The apocalypse as colonial legacy: nomadic ruptures and the crisis of the posnorteño in Northern Mexico

Abstract

This article analyzes the historical and symbolic construction of Northern Mexico as an apocalyptic space, understood as a permanent condition of the crisis initiated with the Spanish colonization. Through an interdisciplinary framework, it examines how the colonial-state imposition and the Chichimeca War transformed anti-state nomadic societies into northern subjects, shaped by systemic violence. Subsequently, it explores the emergence of the posnorteño in contemporary Mexico: a deterritorialized subjectivity, trapped between residual identities and assimilation into global capitalism. The text argues that the apocalypse should not be understood as a singular eschatological event but rather as a redefinition of the contours of existence, which seeks to align with Ernesto de Martino’s notion of the crisis of presence, where coloniality and the State fractured ways of inhabiting the territory, generating reactionary and fascist identities. Through critical theory, it proposes rethinking the resistance from a politics of becoming-multitude, which recovers the nomadic memory as a line of flight in the face of the apocalypse. The analysis accentuates the urgency of dismantling hegemonic narratives about the North, pointing out the danger of returning into identitarian authoritarianisms.