology and Sistema de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado Municipal
(SAPAM), expressing themselves on various forms: from political speeches to devotional
prayers or pleas for a society that respects the environment and its natural
cycles. In this sense, it is an encounter of and for the understanding of society with
nature, where manifest issues and problems are observed in times of climate crisis,
particularly in relation to water.