The Right to Food and the Environment in Local Key: The Maya Solar
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32776/bvat2w95Keywords:
climate change, healthy environment, Maya solar, Right to food, socioecological systemsAbstract
This article analyzes the limits of the legal framework governing the right to food and its relationship with the right to a healthy environment in rural contexts, drawing on the case of the Maya solar in the Yucatán Peninsula.
The objective is to examine how climate-related environmental impacts affect the productive capacity of this domestic-productive system and, consequently, the effective realization of recognized rights. Using a socio-legal approach that combines normative analysis with empirical evidence derived from fifteen semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and a focus group conducted in Yaxunah, Yucatán, between 2024 and 2025, the concrete mechanisms through which legal design fails in local contexts are identified.
Results show that the gap between normative recognition and effective implementation does not stem solely from institutional failures, but from a structural problem: the tendency of law to operate through sectoral categories incapable of capturing the complexity of local socioecological systems. This limitation generates a process of privatized adaptation in which the costs of climate adjustment fall disproportionately on the women who manage the solar on a daily basis. The article concludes with implications for normative design and public policy in the context of climate change.
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