Mexico City · Xochimilco

How can Mexico City sustain the people and living systems that feed it, hold water, maintain habitats and carry agricultural knowledge across generations? The stewardship-economy inquiry begins with work already being done in Xochimilco and asks what would make that work viable over time.

Spiralweb Stewardship Association is developing this inquiry in dialogue with Dr. Arturo Flores López. The collaboration now includes Iniciativa Agroecológica Xochimilco, A.C. (IAX). It connects local practice with research, learning and the institutions and resources that shape its conditions. The first activities and responsibilities are being developed together.

Leer la edición y las lecturas en español → The Spanish edition includes selected readings and a local glossary.

Stewardship economy: making the work of care viable

Food sales, teaching, public programmes, research, conservation, tourism and family work already contribute to Xochimilco's economy. The inquiry asks which costs these arrangements cover, where support reaches the people maintaining the landscape and which essential tasks remain difficult to sustain.

A crop has a sale price. Canal care, soil building, habitat maintenance, teaching, coordination and continuity through a poor season may need other forms of support. A stewardship economy makes these functions visible enough to discuss and fund, while keeping decisions about the place with those entitled to make them.

The work follows three conditions separately: Land / Life, Steward Viability and Governance / Commons. Ecological improvement, people's ability to continue and legitimate shared decisions each need their own account. Together they can inform a more grounded conversation about resources.

A living field within a larger city

Xochimilco brings cultivation, canals, wetlands, native species, family knowledge, food culture and metropolitan institutions into the same landscape. It is also part of a wider basin, with pressures crossing property and administrative boundaries. Local questions can therefore open into water management, land use, public support, food systems and the city's relationship with its living territories.

UNESCO and FAO recognise the chinampa landscape's heritage and agricultural significance. Existing restoration and research include UNAM's work connecting chinampera practice with axolotl habitat. These are established bodies of work from which the inquiry can learn. Their presence also makes a useful beginning practical: identify the records, experience and cooperation already available before adding another reporting task.

One chinampa, organisation or observation cannot stand for all of Xochimilco. The AnchorPoint can develop through particular relationships and shared questions, with room for different accounts of the same place.

IAX · existing practice and a new working relationship

Iniciativa Agroecológica Xochimilco, A.C. works on chinampa recovery, agroecological knowledge exchange and local food production. Its Escuela Campesina describes learning through farmer-to-farmer exchange, practical work and collective inquiry, connecting agricultural knowledge with territory and community. Its restoration programme includes soil and water assessment, canal work, biofilters and cultivation.

These are IAX's own established programmes. They provide a substantive starting point for developing the collaboration. IAX's current priorities, teaching practice and assessment of what would be useful will help shape the shared work.

Visit IAX's website · español →
Read IAX's programme descriptions · español →

Arturo and the research conversation

Dr. Arturo Flores López coordinates the Centro de Investigaciones Globales Anáhuac (CIGA) within Universidad Anáhuac México's Faculty of Global Studies. His work on citizen participation, participatory budgeting and urban governance connects locally grounded questions with academic inquiry. He has also formed a democracy research group; its own description, participants and themes will be added as that material becomes available.

The shared question is how practical knowledge can become consequential in decisions about support, institutions and rules. Who helps define the problem? Which accounts are heard? Who can revise a decision? What response comes back to the people whose work made the question visible?

Research contributions can be invited around concrete needs: soil or water analysis, ecological observation, livelihoods, learning or institutional processes. Each contribution retains its methods and limits. Roles and institutional responsibilities are agreed for the particular work.

A learning spiral held locally

The collaboration can begin with an existing practice or a question participants want to pursue. A working wager gives a provisional expectation a durable form: what is expected, what experience supports it and what would lead the group to choose differently. Returning to it after practice keeps learning connected across meetings and seasons.

Healthy Roots offers a recurring practice for shared inquiry. Land, Water and Living Stewardship opens relevant ecological and practical questions. The local group chooses what is useful, drawing on its own teaching, observation and records.

Programme stewards can help prepare and host learning, connect people with useful expertise and follow through between meetings. Local practitioners also teach and shape the inquiry. These functions need realistic time, resources and agreed responsibility.

Where it helps, PG Ledger can preserve a selected record of observation, interpretation, decisions, resources and later consequences. AI can assist with reading, translation, comparison and continuity through a workbench. People review the account and decide what follows. Learning returns first to those involved; any wider sharing is a separate choice.

Where the collaboration stands

21 October 2026. Arturo and Spiralweb have developed the shared ground; IAX has joined the collaboration. The work now connects that foundation with IAX's existing practice and the emerging research conversation. Local activities, participant arrangements, budgets and institutional responsibilities continue to be shaped with those involved.

Learning with Living Places is being developed as a possible funded programme across Mexico, Morocco and Uganda. The application is one route for supporting this work. Funding and the resulting programme commitments remain subject to decisions and agreements.

The earlier Xochimilco and the Regenerative City proposal, dated 19 September, explored a four-to-six-month formation phase. It remains part of the inquiry's history. The published DKK 500,000 First Field Flow planning horizon belongs to that earlier local scope; it is separate from the larger programme application and is not an amount received or allocated.

Follow the public financial record →

Continue into the inquiry

• Eve & Adam, and the Penguins — the wider economic and institutional question, including Xochimilco and Mexico City.
• Knowing From the Ground — situated knowledge, evidence and correction.
• Healthy Roots — shared learning with living places.
• Land, Water and Living Stewardship — ecological inquiry, resources and field practice.
• The working-wager register — Spiralweb's own propositions and their correction conditions.

These texts describe Spiralweb's contribution to the conversation. Local actors bring their own knowledge, sources and questions, including where they challenge this framework.

Public context

UNESCO World Heritage Centre · FAO · Chinampas Agricultural System · UNAM Institute of Biology

This page holds the current shared framing and selected public sources. Partner descriptions and local experience can correct it as the work develops.