Navigating ambiguity within neighbour-based organisations in Mexico City: From proximity to protest

Abstract

Neighbours are ambiguous ties, easier to disengage from than other personal relationships, whose meaning and obligations are flexible and not settled in advance. This article examines how neighbour-based organisations navigate this ambiguity in their process of organising. Rather than observing neighbourhood activism as carried out by already-formed and homogeneous collective actors, this article takes a step back and analyses how neighbour relationships become the building blocks of collective action. The article uses a case study approach and draws on ethnographic fieldwork to study the internal dynamics of a neighbour-based organisation campaigning for improved water access in a self-built neighbourhood of southern Mexico City. It identifies four mechanisms through which the organisation navigated ambiguity: identifying common ground, keeping each other accountable, mobilising existing networks of social ties, and linking the campaign to a shared neighbourhood history. It argues that neighbour ambiguity is not a barrier to neighbourhood activism but an inherent condition of it, continuously managed rather than eliminated in the process of organising. It shows how neighbourly ties can become political resources and how collective action and solidarity, rather than merely emerging from proximity, are sustained through ongoing relational work.

Keywords

collective action Mexico City neighbour relationships neighbour-based organisations relational work urban activism

Introduction

Neighbours embody the apparent paradox of simultaneously being near and far from us. As Morgan (2009) identified, they are a form of acquaintance located ‘in space’ and, due to their spatial proximity, they are always potentially present and can easily become either a source of support or a nuisance (Boyce, 2006; Bulmer, 1986; Stokoe, 2006). However, because neighbourly ties are morally flexible, loosely prescribed and open-ended, they are usually easier to disengage from than other personal relationships. Using terms proposed by May et al. (2021), they are simultaneously felt as both ‘sticky’ and ‘elastic’.

Neighbours are ambiguous ties, in that their meaning, expectations and obligations are not settled in advance. This ambiguity has two sources: doubt about whether they will be friendly or hostile, and the elastic, flexible character of relationships that resist a fixed definition. In everyday life, this ambiguity is experienced as relational uncertainty, an ongoing unpredictability about whether neighbours will be close or distant, constant or disengaged. Elasticity is therefore a key quality that produces ambiguity, while relational uncertainty is its experiential dimension.

Precisely because neighbours are not only ambiguous but also unavoidable or ‘sticky’ to some degree, they play a crucial role in everyday life, shaping expectations about normality and the quality of life in public spaces and at home (Cheshire et al., 2021; Felder, 2020; Lewis, 2019). At times, neighbours may also form organisations to address common problems, usually centred on the neighbourhood as a shared space (Jupp, 2012; Martin, 2003). These organisations can be sites where neighbourly ties become the basis for collective action.

Literature on neighbourhood activism often treats collective actors as already-formed entities and analyses their campaigns, while discussions of neighbours tend to focus on their everyday informal exchanges. Therefore, existing studies rarely examine how neighbour ambiguity is managed through the process of local organising. Rather than treating neighbour-based organisations as already-formed, this article takes a step back and analyses the process through which neighbours become collective actors. In doing so, it relocates attention from either informal neighbouring or local activism, often treated separately in existing research, to the process through which the former becomes the latter. It therefore asks: how is the ambiguity of neighbourly relations navigated in the process through which neighbours organise? It argues that ambiguity is not eliminated in the process of organising, but continuously managed through relational work, understood as the work involved in maintaining personal relationships.

This study examines the internal dynamics of a neighbour-based organisation in Mexico City, the Water Defence Committee of Santo Domingo (WDC). Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how its members moved from proximity to protest, temporarily holding relations together through four mechanisms: identifying common ground, keeping each other accountable, mobilising an already existing network of relationships, and linking to a shared history. In doing so, the article frames neighbour-based organisations as a community-in-the-making (Studdert & Walkerdine, 2017; Wills, 2017), without assuming cohesion or affinity among participants, but instead observing cooperation as fragile and sustained through relational work (Jupp, 2012; Parry, 2005).

This article argues that collective organising at the neighbourhood scale requires engaging with the specific relational uncertainty of neighbours as nearby but ambiguous others. The findings contribute to debates on place-based organisations, urban sociology, community studies and social movement studies. They do so by revealing how ambiguous personal relationships can become political resources, how solidarity is constructed, and how organising is made possible through ongoing relational work that manages rather than eliminates uncertainty.

