Introduction
In central Mexico, humans and nonhumans, including agaves, have preserved a territory as a commons, a shared biophysical space, where humans and nonhumans form nesting webs of historically co-evolving life-sustaining socioecological interdependencies (Escobar, 2016). Ecologically, agaves provide nutrients to the soil, refuge for animals and insects and regulate the climate (Trejo-Salazar et al., 2015). Socially, the human-agaves bond dates back to pre-Columbian times, rooted in dietary and ritual practices that endowed the plant with profound spiritual and material significance (Escalante et al., 2016; MacNeish, 1967). The care given by humans to agave, such as selecting agave varieties and cultivation practices, has been shaped by indigenous and mestizo contexts, as well as ecological contexts (e.g., plant’s soil adaptability, aguamiel (sap) quality, and maturation cycles). This deep biocultural heritage is reflected in the hundreds of local taxonomies used by peasants in native languages, including Spanish (Figueredo-Urbina et al., 2024). Despite their socioecological significance in sustaining central Mexican territories, agaves have, since the late 1990s, gained attention in both academic and private circles almost exclusively for their profit-yielding commercial applications (Álvarez-Ríos et al., 2020; Roldan-Cruz et al., 2023). This shift has driven the expansion of productivist monoculture (Stewart, 2015), threatening the preservation of the territory (Figueredo-Urbina et al., 2024).
Taxonomically classified within the Asparagaceae family (García-Mendoza et al., 2019), approximately 40 agave pulquero species, which are utilized for producing the fermented aguamiel beverage pulque, are concentrated in central Mexico. Given this regional significance, research has widely documented their ethnobiological, morphological, and genetic traits (Figueredo-Urbina et al., 2021). Additionally, ecological studies have explored their role in agroforestry, aiming to reconcile agricultural productivity with biodiversity conservation (Álvarez-Ríos et al., 2020; Torres-García et al., 2019). Meanwhile, chemical and biotechnological research predominantly frames agaves as industrial resources, focusing on commercializing their microbiological properties (Escalante et al., 2016), advancing genetic and in vitro enhancements (Monja-Mio et al., 2019; Silos-Espino et al., 2007), and developing bioenergy outputs such as cellulose and biofuels (Blas-Yañez &Thomé-Ortiz, 2021).
In the social sciences, studies in anthropology and archaeology have found that agave pulquero is significant to cultural hybridization between Aztec and Spanish traditions. The plant is symbolically linked to Mayahuel-Ayopechtli, the goddess of agave in Aztec mythology, who represents fertility originating among the Nahuas, an indigenous group found in central Mexico during the pre-Columbian period. Agave became associated with the Virgin of Remedies, brought by Spanish Catholic missionaries during the colonial period (1521–1821) (Vela, 2014). Despite the Spanish colonial administration having forbidden the consumption in 1692 (García, 2022), cultivation reached its peak in the second half of the 19th century (González-Jácome, 2022). However, this growth favoured monoculture plantations using a productivist strategy, which concentrated wealth among already wealthy colonial landowners, disadvantaging bonded peasants and harming both the soil and the ecology (Ramírez, 2021) in the haciendas.1
Recent social science studies have approached agave pulquero through a sustainable development lens, prioritizing human benefits. One strand of research traced state interventions, from 19th-century fiscal and sanitary policies (Valadez, 2014) to contemporary initiatives promoting small-scale agave industries to sustain rural livelihoods in arid regions (Blas-Yañez et al., 2018). Another strand explored the place-based socioecological dynamics between humans and agaves concerning the harvesting of edible insects (Esparza-Frausto et al., 2008) and the intersectional influence of gender, ethnicity, climate, and organizational structures (Sato & Soto-Alarcón, 2019). Finally, broader institutional studies addressed the role of agave pulquero plantations in regional development, emphasizing state-led conservation strategies (Roldan-Cruz et al., 2023) and the plant’s capacity to mitigate climate change in arid zones (Narváez et al., 2016; Stewart, 2015).
The aforementioned studies of agaves have placed humans at the centre and they have been largely motivated by human interest in production. They risk facilitating understandings that encourage highly productivist monoculture plantations (Stewart, 2015) along with the imposition of megaprojects such as a solar energy park. These productivist understandings are not sensitive to the interdependent needs of agave pulquero, of associated biota, and of structurally disadvantaged humans (Esparza-Frausto et al., 2008; Monja-Mio et al., 2019; Ramirez, 2021). Production-focused studies rarely examine the socioecological interdependencies among agaves, other nonhuman species and humans that, together, contribute to the regeneration of the damaged territory in which they are grown. They overlook the relational agency and labor that emerge from human interactions with nonhuman species (Miller, 2020), as well as the labor performed by nonhuman species (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020).
