id: tequio-communal-labour
title: Tequio Communal Labour
description: >-
  A Zapotec and broader Mexican practice of mandatory communal labour for
  public works, in which each community member contributes days of work
  rather than money. Originating in Oaxacan Indigenous communities (where
  it is also called colecta), tequio is recognised in Oaxaca state law.
source: Zapotec and Oaxacan tradition / Servicios para una Educación Alternativa (EDUCA)
source_url: https://www.educaoaxaca.org/
tags: [mexican, zapotec, tequio, communal-labour, indigenous]
forked_from: null
image: null
steps:
  - headline: Identify the public work
    description: >-
      The comunidad (community assembly) identifies a work needed — a road,
      a school, a water system, a church repair — that exceeds private
      capacity.
  - headline: Assign tequio days
    description: >-
      The assembly assigns each adult member a number of tequio days.
      Contributions are in labour, calibrated to the work needed, not in
      money.
  - headline: Work together on set days
    description: >-
      On the set days, the community works together, with food provided
      communally. The work is public, visible, and shared.
  - headline: Account and complete
    description: >-
      The assembly accounts for who served and who did not. Unfulfilled
      tequio is a serious matter, addressed by the assembly.
  - headline: Inaugurate together
    description: >-
      The completed work is inaugurated with the whole community, marking
      it as the product of shared labour, not of contract or charity.
outcome: >-
  Public works are built through shared labour, binding the community to
  its infrastructure and to each other.
practice: >-
  Tequio is not volunteer — it is obligation. But it is also not coerced
  by an outside authority; it is the community obliging itself. If some
  escape it, the form rots.