Neighbours as ambiguous relations: Proximity, elasticity and relational uncertainty

Building on the introductory discussion of neighbourly ambiguity, this section develops the conceptual lens through which this article analyses neighbour relations. Sociological research has long challenged the assumption that residential proximity naturally generates affinity among neighbours (Bulmer, 1985; Crow, 1997; Dennis, 1958). Instead, sociological work highlights ambiguity as intrinsic to neighbour relationships, since, even if cultural norms shape expectations of neighbourliness, spatial proximity does not guarantee emotional closeness (Cheshire, 2015; Morgan, 2009). Neighbours are often unfamiliar at first, and friendliness among them is not guaranteed (Painter, 2012; van Eijk, 2011).

Neighbours are also perceived emotionally as ambiguous ties. May et al. (2021) suggest they are felt as simultaneously ‘sticky’ (continuously potentially there and difficult to ignore) and ‘elastic’ (flexible, less morally prescribed than other relationships). Neighbours are easier to disconnect from than relationships grounded in kinship or friendship, yet harder to avoid than other acquaintances unless one moves house altogether.

Neighbour relations are inherently ambiguous, characterised both by uncertainty over affinity or hostility and by the elastic character of these ties. Spatial proximity is therefore mixed with relational uncertainty. Navigating these relationships requires ongoing work to establish context-specific boundaries between being too involved and too distant from neighbours (Crow et al., 2002; Morgan, 2009). Through everyday and occasional interactions, expectations around neighbour relations begin to settle, and arrangements become tacitly or explicitly negotiated (Heil, 2014; Kusenbach, 2006; Laurier et al., 2002). Yet these arrangements remain fragile: ambiguity, far from being eliminated, is continuously lived with (Neal, 2022; Simone, 2021).

This ambiguity aligns with processual understandings of community as messy and provisional constructions made through everyday practices and relationships (Crow, 2002; Morgan, 2008; Parry, 2005). Studies of neighbours contribute to questioning assumptions around static senses of community and belonging (Bulmer, 1985; Clark, 2009; Crow, 1997). A dynamic view of neighbours fits an understanding of community as a negotiated and often tense form of ‘being with’ others (Studdert & Walkerdine, 2017; Wills, 2017).

Neighbourly ties can be particularly significant in contexts of urban marginality. In a pioneering study of a self-built neighbourhood in Mexico City, Lomnitz (1975) demonstrated how inhabitants survive through networks of reciprocal help involving kinship, friendship and neighbourly connections. This work shaped debates on how the urban poor navigate marginality through social ties (Deckard & Auyero, 2022; Desmond, 2012; Giglia, 2016; González de la Rocha, 2001). This article revisits a similar ethnographic context, central to how weak ties and marginality have been understood in Mexico. However, rather than examining reciprocal informal networks, it focuses on how neighbours organise and sustain collective action.

From informal neighbouring to collective organising

Beyond occasional exchanges, neighbours can also organise to coordinate around shared issues. Neighbourhoods have been analysed as arenas for activism over the material conditions of urban everyday life (Castells, 1983; Hankins & Martin, 2019; Meyer & Boudreau, 2012). In Latin America, neighbourhood and grassroots organising have been central to struggles over land, housing and water, challenging traditional urban politics and its structures (Caldeira, 2016; Holston, 2007; Merklen, 1997). In Mexico City, autonomous organising has been fundamental to housing struggles, with community-based groups becoming spaces for democratic political engagement (Coulomb, 2021; Sánchez-Mejorada, 2016; Schteingart, 1991).

Across Latin America, socio-environmental and urban conflicts have triggered forms of political engagement (Castro, 2004; Halvorsen, 2018; Melé, 2016; Nicolas-Artero, 2016). Socio-environmental conflicts involve groups contesting the meaning and transformation of natural resources and territory, often mobilising demands for environmental justice and facing multiple forms of stigmatisation and inequality (Merlinsky, 2017; Orellana, 1999; Sabatini, 1997). Concerning water access, these conflicts become especially salient in marginalised urban neighbourhoods, where scarcity intersects with political clientelism and unequal distribution (De Alba, 2016; Tobías & Fernández, 2019).