As existing studies (Borrastero, 2022; Escobar, 2016; Ulloa, 2016) point out, a territory is shaped by biophysical, cultural, and epistemic dimensions. Comprehending this complexity requires integrating the natural and social sciences with non-Western, place-based epistemologies. By illuminating the interdependent practices for regenerating the damaged territory obscured by conventional productivist frameworks, emerging studies (Blanco-Wells & Marquez-García, 2026; Krzywoszynska et al., 2020; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) endorse transdisciplinarity as a way to foster a holistic understanding of multispecies coexistence. Within commons studies, transdisciplinarity has been recently applied to investigate how humans and nonhumans actively shape shared landscapes (Dombroski et al., 2023; Toncheva et al., 2025). This transdisciplinary approach makes visible more-than-human agency as a process of livelihood co-production, in which humans cease to act as the sole economic agent. Instead, this agency is recognized as embedded within a network of interdependencies with more-than-human needs (Miller, 2020). This approach facilitates the study of nonhuman labor, such as the metabolic labor of soil biota, expanding the boundaries of socioecological reproduction beyond the immediate agricultural field to encompass entire atmospheres (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020).
Based on these emerging studies, we adopt a transdisciplinary approach to illuminate the overlooked care labor enacted by human-nonhuman agency and labor (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020; Miller, 2020). We understand this care as the action required to maintain, continue, repair (Fisher & Tronto, 1990; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) and defend (Escobar, 2016) the damaged territory. By integrating these perspectives with more-than-human commoning (Nakamura & Sato, 2023), we recognize multispecies ongoing efforts to regenerate the damaged territory as more-than-human care commoning, which are interdependent, including often latent (Tsing, 2017), practices by diverse species, while supporting each other’s needs (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020).
This paper explores more-than-human care commoning among agave pulquero, humans, and nonhuman species that contribute to the regeneration of damaged territory in rural Mexico. We illuminate the interdependent agency and labor enacted by humans and nonhumans, using a transdisciplinary approach that incorporates perspectives from the natural and social sciences, as well as those of non-Western non-academic growers. Growers come from the non-governmental organization Ometoxtloctli (hereafter Ometox), which coordinates 10 small, family-based businesses that cultivate agave pulquero in Hidalgo, Mexico. Ometox was selected for its place-based commitment to interspecies care, grounded in collective identity and collaborative labor, fostering mutually supportive interactions (Agrawal et al., 2023). Our study explores three sets of interdependences: among nonhumans, illuminating symbiosis through beneficial interactions (Gilbert et al., 2012); between humans and agave pulquero, revealing the reciprocal care labor shared among growers, agave pulquero and researchers supporting each other’s needs; and among humans, highlighting the negotiated shared labor and ethical responsibility required to care for their territory.
The next section introduces our conceptual approach, followed by a description of the case study profile and methods. Our results section explores three sets of interdependencies that regenerate and defend a territory in rural Mexico through multispecies care commoning, illuminating more-than-human agency and labor using a transdisciplinary approach. The conclusion highlights the scope of socioecological interdependencies within multispecies care commoning and generates narratives for multispecies flourishing.
A Transdisciplinary Approach to More-than-human Care Commoning
Drawing on the community economies’ approach as a praxis of coexistence and interdependence (Roelvink & Gibson-Graham, 2009), we understand human livelihoods as ecological livelihoods, intertwined with multispecies communities (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2020; Nakamura & Sato, 2023). From this perspective, commoning is understood not merely as the collective human management of a commons. Rather, it is an ongoing multispecies effort that produces a community. Diverse commoners negotiate access to shared practices, knowledge, and resources, assuming responsibility for a commons, in our case, the damaged territory, while distributing benefits in ways that account for each other’s needs (Gibson-Graham et al., 2016), agency and labor (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020; Miller, 2020; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). Informed by Escobar’s (2016) relational approach to Latin American territories, which understands territories as material and symbolic networks in which humans and nonhumans acquire existence and meaning through interaction, our framework recognises this commoning as a generative practice that produces a territory as a commons through multispecies collective efforts. More-than-human commoning involves care defined as activities that “maintain, continue, and repair” a shared world (Fisher & Tronto, 1990, p. 40), the damaged territory. Existing studies on care commons often focus on care among humans (e.g., Caffentzis & Federici, 2014; De Angelis & Harvie, 2014). However, community economies’ ecological livelihoods (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2020) and more-than-human care and labour (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020; Miller, 2020; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) enable us to see care enacted between nonhuman species and between nonhumans and humans. Multispecies ongoing efforts to care for the damaged territory, more-than-human care commoning form the regenerative, collective foundation of socioecological sustainability (Dombroski et al., 2023). It frames territorial regeneration as a political act, recognizing all caring entities as active agents who negotiate their needs and defend their territories against the homogenizing forces of economic globalization (Escobar, 2016).
This conceptualization of more-than-human care commoning aligns with Puig de la Bellacasa’s (2017) observation that nesting different species’ care practices across different temporalities contributed to soil restoration. Similarly, Tsing’s (2017) tracing of the matsutake mushrooms reveals how context-specific interactions among diverse humans and nonhumans promote the regeneration of multispecies worlds. Through restorative and regenerative care, more-than-human commoning reflects mutual adaptations to a territory, characterized by diverse temporalities and varying degrees of openness (Escobar, 2016; Haraway, 2016; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Tsing, 2017; Van Dooren et al., 2016). These commoning efforts shape territorial space and its materiality. This is evident, for example, in the human-animal collective design of Viking Longhouse (Saeidi et al., 2023) and in urban gardens where plant-human collaborations challenged neoliberal conservation regimes (Cooke & Lane, 2018). Furthermore, Dombroski (2020) conceptualizes care as a hybrid enactment, illustrating how human actors and digital infrastructure collaborate to sustain infant care networks. These studies suggest that more-than-human care commoning is deeply affective (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Van Dooren et al., 2016). It requires humans to become involved with nonhumans and to recognise their mutual subjection to one another (Coulter, 2016). This recognition helps humans assume shared responsibility while cultivating sensitivity to the needs of all actors involved (Plumwood, 2009; Van Dooren et al., 2016).
