‘Conecta con el río’: Perspectivas de cuidado para la sanación y la transformación socioecológica

Abstract

This article examines care practices around the Santa Catarina River in Monterrey, Mexico, and their potential as forms of socio-ecological healing in urban contexts shaped by environmental inequalities. Drawing on the healing approach developed in this Special Issue, as well as insights from feminist geography and care studies, the article analyses the tensions between dominant approaches to flood control and urban infrastructure and forms of citizen-led resistance that propose alternative ways of relating to the river. Based on urban ethnographic fieldwork (2024-2025) and documentary analysis, the article focuses on the actions of the socio-environmental movement Un Río en el Río, particularly its Conecta con el Río walks. The analysis shows how these practices articulate material, relational, and political dimensions of care, linking embodied experiences, urban relations and socio-environmental struggles over the river’s future. It argues that such practices contribute to reimagining care as a form of ecological and collective repair, capable of strengthening relationships among human, more-than-human life and the territory.