This rich tradition has shaped how groups such as the Water Defence Committee of Santo Domingo (WDC), the case study examined here, perceive and engage in political activism. However, the literature tends to focus on the effects and outcomes of contestation for political identities and territorial claims, rather than the internal relational dynamics that sustain participation. Scholarly discussions on neighbour-based and grassroots organising tend to overlook how local organisations form, how they sustain participation, and how they navigate neighbourly ambiguity in this process.

While neighbourhoods are widely recognised as sites of activism (Castells, 1983; Martin, 2003), and informal neighbouring is well documented as involving everyday exchanges (May et al., 2021; Neal, 2022; Painter, 2012), there is little analysis of how such informal relations become the basis for collective organising. Furthermore, neighbourhood groups are often analysed as already-formed collective actors rather than as communities-in-the-making (Studdert & Walkerdine, 2017). These accounts, therefore, leave unexamined how the elasticity of neighbour relations is negotiated within organisations to make collective action possible.

This article responds to this gap by taking neighbour-based organisations as an analytical lens. Rather than treating neighbourhoods primarily as spatial categories, it examines neighbour-based organisations as associations of neighbours coordinating action around shared concerns, focusing on the relational work through which ambiguity is managed to sustain cooperation in the formation and campaigning of these groups. This shift reveals dynamics often overlooked when place-based collective actors are treated as already formed entities, highlighting how ambiguity is managed rather than eliminated in the process of organising.

Relational work and mechanisms for navigating ambiguity

This article conceptualises the practices involved in building and preserving relationships among neighbours, such as reaching out, resolving conflicts and remembering, as forms of relational work. Jupp (2012) and Parry (2005) identify how practices of sociability and informal interaction enable mutual engagement in local organising. Parry (2005, p. 150) observes that ‘the maintenance of local informal networks’ is ‘relational community work’ fundamental for collective life. These practices, often carried out by women, are easily dismissed yet crucial for organising.

The article describes four mechanisms that enable organising amid relational uncertainty: identifying common ground, keeping each other accountable, mobilising existing networks, and linking to broader neighbourhood narratives. While these mechanisms appear in grassroots activism literature, examining them through the lens of neighbour-based organising in a context of urban marginality and water injustice reveals their distinctive form of operation. In Santo Domingo, these mechanisms respond not only to the ambiguity of neighbours, but also to histories of political clientelism, territorial stigmatisation and environmental injustice, which shape how solidarity is built. Under these conditions, relational work becomes a necessary strategy for countering mistrust produced by unequal access and clientelist modes of water distribution.

The first two mechanisms are related to building internal coherence and agreements. Identifying common ground involves transforming individual concerns into shared goals. Collective action frames, which involve shared goals, are integral to social movements and protest (Adler, 2012; Benford & Snow, 2000). In neighbour-based contexts, these frames establish expectations around campaigns that impact a shared space (Hankins & Martin, 2019; Martin, 2003). This connects to what Walter et al. (2017, p. 112) analyse as ‘spatial solidarity’: unity rooted in place-based concerns. However, such solidarity does not emerge naturally from spatial proximity but is promoted through the process of organising. Alongside this, keeping each other accountable requires establishing norms, expectations and processes to resolve conflicts. Social norms are crucial for the emergence and durability of collective action (Ostrom, 2000, 2010) and can be involved in the process of everyday organising (Yates, 2015). In contexts where political manipulation and clientelism shape resource access, establishing accountability becomes particularly important for maintaining trust among neighbours.

The last two mechanisms relate to pre-existing relationships, stories and resources. Mobilising existing networks draws on social and kinship ties already present in neighbourhoods. People are embedded in networks of relationships that inform their individual decisions (Mason, 2004; Roseneil & Ketokivi, 2015). Furthermore, social settings influence participation in collective action (Klandermans & van Stekelenburg, 2014). Neighbour-based organising mobilises pre-existing ties rather than creating them from nowhere. Linking to shared history activates collective memory for political organising. Collective memory and shared narratives motivate participation in place-based activism (Martin, 2003; Robles Rendón et al., 2011). In neighbourhood contexts, collective memory is reinforced through remembering in specific locations and with different narratives at play (Blokland, 2001, 2009). In this way, neighbour-based organisations participate in producing and defining the ‘nexus of stories’ that constitute communities (Morgan, 2008, p. 38).

Neighbours can become the building blocks of organisations that engage in collective action, but ambiguity does not disappear when people organise. The four mechanisms described involve relational work essential for living and working with neighbourly ambiguity without eliminating it. The empirical analysis examines how they operated within the WDC.