More-than-human care commoning resonates with Miller’s (2020) conceptualization of more-than-human agency, which emerges from the labor of humans and nonhumans in livelihood production. It allows us to see livelihood production as multispecies efforts, ecological livelihoods, modes of co-survival deeply attentive to both human and nonhuman needs, rather than driven by human-centered productivist terms (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2020). Shifting our understanding of livelihoods as ecological enables us to recognize interdependent labor as a form of life-sustaining care, in which agency is enacted by fulfilling the needs of multiple beings (Dombroski, 2020; Miller, 2020). The care labor that sustains these socioecological interdependences transcends economies. It encompasses paid and unpaid work as well as diverse forms of non-financial reciprocities (McKinnon, 2020). For example, the symbiotic relationship between ants and fungi, in which ants provide organic material and fungi metabolize it to nourish larvae, illustrates how nonhuman care labor operates through metabolic exchanges (Barron & Hess, 2020). This example suggests recognition of the symbiotic relationship between ants and fungi as more-than-human care commoning, creating suitable habitats that meet the mutual needs of diverse species (see also Dombroski et al., 2023). It becomes ethical when it facilitates collective actions to meet the needs beyond those of its commoners. By integrating ecological livelihoods, more-than-human agency, and care labor, we may be able better to understand how humans’ and nonhumans’ nesting care practices contribute to the regeneration of shared damaged territories.
Understanding the complexity of more-than-human care commoning requires a transdisciplinary approach. Moving beyond mere interdisciplinary collaboration (Max-Neef, 2005), it employs diverse methods to explore multiple realities and it challenges the traditional hierarchies between researcher and subject, and increasingly, between human and nonhuman agents (Haraway, 2016) embedded in hegemonic Western scientific epistemologies (Callon & Rabeharisoa, 2003). To study more-than-human care commoning, our transdisciplinary approach integrates knowledge from natural and social sciences, namely biology, food chemistry, economics, and sociology, with non-Western experiential knowledge to illuminate often-marginalized insights (Escobar, 2016; Haraway, 2016; Ludwig et al., 2022; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Tsing, 2017). By connecting scientific knowledge with place-based experiential knowledges while employing mixed methods, we illuminate situated socioecological relations, distinguishing agroecological alternatives from productivist agriculture (Krzywoszynska et al., 2020; Soriano et al., 2024).
Through this hybrid collective (Dombroski, 2020), we explore three sets of interdependencies with agave pulquero as negotiated processes of relational labor, care, and agency to capture how multispecies entanglements regenerate a damaged territory. One set examines nonhuman interdependence through symbiosis, highlighting mutualist interaction (Gilbert et al., 2012; Haraway, 2016; Tsing, 2017). Another set studies the coordinated human and nonhuman labor involved in caring for agave pulquero. The last set investigates care labor enacted collectively by humans. Before presenting our exploration, the following section describes the background and the methodology of our case study.
Case Profile and Methods
Established in 2018 in Singuilucan, Hidalgo (Map 1), Ometox is a non-governmental organization comprising ten family-based enterprises, each employing three to five workers. Predominantly non-indigenous mestizos, Ometox initially formed to collectively deal with public regulations governing agave pulquero transportation for reforestation and sale. Today, led by a democratically elected female chairperson, Ometox aims to generate livelihoods against the dual threats of biodiversity loss from barbacoa2-driven monocultures and the encroachment of a mega solar energy park project. While the collective acquisition of the authorization to transport agave pulquero enabled each enterprise to independently transport agave pulquero, they collectively organize broader cultural and economic activities such as festivals and food production.
Map 1
Ometox location.
Source: Prepared by authors.
Located in Singuilucan, a region characterized by a temperate climate with winter frosts (15°C average), pine-oak forest and scrubland, Ometox members’ main livelihood strategy relies on rainfed agave pulquero agriculture, supplemented by ecotourism and local food sales. Table 1 outlines these families’ enterprises,3 ranked by their engagement in collective practices. While most own private property, two members lease land: one through private family arrangements, and another within a state-regulated collective agrarian regime (ejido).
Table 1
Ometox member enterprises and livelihood strategies.
| MEMBER ENTERPRISES | PROPERTY | PLANTED AREA WITH PULQUE-AGAVE (HAS) | LIVELIHOODS STRATEGIES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rancho Guadalupe | Private-leased | 12.5 | Pulque, aguamiel syrup, ecotourism, distilled alcoholic beverage |
| Jardín Miel | Collective-leased | 1.5 | |
| Pulquería Dito | Private | 200 | Pulque, leaf sale, gastronomy |
| Tinacal Luz | 4.5 | Pulque, aguamiel syrup, ecotourism, distilled alcoholic beverage | |
| Real Rubens | .5 | Pulque, aguamiel syrup, ecotourism | |
| Rancho Jil | 14.5 | Pulque, leaf sale | |
| Rancho Cuervo | 5 | ||
| Tinacal Rafael | 6 | Pulque | |
| Tinacal Cruz | 2 | ||
| Tinacal Emi | 2 | Pulque, gastronomy |
[i] Source: Surveys conducted between 2022 and 2024.
