Tiburcio’s Sense of Place: An Ecocritical Analysis of Rafael Muñoz’s ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa!

Abstract

This ecocritical analysis reads northern Mexico’s natural environment as a complex protagonist in Rafael Muñoz’s 1931 novel Vámonos con Pancho Villa. I explore the representation of key characters who are swept away by war and uprooted from the land. Yet, they harbor an implicit longing to be understood as individuals bound to communities situated in valued natural spaces. Joined with nature they are capable of rebirth, invincibility, and triumph. They defy forces of war, modernity, and capitalist exploitation that perceive them as insufficient or expendable. Muñoz's representation of the men's oneness with nature as a means to resist colonialist antagonists is suggestive of a decolonial alternative to Western paradigms.