Methodology

This article works with empirical data collected as part of a doctoral study on the characteristics and potential of neighbour-based organisations when facing urban water scarcity. It uses a case study approach, focusing on the Water Defence Committee of Santo Domingo (WDC), and implements a qualitative methodology to interpret experiences, meanings and narratives. This methodology involved nine months of fieldwork in Santo Domingo, Mexico City, during 2022 and 2023. Methods for data collection involved interviews, participant diaries and ethnographic observations. I conducted 22 sit-down and 8 walking interviews with 28 research participants, 11 of whom also completed a participant diary for two weeks. These data were complemented with participant observation during events organised by the WDC and with observational walks in Santo Domingo.

All participants, whose names are replaced by pseudonyms, were WDC members.¹ An initial presentation and introduction during a street assembly led to a snowballing recruitment process. Information sheets and consent forms were presented in Spanish, and conversations to explain the project were held with every individual participant before and after data collection.

Of the 28 research participants, 21 identified as women and 7 as men; 18 participants (more than half the sample) were above 60 years old at the time of the fieldwork. All of the participants are either homeowners or live in homes owned by their relatives, so none of them were tenants. This composition reflects the broader membership of the WDC, which is largely made up of women aged 60 or older and did not include tenants during the period of fieldwork.

I transcribed all the interviews, field notes and diaries, and coded the transcriptions using NVivo. A codebook was generated and refined through subsequent rounds of coding, reading and re-reading the transcripts. I conducted a deductive and reflexive thematic analysis of the dataset, working transversally through the transcripts to find connections, constructing themes and patterns of shared meaning that related to the experience of most, if not all, research participants (Braun & Clarke, 2020, p. 341). Therefore, while specific participants are mentioned in the findings, their opinions relate to themes constructed and identified across the dataset through thematic analysis. Crucial themes identified include the definition of shared needs, clear goals, accountability, trust, family connections and collective memory, each functioning as a mechanism to promote participation, as the following sections discuss.

The origins and political history of Santo Domingo

Before discussing the findings in depth, it is important to describe the context of the neighbourhood and the neighbour-based organisation. The WDC was formed by residents of Santo Domingo, in the municipality of Coyoacán, in Mexico City. This neighbourhood has a rich political history. Santo Domingo formed in 1971 when approximately 5000 families occupied lands that form part of the rocky ground, locally known as pedregales, of Coyoacán (Gutmann, 2006; López Rosas, 2021).

This occupation was part of a collective struggle for land and triggered a process of self-built housing production. Through collective labour days known as faenas, residents opened roads and transformed rocky ground into streets, public spaces and homes (Díaz Enciso, 2002; Gutmann, 2006). This process involved injustice, inequality and stigmatisation, as residents faced all sorts of scarcity, built homes in an inhospitable landscape, and lived under constant threat of eviction. However, inhabiting and actively producing the built environment in this location linked to political identities and senses of belonging (Giglia, 2009; Safa, 1998).

Neighbourhood activism and social struggle in Santo Domingo were embedded in a wider political context. In 1970s Mexico, land occupation and self-built housing were strategies used by urban groups either aligned with, co-opted by or in direct contestation with the ruling political party, the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional). In this context, leftist students influenced by Maoist ideals worked among the urban poor to promote grassroots political organising (Bennett & Bracho, 1993; Díaz Barriga, 1996).

Neighbourhood organising in places like Santo Domingo was shaped by Marxist student activism and the liberation theology of grassroots ecclesial communities, both oriented towards constructing autonomous power (Bennett, 1992; Bennett & Bracho, 1993; Ramírez, 1986). These organising traditions were also linked to the formation of the Popular Urban Movement (MUP), which emerged in the 1970s as an alliance of struggles over housing and services, cultivating democratic practices through block meetings and open assemblies (Bennett, 1992; Coulomb, 1991; Moctezuma, 1990; Ramírez, 1986).

Santo Domingo became one arena in which the MUP and resistance to clientelist PRI structures took shape among the urban poor. It was not, however, an isolated case of popular urban struggle. Rather, Santo Domingo exemplifies a broader pattern of popular and peripheral urbanisation across Mexico and Latin America, characterised by shared social dynamics and political tactics around land occupation, self-building and collective organising (Caldeira, 2016; Schteingart, 1996; Streule et al., 2020).