This research employed a mixed-method transdisciplinary approach to trace three sets of interdependencies: among nonhuman, between human and nonhuman, and among human, by paying attention to the agencies and relational practices between human and nonhuman and agave pulquero. To this end, a transdisciplinary team, comprising researchers, Ometox members, a government officer, and an artist, examined these sets of socioecological interdependencies, grouping them into three interaction types (Table 2). Additionally, all quotes from the Sustainable Management Law of the Agave Pulquero were translated from their original Spanish into English by the authors (Ley para el Manejo Sustentable del Maguey del Estado de Hidalgo, 2011).
Table 2
Transdisciplinary variables for multispecies care commoning.
| DISCIPLINE | DIMENSION OF COMMONING | VARIABLES | DATA COLLECTION METHODS | AGENTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biology/ Ecology | Nonhuman interdependence |
|
| Biologists and Ometox members |
| Food Chemistry | Nonhuman interdependence |
| Physicochemical analysis of aguamiel samples in the laboratory | Food chemists |
| Traditional Knowledge | Human and nonhuman interdependence |
| Semi-structured interviews and participant observation in plots | Biologists and Tlachiqueros |
| Economics/ Sociology | Human interdependence |
|
| Economist, Ometox members, and government officer |
The three sets of interdependencies were explored simultaneously from 2021 to 2024. One set investigated nonhuman mutualism: biologists and Ometox members filmed agave pulquero pollination over two years (2022–2023), complementing the empirical data with a literature review on root-microbe symbiosis to capture how different species interact. Another set examined territorial regeneration through agricultural labor: biologists conducted semi-structured interviews and participant observation across five Ometox members’ plots, studying their agricultural practices (e.g. variety selection, reforestation, fertilization, and pruning). Concurrently, food chemists traced Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) in aguamiel and agave syrup to biochemically map to visualize the interdependent care labor as a metabolic exchange. The last set investigated how humans defend their territory: an economist facilitated five focus group discussions (FGDs) and ten interviews on their livelihood practices with Ometox members, alongside two interviews with a government official regarding the Agave Pulquero Law update. All data were collected in Spanish, transcribed, coded for multispecies interaction, and collaboratively analysed with Ometox members through FGDs. To synthesize the three sets of socioecological interdependences, an artist co-created a visual representation grounded on field photographs and dialogues with Ometox members and researchers (Figure 1). Finally, the first and second authors synthesized the overall analysis while conversing with the rest of the co-authors. Quotes were selected to illustrate the context of care labor, demonstrating how humans and nonhumans are engaged in mutually supportive socioecological interdependencies. The quotes were translated from the original Spanish by the authors.
Figure 1
Representing more-than-human care commoning with agave pulquero.
Note: Illustration by Aldo Dominguez.
Multispecies Care Commoning
Our study explored how relational care, labor and agency are enacted to contribute to the regeneration of the damaged territory across three sets of socioecological interdependencies, which are visualized in Figure 1: nonhuman interactions (in green), human-nonhuman relations (in brown), and collective human dynamics to regenerate and defend their territory (in purple).4
The interdependencies among nonhumans
Nonhuman interdependencies (green in Figure 1) are exemplified by the long-term mutualist symbiosis between mycorrhizal fungi and agave roots (Gilbert et al., 2012). This association enhances plant biomass, nutrient absorption (e.g., phosphorus and nitrogen), and stress resistance (Genre et al., 2020) while the roots reciprocate by providing the fungi a protected ecological niche in the rhizosphere (Luna & Monroy, 2009). Through these context-specific interactions, fungal labor stabilizes the soil, increases water retention, and forms a protective barrier against pathogens, bolstering the agave’s environmental resilience (Tedersoo et al., 2020; Ujvári et al., 2021). This reciprocal labor optimizes water conservation and nutrient cycling, sustaining broader vegetation composition (Camargo-Ricalde et al., 2003). By collectively restoring soil health through complementary metabolic exchanges, these symbioses enact a more-than-human care commoning that actively contributes to the regeneration of the territory, distributing ecological benefits in ways that account for mutual needs (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2020). Beyond the rhizosphere, above-ground interdependencies emerge during the flowering season. Vertebrate pollinators, such as birds and bats, facilitate the plant’s sexual reproduction, while agave provides them with nectar to sustain their livelihoods. These pollination webs are temporally dynamic, with visitor roles fluctuating in response to foraging rhythms and pollen availability. Species operate along a relational continuum: from mutualistic primary pollinators to non-pollinating visitors, such as certain moths and beetles, that engage in asymmetrical nectar or pollen extraction (Trejo-Salazar et al., 2015). Viewing these metabolic flows through the lens of more-than-human agency and care labor (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020; Miller, 2020; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) clarifies how they emerge not as passive resources but as active, negotiated co-production where nonhuman ecological agents continuously labor to regenerate the shared territory.
