Social organization and migration: community strategies for rural development

This piece of research is about the final results obtained in the community of Ixpantepec Nieves, Mixteca Baja, Oaxaca. It was aimed at analyzing the community social organization, strategies and migration phenomenon in the framework of habits and customs in the state of Oaxaca. The text shows a brief review on the rural development scenarios in Mexico to contextualize the situation of an indigenous-peasant community. Then it explains the legalization of a habit-custom system in Mexico, particularly in Oaxaca, and highlights its importance in the social organization of the community. Subsequently, it provides a short analysis of the internationalization of migration exemplified in the Mixteca region to understand how a mobility phenomenon deconstructs the community strategies, its social organization and survival in an indigenous-peasant scenario. All of this in order to understand the practices that have enabled communities to survive in a development model that does not consider their lifestyles. The information was obtained through the qualitative methods of participant observation and in-depth interviews.