Today, Santo Domingo is a formalised and densely populated urban settlement with busy street life, residential buildings, schools, shops and markets. Yet the memory of these struggles remains among many original inhabitants and subsequent generations, many of whom still reside in the prevalent multifamily plots across the neighbourhood (Ortega-Alcázar, 2016). This history continues to function as a narrative that inspires contemporary organising (Heathcott, 2025).

The neighbourhood organising strategies analysed in this article are rooted in this longer trajectory of autonomous political mobilisation. Processes through which individual ‘needs’ are transformed into shared problems and campaigns have genealogies linked to earlier practices of solving collective necessity through popular urban struggle (Díaz Barriga, 1996). These histories leave organisational inheritances that groups such as the WDC continue to draw upon.

Organisational inheritances and contemporary social struggles in Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo’s history of social struggle continues through organisational inheritances that shape present forms of mobilisation. Grassroots organising and street assemblies remain relevant tactics for autonomous power and political engagement, and the WDC’s strategies should be understood as learned political practices rather than spontaneous reactions. Contemporary struggles in Santo Domingo and surrounding neighbourhoods in the pedregales of Coyoacán are marked by resistance to real estate development and the deterioration of public services, particularly water supply. These movements resist exclusion and gentrification while affirming place attachment and territorial defence (De la Torre & Barona, 2020; Heathcott, 2025).

Among contemporary water-related organising, the General Assembly of the Peoples, Towns, Neighbourhoods and Pedregales of Coyoacán (hereafter, the GAPC) has been particularly significant. The GAPC emerged in 2016 to coordinate action against a real estate development at Aztecas Street 215 that was damaging a shallow aquifer. Located near Santo Domingo, the project triggered protests that connected environmental damage to wider struggles over urban exclusion. Between 2016 and 2019, the GAPC organised street protests and sit-ins, creating spaces for knowledge-sharing, solidarity and territorial appropriation. Its mobilisation led to the official acknowledgement of water damage to the aquifer, requiring compensation from the developer, Quiero Casa (Poma, 2019; Romero Cuevas, 2022; Sierra Martínez, 2022).

The Aztecas 215 conflict directly preceded the WDC campaign. In 2020, several GAPC members joined other neighbours from Santo Domingo to form the WDC. The WDC thus emerged from earlier experiences of protest, and the mechanisms for promoting participation discussed in this article were already developing through previous struggles. However, most WDC members had not participated in the GAPC, and while many had prior experience of neighbourhood activism, others were organising for the first time. The WDC receives ideological inspiration and organisational inheritances from this longer trajectory, but reworks them to address changing conditions, particularly around water scarcity and its present consequences.

The political effects of Mexico City’s water crisis

Mexico City has experienced increasing water stress driven by urban growth, drought and unequal consumption patterns (Barragan, 2024; Martinez et al., 2015; Medina-Rivas et al., 2022). Facing the constant possibility of crisis, local government and water systems continuously adapt to climate change and deteriorating infrastructure (De Coss-Corzo, 2022; López Herrera, 2023). This widespread water stress situation becomes particularly acute in poor neighbourhoods across the city. Many households face extra costs whilst facing limited supply (Huberts et al., 2023), and many residents experience constant interruptions in pipe water distribution, which leads them to rely on water trucks. In this context, intermediaries such as water-truck owners and small-scale water purification businesses are crucial to understanding how inequality is lived, and how clientelism is reconfigured (Castillo & Delgado, 2023; De Alba, 2016).

Water scarcity in marginalised settlements is entangled with political structures and socioeconomic disparities, reproducing inequality and everyday injustice. This has led to conflicts and protests across many municipalities of Mexico City, including the municipality of Coyoacán, and in neighbourhoods such as Santo Domingo (Castro et al., 2004; De Alba & Hernández-Gamboa, 2024; Quintero, 2021). The WDC emerged within this highly politicised context.

The Water Defence Committee of Santo Domingo

The WDC emerged in early 2020, protesting against intermittent water supply in Santo Domingo and campaigning for a well to inject more water into the pipe network, reducing dependency on water trucks. This was important since, as many participants mentioned, authorities and political candidates had begun exchanging water trucks for electoral support, creating a form of water clientelism. They demanded direct and transparent access to water trucks without political party intermediaries as a temporary solution while the well was constructed. After years of assemblies, protests and negotiations with local officials, the well began operating in December 2022.