More-than-human agency materializes through interdependent labor (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska et al., 2020; Miller, 2020; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) enacted during the biochemical transformation of agave pulquero into aguamiel, driven by overlapping scales of climate, soil, and microbiota. For instance, agaves employ Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) photosynthesis to fix carbon nocturnally, minimizing transpiration and sustaining microclimates while soil microbes thrive to support the plant’s metabolism in arid environments (Hendry, 1993; Stewart, 2015). Within the aguamiel itself, Gammaproteobacteria (e.g. Erwinia rhapontici, Enterobacter) actively labor to decompose organic compounds (Escalante et al., 2008). Bioactively, FOS is a vital carbohydrate reserve that protects during environmental stress, comprising up to 10% of aguamiel carbohydrates (Ortiz-Basurto et al., 2008). Empirical data reveal that the Manso variety5 yields the highest FOS levels compared to the Penca Larga, Ayoteco, and Cimarrón varieties. These profiles fluctuate dynamically based on plant health and harvest timing. Notably, FOS can decrease by 50% as it is hydrolyzed or consumed during ripening (Castañeda-Ovando et al., 2023; Pérez-López & Simpson, 2020). The analytical technology used by this hybrid collective to measure FOS, as a critical nonhuman agent (Dombroski, 2020), does not merely extract data. Rather, it translates microscopic biochemical activity into legible evidence of metabolic interdependence. By rendering these FOS profiles visible, technology traces the otherwise latent more-than-human care labor. This visualization compels a paradigm shift towards recognizing biospheric needs, illuminating how more-than-human care commoning enacted through symbiosis of plants, bacteria, and biochemical flows, actively co-produces ecological livelihoods. By extension, it forms the territory as a nested web of interdependencies among nonhumans (Escobar, 2016; Plumwood, 2009).
The nonhuman and human interdependencies
Human and nonhuman interdependencies with agave pulquero (brown in Figure 1) were examined through observations of pollination dynamics, traditional agriculture practices, agroecological techniques, and biochemical analysis of agave syrup. Ometox members and biologists set up camera traps to study pollination patterns in specific agave pulquero that growers deliberately allowed to flower, foregoing aguamiel extraction. These observations revealed that the primary diurnal pollinators included hummingbirds (Bassilina leucotis) and orioles (Icterus parisorum). Meanwhile, nectar-feeding bats (Family Phyllostomidae, subfamily Glossophaginae) dominated nocturnal pollination. In contrast, smaller arthropods—such as certain moths, bees, and beetles—functioned primarily as nectar robbers due to their size, extracting resources without facilitating pollination (Ortega-García et al., 2026). Through this monitoring process, Ometox members and biologists enhanced a shared sensitivity toward agave reproduction (Coulter, 2016). As one member stated:
Before setting traps, we didn’t exactly know who visited agave pulquero. Filming revealed visits from bats, hummingbirds, larks, and insects that feed on the flowers, some of which pollinate them. It increased our awareness of the relationships between these species and the flowering of the agave pulquero. (FGD, 2023)
Mediated by filming technology (Figure 2), the hybrid collective co-produces knowledge akin to the digitally mediated care networks discussed by Dombroski (2020). Driven by enhanced ethical responsibility to fulfil both humans’ and nonhumans’ needs, researchers and Ometox members strive to comprehend socioecological interdependencies. This illustrates the enactment of more-than-human care commoning, in which humans deliberately foster conditions within which nonhumans and humans co-produce their livelihoods (Dombroski, 2020; Miller, 2020; Nakamura & Sato, 2023; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). Furthermore, this methodological engagement illuminates the affective dimension of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Van Dooren et al., 2016). The hybrid collective ‘learned to be affected’ (Latour, 2004, as cited in Roelvink, 2015) by nonhuman’s needs, which helped them assume enhanced responsibility to observe and respond to their needs. Understanding the relevance of biological reproduction, such as deliberately allowing the fittest agaves in terms of size of the body and leaves and of color to flower, facilitates deeper multispecies interdependences. Moving beyond mere resource management, this practice cultivates modes of co-survival deeply attentive to nonhuman needs (Miller, 2020), thereby expanding the boundaries of socioecological interdependencies beyond the immediate agricultural field (Barron & Hess, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020). This relational shift forges bonds of kinship (Haraway, 2016), that actively regenerates the shared multispecies territory.
Figure 2
Hummingbird and agave pulquero captured by a video camera.
Source: The hybrid collective.
Integrating traditional agriculture and agroecology sustains the interdependence among members, agave pulquero, and soil (brown in Figure 1). To mutually nourish plants and soil, Ometox promotes agave greenhouses, organic fertilizers, and foliar applications (Table 3). Members strategically cultivated seed diversity to enhance soil health. They utilize milpa, a traditional intercropping system of maize, beans, squash, fruit trees, bordered by agaves, to improve soil health and moisture retention, an agricultural practice with widely documented ecological benefits (González-Jácome, 2022). While managing up to 11 agave varieties, members, based on their experiential knowledge, prioritize the Manso for its rapid growth, size, climate adaptability, and aguamiel sweetness (FGDs, 2024). By framing this interplay of nonhuman capacities and human practices, specifically through directed biocultural selection, as interdependent care labor (Barron & Hess, 2020; Miller, 2020; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017), the hybrid collective fosters conditions where more-than-human agency thrives through asymmetrical agricultural negotiations. These interdependent dynamics of human labor, soil health, and crop diversity co-produce ecological livelihoods, and by extension regenerate the territory, considering more-than-human needs (Miller, 2020).
