How a once-feared philosophy might be the way of the future.

It was the spring of 2011, and the women of Cherán had had enough. Illegal logging operations had been razing the oak forests surrounding the town for years, with the backing of one of the sprawling cartels that now effectively controls large swaths of Michoacán, the Mexican state in which the town of 20,000 resides.

And since neither the local police nor the Mexican government seemed interested in following up on the community’s complaints, Cherán’s residents — most of them indigenous Purépecha people — suspected these entities were cut in on the deal. After loggers began kidnapping, raping, and murdering locals, and the clear-cutting began to threaten a nearby spring, the town’s women made up their minds to fight... Read More