The objective of this article is to analyse the activism of Mayan people of the Yucatan Peninsula, expressed in five Facebook pages. We assume that Indigenous activism on social media, as with street-based activism, is primarily focused on the defence of their territories, crops, flora, and fauna, which are part of the shared struggles of most Indigenous peoples in the World, and that this necessarily involves criticism of the State and market.

Celigueta Comerma and Martínez Mauri (2020) assert that despite the growing use of social networks for activist purposes among Indigenous groups, academia has not paid much attention to this phenomenon. Thus, this study aims to contribute to understanding Indigenous activism on social networks, specifically Facebook, the most widely used platform in Mexico (Statista, 2024).

To defend their rights, Indigenous movements employ various actions such as demonstrations or marches, blockades, sit-ins, and the creation of civil organisations, assemblies, or even the promotion of symbolic trials, legal protections, lawsuits, etc. Additionally, this activism is increasingly present in the virtual space (Melucci, 2001; Gómez Mont, 2012; Debo Armenta, 2020).

Firstly, social media activism is often safer. For example, each year there are hundreds of lawsuits for police violence at Indigenous protests, which are avoided when the protest is virtual. Moreover, the virtual space allows activists to share ideas and stay in touch more easily with others who are addressing similar issues. Thus, activist groups inhabit the virtual environment to conduct their struggles with greater reach, visibility, and security. Furthermore, the concept of the digital Indigenous person breaks the stereotype that Indigenous groups are disconnected from technology and are isolated within their localities and communities.

According to Pacheco-Campos (2022), digital activism generally aims to address some social, political, or cultural issue and ‘in the case of digital Indigenous activism, it seeks to promote, encourage, rescue, or defend Indigenous cultures, their knowledge, worldviews, languages, among others’ (p. 97). In this regard, Millaleo and Velasco (2013) propose four types or categories of digital activism: meta-activism, empowerment activism, window activism, and guerrilla activism. In their study, the authors find a predominance of window activism, which refers to a specific group with very particular objectives that seek to share their ideas through specific platforms, with posts focusing more on written content than on visual elements and aimed at more local rather than international audiences.

Debo Armenta (2020) explains that digital Indigenous activism ‘allows certain freedom to express oneself both outside and inside (offline/online) the internet through various resources and tools, such as social networks, websites, and applications’ (p. 117). This aims to raise awareness about issues and encourage mobilisation among others. The author adds that ‘the success or failure of digital collective actions will depend on the technological infrastructure, strategies, and uses conceived from the Indigenous worldview’ (p. 117).

Studying Indigenous activism on social media is quite important as it allows to understand the process of social movements. Firstly, digital platforms, particularly Facebook, provide Indigenous communities with a key tool to make their struggles and demands visible in a global context, without relying on traditional media, considering that its voices have often been stigmatized, marginalized or distorted. These platforms facilitate direct communication between peers and other social actors, enabling Indigenous communities to articulate their claims effectively.

Furthermore, the use of Facebook by these communities offers an opportunity to analyse how they adapt and employ digital technologies to serve their own interests, strategies of resistance, and redeem cultural reproduction, while remaining true to their traditional values and worldviews. This phenomenon invites to reflect on the relationship between digitalisation and self-determination of Indigenous peoples. Also, it highlights the opportunities that technologies create to strengthen their political and social protagonism visible.

On the other hand, studying this type of activism also allows to explore the challenges and risks inherent in the use of digital platforms. While Facebook provides a space for expression and mobilisation, it also exposes communities to dynamics of polarisation and digital control, so it demands a critical analysis of the tensions between freedom of expression and control mechanisms in the virtual environment.

Regarding the organisations behind these pages, two of them are clearly comprised of individuals who identify as Maya. These are Múuch’ Xíinbal and the Colectivo Maya de los Chenes. Both have a presence in the Peninsula, in rural contexts, and are linked with the National Indigenous Congress, which is a national independent space for communication, reflection, and solidarity of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Múuch’ Xíinbal identifies as an assembly made up of various Maya communities that has been working for decades to defend their territory, combating dispossession, invasion, and destruction affecting the Maya people of the Peninsula. This assembly has an intense communicative presence through Wixsite, Facebook, and YouTube. It operates an internet radio with a repository of podcasts and significant audiovisual production on YouTube (Múuch’ Xíinbal, 2024).

The Colectivo Maya de los Chenes has less intense communication activity, limited to posts on Facebook and Instagram. This collective began its activities over a decade ago, because of the deforestation of over 200,000 hectares of jungle for the planting of genetically modified soy, which has since caused massive die-offs of pollinators. This collective is primarily composed of ‘the ladies of the honey,’ with its leader, Lay Araceli Pech Martín, being awarded the Goldman Prize in 2020 for her environmental advocacy (Mexican Centre for Environmental Law, 2024).

The Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo’ was organised in solidarity with the Zapatista movement and Indigenous groups across the country. It is a network of both Maya and non-Maya allies, recognising Mérida (Jo’) as an urban context. This network has a virtual presence on WordPress, X, and Facebook, as well as radio and video production. It shows significant contact with the Enlace Zapatista, the National Indigenous Congress, and Múuch’ Xíinbal (Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´, 2024).

In contrast to the previous organisations, Kanan and Indignación are civil associations in form, meaning they have full legal personality, allowing them to not only communicate and report but also engage in legal defence processes within the frameworks proposed by the State. Both organisations are committed to Human Rights. Kanan Derechos Humanos is part of Front-Line Defenders and is made up of a group of young people who began their work in 2020 for the ‘transformation of structures of inequality through a comprehensive and intersectional approach.’ Kanan has a presence on X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (Kanan Derechos Humanos, 2024).

Indignación is a long-established civil association (since 1991) comprising a transdisciplinary team that works from an integral, multicultural, and gender perspective, advocating for causes such as LGBTIQ+ rights, gender equality, freedom of expression, the rights of the Maya people, the elimination of torture, and forced displacement. It is active on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Vimeo. It also publishes the magazine El Varejón periodically and has produced a significant number of reports, books, and documents related to gender, as well as the history, territory, and rights of the Maya people (Indignación, 2024).

To understand the activism of those groups in social network, we explore the Facebook pages in a wide form to identify the main topics of discourse. We included most of the posts from each page, excluding those that contained only greetings, farewells, congratulations, condolences, or similar messages. Additionally, posts with commercial objectives (selling products or services) and those that only presented links, where the content was not visible without accessing an external link to Facebook, were excluded. For example, links to podcasts that did not provide specific content but merely connected to another site to listen to the podcast were not included in the analysis. As it was unclear whether page followers interacted with the final content of the links (e.g., whether they listened to the podcast), such posts were not included in the analysis. Based on a computer-assisted content analysis, we identified eight main topics to be coded (Table 2). The tendence and meaning of those posts are analysed and presented as examples in a qualitatively manner.

After doing so, a Social Network Analysis methodology was also used to observe the flow of information received by the pages from their sources (Facebook profiles, media outlets, civil organisations, etc.). The network is presented as a graph, with nodes (pages and sources) and edges (connections between nodes). A directed network was analysed due to the asymmetric flow of information (from the source to the page). It was also an egocentric network, as the study focused on analysing the environment of the five Facebook pages; sociocentric networks aim to visualise the overall structure of the network without specific emphasis (Requena Santos, 1989; Lakon et al., 2008).

A total of 116 nodes (sources) and 213 edges (connections) were obtained. Structural measures considered were average in-degree (information reception), average out-degree (information emission), network diameter (maximum distance between nodes), connected components (connection to the global network), and modularity (connection to subgroups).

The research instrument was a content analysis guide, applied to the 396 analysed posts. The guide organised the data into three axes: 1) Record, 2) Topics of the posts, and 3) Characteristics of the posts, as shown in Table 2. The data were manually extracted from Facebook into an Excel database, for subsequent qualitative and quantitative analysis. A descriptive statistical analysis of all posts was first conducted, followed by a more in-depth analysis of the most recurring contents.

For the qualitative component, we applied thematic analysis to each post to code and analyse them within their thematic framework. We had some predefined themes, such as the Maya Train and macro pig farms, but during the coding process, additional themes were incorporated as they emerged. Figure 1 presents several macro-projects in the region, including pig farms (depicted in light green), chicken farms (shown in dark green), and the current and projected Mayan Train stations (shown in violet).

During the study period, the pages that published the most were: Múuch’ Xíinbal (40%) and the Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´ (22%), followed by Indignación (14%), Kanan (13%), and Colectivo Maya de los Chenes (11%).

The most recurrent topic was the Maya Train, followed by violence, water, macro-farms, the care of bees, and maize cultivation. The indicator for defending the territory is not counted separately, as most posts were related to it. The percentage distribution by topic can be seen in Figure 2. Furthermore, most posts referred to issues in rural areas (77%), very few referred to urban areas (9%), while others did not specify any particular area (14%).

A cross-analysis of the topics and pages shows that posts about the Maya Train are mainly concentrated on two pages: Múuch’ Xíinbal (67%) and Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´ (28%). Almost half of all posts about water are on Múuch’ Xíinbal (44%). Violence is more present in Indignación (34%), Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´ (25%), and Múuch’ Xíinbal (24%). Macro-farms are more frequent in Kanan (33%) and Indignación (29%). The situation of bees appears almost exclusively on Colectivo Maya de los Chenes (88%), and posts about maize are distributed between Colectivo Maya de los Chenes (56%) and Múuch’ Xíinbal (44%). However, language appears almost equally across pages: Colectivo Maya de los Chenes (25%), Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´ (25%), Kanan (25%), Múuch’ Xíinbal (25%), except in Indignación (0%), as shown in Figure 3.