Table 3
Ometox members’ agricultural practice with agaves.
| FAMILY ENTERPRISES | AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM | VARIETIES OF AGAVE PULQUERO | VEGETAL DIVERSITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rancho Guadalupe | Metepantle6 Agave nursery Organic manure and foliar Green fertilizers | Manso, Manso colorado, Penca ancha, Coronilla Oreja de liebre, Cenizo, Chalqueño, Ayoteco, Rayado o chichimeco, Palmilla, Xaminí | Native trees: tepozanes, Tejocotes, and capulines. Sexual reproduction of agave pulquero |
| Jardín Miel | Agave in border, metepantle milpa Green fertilizers, organic manure | Manso, Tempranillo, Púa larga, Colorado, Cenizo, Cimarrón, Chalqueño-Ayoteco | Pine and oak trees Backyard garden |
| Pulquería Dito | Natural vegetation interspersed with agave in borders | Manso | Agave cultivation and wild agave |
| Tinacal Luz | Agave nursery, green fertilizers Agave in the border, milpa | Manso, Xamini | |
| Real Rubens | Agave in borders, Organic manure, and foliar, milpa | Maize, beans | |
| Rancho Jil | Agave nursery Application of organic manure and foliar | Agave cultivation and wild agave | |
| Rancho Cuervo | Agave in borders Application of organic manure and foliar | Manso | |
| Tinacal Rafael | |||
| Tinacal Cruz | |||
| Tinacal Emi |
[i] Source: Based on interviews (2022–2023).
Care for agave is rooted in non-Western, intergenerational experiential knowledge embodied by tlachiqueros. Functioning as a transdisciplinary tool (Krzywoszynska et al., 2020; Ludwig et al., 2022), their place-based expertise makes the experiential knowledge of growers visible, revealing how their specialized practices meet both human and nonhuman needs. Tlachiqueros oversee the plant’s entire life cycle from soil and root maintenance transplanting, pruning, and to aguamiel extraction. Their expertise operationalizes the metepantle, an agroecological terracing system that integrates biodiversity into livelihoods (González-Jácome, 2022). On Ometox plots, agaves are strategically arranged along contour lines with four to six-meter gaps to optimize soil and water retention. These commoning efforts shaped territorial space and its materiality through more-than-human collaboration as in Viking Longhouse (Saeidi et al., 2023) and in urban gardens (Cooke & Lane, 2018). Furthermore, tlachiqueros attune to nonhuman temporalities, aligning reforestation with lunar cycles and pruning timing during the dry season to minimize water loss and adapting planting to specific varietal seasonalities. This care labor has an affective dimension (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Van Dooren et al., 2016): by sensing the plant’s vitality and intentions, such as evaluating root quality and pruning readiness, Ometox members assume ethical responsibility for its flourishing (Plumwood, 2009). While tlachiquero labor is historically male-dominated due to its physical demands, it is supplemented by the broader family. For instance, in Rancho Guadalupe and Jardín Miel, women actively expanded this care labor by transforming what is conventionally considered waste, agave fibers, into flour for household consumption. This ecological livelihood is collectively generated through paid and unpaid work, alongside diverse forms of non-financial reciprocities (McKinnon, 2020).
Expanding their care labor beyond the family plots, members of Jardín Miel, Rancho Guadalupe, and Tinacal Luz disseminated agroecological practices to neighboring farmers. By critically hybridizing the knowledge gained from external government training with their local knowledge, these growers comprehended nonhuman interactions and reduced their reliance on costly fertilizers (Interviews, 2022). For instance, they cultivated higuerilla (Ricinus communis) to simultaneously nourish the soil and function as a trap crop, distracting pests like aphids that seek fresh vegetation during the dry season. This practice exemplifies the negotiation of more-than-human needs (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2020): the higuerilla absorbs pest pressure, shielding agave pulquero. As one Ometox member articulated, “We know there are pests in other areas, but we do not experience that here. We observed that the plants thrive and produce sweet aguamiel because the well-nourished soil and pruning are executed properly” (FGDs, 2022). Corroborating this hybridized knowledge, biologists’ assessments confirm that higuerilla aids soil regeneration through nutrient cycling and moisture retention (Prager et al., 2012). However, this multispecies socioecological interdependence requires continuous negotiation. While nonhuman labor of the higuerilla grows fast, its unchecked proliferation could displace other crops if not thoroughly curated by human care.
The relational process of more-than-human care commoning integrates nonhuman and human labor across diverse timescales, bridged by hybridized socioecological knowledge. Through care-driven spatial technologies like metepantle, the territory is reshaped, materializing the interdependencies of soil, agave varieties, and higuerilla. Enacted collaboratively by more-than-human agents, these care commoning practices expand the territory beyond fixed boundaries, reimagining it as dynamic, lived networks (Escobar, 2016). By bringing Western and non-Western epistemologies into complementary dialogue (Blanco-Wells & Marquez-García, 2026; Ludwig et al., 2022), and challenge traditional hierarchies embedded in hegemonic Western epistemologies (Callon & Rabeharisoa, 2003), this transdisciplinary lens illuminates historically marginalised latent needs and insights, demonstrating how the shared territory is ethically and practically co-produced (Haraway, 2016; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017; Tsing, 2017).
