Territory and Mazahua identity in the patron saint festivities of San Pablo, Tlalchichilpa, State of Mexico

The study of indigenous territories is important from an environmental, social, economic and cultural perspective. In Mexico, campesino and indigenous communities conserve their biocultural richness and diversity by carrying out farming and social life activities, such as patron saint festivities. During patron saint festivities some processes take place in which space, time and community life converge. Patron saint festivities are then the space and time where meanings about the environment and the relationship between society and environment are constructed and transmitted. This paper focuses on analysing how the practice of the patron saint festivity gives meaning to a certain space and time. This social practice gives symbolic meaning to their territory which is related to agricultural practices. It was an ethnographic study in a Mazahua ejido in the State of Mexico, carried out during the years 2014 and 2015. The symbolic and tangible appropriation of space and time during the patron saint festivity is related to people´s identity and strengthens their right to their territory.