A total of 202 posts (52%) were shared from other pages or profiles, whether from Facebook or other social networks or websites. The primary sources in this case were: civil associations (37%), the press (28%), and Facebook profiles (17%). Independent journalism pages (8%), community radios (3%), and other sources, each contributing less than 1%, such as academic organizations, newsletters, cultural centres, specialised magazines, and theatre company pages, were also found.

Civil associations are the most common sources of information on four of the five analysed pages: Kanan (80%), Colectivo Maya de los Chenes (72%), Indignación (48%), and Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´ (35%). In the latter, Facebook profiles (27%) and the press (23%) are also significant sources. Conversely, on Múuch’ Xíinbal, the most frequent source is the press (41%).

Additionally, over 70% of press releases are shared by Múuch’ Xíinbal and Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´. Among these, over 40% are about the Maya Train, establishing a connection between Múuch’ Xíinbal and Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´, with the press as the primary source of information and Maya Train as the main topic. It is important to note that, unlike other topics, the Maya Train was a federal government project promoted by the president and executed by the military in coordination with private capital. In this regard, the final interlocutor these groups address is the state, and due to the lack of official information on the project, and the press has been the most important source of documentation and denunciation.

In other topics, the main conflict actors are, on one side, national and transnational companies, and on the other side, the inhabitants of the peninsula. The press has been present in following the conflicts, but civil associations have been more interested in documenting the processes. Thus, these associations have been the main sources for documenting topics such as maize (100%), bees (60%), and macro-farms (38%). The same applies to the topic of violence (55%). In contrast, the press is the primary source only in the case of Maya Train (41%), as shown in Figure 4. It is interesting to observe how academia or various government agencies are not serving as significant sources for these Facebook posts, which leads us to question the role these entities are playing in the production, dissemination, and circulation of relevant information for civil groups and organisations.

Upon analysing interactions (likes, comments, and shares), it appears that although the Maya Train is the most frequently discussed topic on the pages, it does not generate the highest user engagement. As shown in Figure 5, Maya Train accounts for 47% of the total posts, but only 6% of these receive a like, 3% are commented on, and 5% are shared. In contrast, topics such as maize, macro-farms, and bees, despite being less frequently posted, generate higher levels of interaction.

The Social Network Analysis revealed that the pages with the highest average number of inbound connections (information reception) are Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´ (with fifty sources) and Múuch Xíinbal (with forty-seven sources), followed by Indignación (with nineteen sources). In other words, these were the pages that shared the most content from others. On the other hand, the pages with the highest average degree of outbound connections (information dissemination) were Diario de Yucatán, La Jornada, and Proyecto Libres, each sending content to three of the five analysed pages. This indicates that their content reached more pages.

The analysed network had a diameter of one, meaning there is a single step between the two most distant points in the network, which confirms the close interconnectedness of all nodes. The analysis of connected components was one, indicating that all nodes are interconnected with no isolated islands. Of the 116 nodes, only one was weakly connected; the rest were strongly interconnected.

However, the analysis also showed a modularity of 55%. This indicates that the five communities are clearly defined, corresponding to the five analysed pages. These data demonstrate that each page has its own sources while also being part of the same virtual ecosystem, as illustrated in the graph in Figure 6.

In this graph, we can observe how the five analysed pages (in grey) are nourished with information from various sources. The three most central pages are: Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´, Múuch Xíinbal, and then Indignación. The more peripheral pages are Colectivo Maya de los Chenes and Kanan. Kanan is the most isolated as it only shares sources with Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´; it is also the youngest organisation (it began its work in 2020). Colectivo Maya de los Chenes does not appear as central but shares sources with several pages. The fact that these pages rarely share information with each other indicates a low level of influence between them.

Regarding the most common types of sources for each page, Kanan primarily draws from civil associations (in yellow), which is the opposite of Múuch’ Xíinbal. Conversely, the press (in red) generally feeds two pages: Múuch Xíinbal and Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´. The press is the predominant source for both, and several of them connect with both pages. Additionally, Múuch’ Xíinbal absorbs nearly all the community radio content (in light blue). Information from Facebook profiles (in purple) appear in almost all pages except Kanan, with a stronger connection to the two pages with the most sources (Múuch Xíinbal and Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´). This reinforces their connection with other social media activists.

The edges (connections) colour the lines linking the source and the recipient. By examining the lines between Múuch’ Xíinbal and Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´, it is evident that they are predominantly red, demonstrating that the press was the primary source for these two pages. Moreover, the thickness of the edge indicates the volume of information sent from the source to the page. It is noticeable that Indignación, Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´, and Colectivo Maya de los Chenes have a civil association from which they draw more than the others. Also, the greater thickness of the edges from some press nodes to Múuch Xíinbal indicates that these are recurring sources, as is the case with Indignación, though to a lesser extent. The same observation applies to the edge from a Facebook profile to Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo´.