As an additional strategy to generate ecological livelihood and regenerate their territory, Ometox members diversified into agave syrup production. They noted: “This livelihood is more environmentally sustainable than cultivating agave for barbacoa, which depletes its leaves and often prevents maturation. An exclusive focus on leaf extraction drives monoculture, neglecting the soil-crop relationships vital for long-term sustainability” (FGD, 2024). Resisting these productivist pressures, this value-added practice relies on more than a decade of sustained care labor prior to the plant’s maturation, with exact temporalities varying by variety. By connecting these place-based experiential knowledge with our interdisciplinary scientific knowledge, our analysis emphasizes situated socioecological relations, distinguishing these regenerative agroecological alternatives from productivist agriculture (Kryzwoszynska et al., 2020; Soriano et al., 2024).
Transforming aguamiel into syrup exemplifies a transdisciplinary strategy where situated grower knowledge hybridizes with biological and chemical sciences. As Ometox members state: “to avert aguamiel fermentation and financial losses” (FGD, 2024), they process agave syrup, utilizing hydrolysis to concentrate sugars and halt microbial degradation (Castañeda-Ovando et al., 2023). Investigating this value-added practice, the hybrid collective demonstrated how plant morphology reflects agricultural care (Figueredo-Urbina et al., 2021). For instance, the Chalqueño variety at Rancho Guadalupe reached approximately four meters tall and over five meters in diameter, yielding an exceptional number of leaves (Figueredo-Urbina et al., 2024). Concurrently, food chemists confirmed that syrup processing preserves prebiotic activity, nourishing beneficial human gut microbiota (López & Mancilla-Margalli, 2007). Economically, these health-promoting qualities make agave syrup production a better livelihood for Ometox members than traditional pulque sales. Together, these transdisciplinary findings illustrate how agave pulquero responds to multiscalar care labor as discussed by Krzywoszynska et al., (2020), provided in our case by bacteria, researchers, growers and tlachiqueros. Rather than transactional compensations that benefit only humans, these responses are embedded in socioecological reciprocities (McKinnon, 2020), evidenced by the aguamiel that metabolically sustains both the plant and its human growers (Castañeda-Ovando et al., 2023). Integrating Western and non-Western knowledge reveals how recognizing and enacting this collective interdependent care labor creates generative habitats that fulfil both human and nonhuman needs (Barron & Hess, 2020; Nakamura & Sato, 2023). Furthermore, by combining situated local knowledge with scientific techniques, growers developed higher-value products like agave syrup, securing the material conditions to sustain their territory.
Interdependencies among humans
The human interdependencies defending the agave pulquero territory are enacted through Ometox’s collective labor, cultural festivals, and political alliances (purple in Figure 1). To protect their shared landscape, members engage in paid and unpaid labor. A primary example is tequio, unpaid reciprocal community labor, performed monthly (2018–2020) to maintain infrastructure and support members’ enterprises. As one member articulated: “Although we share common origins, we aimed to create a collective identity by contributing our labor to meet our and agave pulquero needs within our territory and beyond” (FGD, 2024). Grounded on this collective identity and collaborative effort (Agrawal et al., 2023), Ometox fosters mutual and supportive interactions. Through tequio, they facilitated the physical strenuous clearing of plots for reforestation and sustained a cooperative store to boost local consumption of agave derivatives (FGDs, 2024). Drawing on Escobar’s (2016) relational approach, this promotion of local consumption transcends market exchange: it functions as a generative practice of territorial defence by regenerating the material and symbolic networks through which both humans and agaves acquire mutual existence.
Even within paid collective labor, members ethically negotiated prices, prioritizing solidarity and regional presence over profit maximization. They coordinated ecotourism and cooking workshops led by women, whose innovative aguamiel, pulque, and syrup recipes earned national gastronomic recognition (FGD, 2024). Furthermore, Ometox-led cultural festivals (2019, 2022, 2023) revitalized the territory by highlighting the tlachiqueros’ biocultural heritage (FGD, 2024). These events integrate Catholic processions honoring the Virgin of the Remedies, a colonial-era agave symbol, with Aztec rain rituals aligned to the lunar calendar. Grounded in place-based cultural beliefs, these historically rooted practices function as care labor that contributes to the regeneration of the territory (Escobar, 2016). Complementing this, rural schools and biologists collaboratively shared labor and equitable benefit distribution (FGD, 2024). These cultural and economic commoning practices, sustained by care labor, operate generatively. They defend the territory as a complex of material and symbolic networks (Escobar, 2016) by ensuring that human and nonhuman acquire mutual existence through interaction across educational, cultural and economic spaces.
