Climate change, local actors and agroecological potential in western Mexico: a methodological and empirical contribution

Abstract

This paper describes the methodology applied and the results obtained in an action research
project, which sought to understand the perspective of local actors of a coastal region in the
West of Mexico regarding climate change and the occurred social and environmental changes.
Based on several workshops and the use of different participatory methods (group interviews,
participatory cards, participatory mapping and fuzzy cognitive maps), testimonies were obtained
from social actors living in the Southern Coast region of Jalisco in western Mexico and the
transformations they observe in the regional landscape. It is concluded that local actors have
a broad knowledge of their environment, and that an agroecological potential exists to mitigate
the negative impacts of the transformations that have occurred.