This paper focuses on analyzing community construction processes, based on local visions of possible futures. It takes as an ethnographic and historical basis (1970-2022), a set of narratives produced by young Nahua natives of the Sierra de Zongolica, in southeastern Mexico, in which multiple visions of local memory and perspectives on the future are intertwined. These are young people who, from their communities, develop alternative and local forms, linked to the environment, rituals and art. They live in a scenario of extreme poverty, ecological crisis, vulnerability and social discrimination. Their life trajectories are crossed by the intensification of neoliberal policies and by different contentious processes and social, local and regional friction. In this environment, they have built community strategies and leadership, anchored in a re-elaboration of local knowledge and the production of new eco-political and creative strategies. Some of them have a university professional training and are developing projects that link areas such as the milpa, art, rituals and politics. Their migratory and professional experiences allow them to transit between different economic and socio-cultural realities, from which they take up local knowledge to build future projects.