Translating more-than-human care commoning into political advocacy, Ometox has forged alliances with state officials to update the 2011 Agave Pulquero Law. During the FGDs, the collective advocated for milpa and metepantle systems capable of mitigating monoculture risks and explicitly meeting more-than-human needs. These concerns resonated with a government official tasked with the law’s revision, who noted: “The law should include sustainable, non-predatory options for agave pulquero management. Ometox’s proposal was incorporated into the update because of its ecological practices and financially viable post-harvest processing” (Interview, 2024). The amended Article 2 mandates the State to “strengthen the contribution of agave to environmental conservation” and “protect the biodiversity of wild agave habitats through sustainable harvesting practices” (Par. VII, XV). Furthermore, Article 9 now supports ecological livelihoods by promoting “sustainable programs that allow for the diversification […] of other agave products, such as honey and syrup […]” (Par. VII). This institutional alignment functions as a macro-level extension of care labor. By resisting productivist paradigms that reduce the plant to an isolated economic resource and neglect its socioecological interdependencies, the hybrid collective approaches the agave pulquero as an active ecological agent co-regenerating the damaged territory, paralleling Escobar’s (2016) observations of relational ontologies. Within this generative framework, diverse human and nonhuman commoners negotiate shared practices to defend their territory, distributing ecological benefits that account for mutual needs, nonhuman agency and labor (Gibson-Graham & Miller, 2020; Krzywoszynska, 2020; Miller, 2020; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017).
Conclusion
In recent years, studies on agave pulquero have remained productivist-driven, risking partial understanding that encourages monoculture and displaces companion species. By disregarding the interdependent needs of the agave, its associated biota, and structurally disadvantaged human communities, these productivist frameworks overlook relational agency and labor that emerge between and among human interactions and those of nonhuman species. Addressing this gap, our study explored how humans and nonhumans surrounding agave collectively regenerate the life-sustaining yet damaged territory in rural Mexico. By rendering visible the often-latent agency and care labor emerging from three sets of socioecological interdependencies stepping outside of the often human-centered lens, our study deepens the understanding of multispecies survival. Grounded on more-than-human agency, labor, and care, and production of the ecological livelihoods, our findings illustrate commoning not as merely resource management, but as the active, ongoing and affective multispecies caring practices for the shared damaged territory. Our findings contribute to commons studies by demonstrating that a shared territory is not a pre-existing static resource but a dynamic living common, continuously regenerated and defended through a series of nesting care commoning across diverse species in different scales, temporalities and generations. These findings connect research on commons and commoning with transformative social change (Agrawal et al., 2026), expanding our understanding of the socioecological interdependencies that foster more-than-human care commoning. By combining interdisciplinary scientific knowledge with growers’ experiential knowledge, our transdisciplinary hybrid collective exposed how socioecological interdependencies have regenerated the damaged territory by fulfilling overlapping biospheric needs.
Bridging paid and unpaid care labor (McKinnon, 2020) human commoning efforts produce ecological livelihood (Miller, 2020) based on human and nonhuman interactions attuned to the species-specific temporalities of nonhuman ecological agents (Krzywoszynska et al., 2020; Tsing, 2017) as well as place-based human cultural practices. Integrating non-Western and Western epistemologies (Blanco-Wells & Marquez-Garcia, 2026; Max-Neef, 2005), we illuminated that human care labor achieves its ethical dimension when it cultivates the sensibility to “learn to be affected” (Latour, 2004, as cited in Roelvink, 2015) by the needs of not only struggling humans but also nonhumans. This ethical stance materialized when Ometox influenced agave legislation, recognizing all species, including agave, as agents with species specific needs. By negotiating mutual needs, more-than-human agency emerged in the process of mutually affective care labor across species (Miller, 2020), which collectively regenerate and defend the damaged territory against the homogenizing force of capital accumulation (Escobar, 2016). The regeneration of a damaged territory would benefit from mobilizing Western science to analytically translate the plant’s biochemical reciprocities to more-than-human care. While our transdisciplinary approach represents just one pathway, we offer it as an invitation. We urge future research, across, but not limited to, climate, soil, and animal sciences, as well as social sciences, to further explore more-than-human care commoning, forging narratives that support regenerating and defending damaged territories for multispecies flourishing (Haraway, 2016).
Notes
[3] A debt-peonage agrarian system established in the 16th-century Spanish Viceroyalty and persisting until the early 20th-century.
[6] Scientific name and functional groups are provided alongside with their local and common names in brackets. Keystone species: Agave saminana [agave pulquero varieties: Manso, Manso Colorado, Penca Larga, Ayoteco]. Pollinators: Basilinna leucotis [White-eared hummingbird], Eugenes fulgens [Rivoli’s hummingbird], and bats of the subfamily Glossophaginae. Reforestation and agroecological support: Buddleja cordata [tepozán], Crataegus mexicana [tejocote], Prunus serotina [capulin], and Ricinus communis [higuerilla]. Microorganism and Fungi: Erwinia rhapontici, Enterobacter spp. [bacteria], Lactiplantibacillus pentosus [lactic acid bacteria], and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF).
Acknowledgements
We express our deep gratitude to the Ometoxtloctli and the tlachiqueros for their invaluable collaboration, trust, and shared knowledge, which made this transdisciplinary research possible. Special thanks to the artist for capturing the multispecies interdependence in our illustration and Peter Tamas for his editorial support. We extend our thanks to two anonymous reviewers and the handling editors for their rigorous feedback. S.O-G acknowledges the Postdoctoral Fellowships for Mexico program of SECIHTI.