In the WDC and in Santo Domingo, expectations of solidarity coexist with neighbour ambiguity. During interviews, WDC members recognised that many of their neighbours were uncertain about joining the group and expressed frustration at residents who did not get involved, noting that the memory of social struggle was being lost. Therefore, it would be mistaken to assume that Santo Domingo is a homogeneous community. New inhabitants have arrived over the past 50 years, whilst others have left. Furthermore, neighbourhood residents who lived near the well construction site actively opposed it, arguing it would damage their houses.

In this context, the WDC carried out a campaign on water availability that motivated neighbour participation. The following sections describe mechanisms through which the WDC, in this process, worked with relational uncertainty without eliminating it. Four key mechanisms are discussed: identifying visible goals and shared needs, having rules and procedures for mutual accountability, mobilising a network of pre-existing relationships, and linking to a wider neighbourhood history.

Identifying common ground: Shared needs and tangible goals

For WDC members, the first step in organising was realising their similar needs. Sandra, one of the group’s founders, experienced this not as a single event, but as a process.

At the beginning, I thought it was just me, how do you like that! But I saw my neighbours and well, recognised that we all have the same needs and the same problem, and it was not just me. Between all of us, we realised this, and said to one another: ‘I want the same as you’. But the important thing is that this necessity becomes a shared struggle. From the individuality of each one, we were little by little uniting and agreeing to be as one. My neighbours would tell me: ‘I don’t have water’, but that wouldn’t give way to a collective struggle before this. So, it was good to finally join for this. And we had to get used to each other.

Sandra’s realisation represented a shift from individual concerns to collective action. This transition, experienced by most research participants, involved identifying common ground, or shared needs, and recognising each other as part of a collective struggle. However, ‘getting used to each other’ was not a straightforward process. It involved ongoing negotiations among members about objectives and forms of collaboration. These continuous adjustments and the tensions around them revealed the fragility of neighbour coalitions.

The WDC connected shared needs with the tangible goal of a new water well in Santo Domingo. For participants like Tita and Martina, seeing the new water well was a source of satisfaction and a visible result of their struggles. Members like Elia described how passing by the well ‘gave her goosebumps’ because it was a clear reminder of their collective achievement. The visibility of this well was useful for establishing the common ground around which neighbour ambivalence could be temporarily resolved.

Identifying common ground involved an ethics of mutualism rooted in shared needs. The water well represented a benefit for all of Santo Domingo, not individual members. This relates to the infrastructural characteristics of this well, which is connected directly to the public neighbourhood pipe network, so water does not arrive only at specific households or individual taps, as Elia and Teodora noted:

Teodora:

We are all interested, because we all need water. And it’s a struggle by us who have been more constant, but it’s going to benefit all of us, not just one person. It’s a benefit for all of us because it’s not just your tap [talking to Elia] or mine, right?

[. . .]

Elia:

The water struggle is for the people. And as they say, there’s no way that just [some neighbours] would get the water on their tap. No, it’s for the people, it’s for everyone, not just for one person.

The infrastructural features and visibility of the water well influenced the experience of collective action, shifting neighbour relations from the negotiation of everyday proximity to the experience of protest. As in other contexts, engagement with water infrastructure plays a key role in shaping political participation (Lemanski, 2020). Improving water supply through a public network triggered, and in many cases renewed, a sense of infrastructural mutualism.

The well became a symbol of collective water defence that galvanised the neighbour-based struggle. And yet, this shared objective required constant clarification. During the well’s construction, WDC leaders organised a visit with SACMEX engineers to the building site so members could ask questions about what it could achieve, revealing divergent expectations about it. The continuous work of aligning expectations showed that common ground was not self-evident. Identifying common ground, while rooted in collective needs, was not exempt from tensions.

The well was not met with the same anticipation across the neighbourhood. Some residents living near the construction site actively opposed it, arguing it would damage their houses. The WDC had to discuss internally how to respond to this situation and agree on a strategy, eventually deciding to pressure SACMEX into addressing the concerns of those who opposed the well and compensating for any damages. Internal and external pressures persisted around the WDC’s very goals.

The WDC became a space for pragmatic neighbouring (Neal, 2022; Simone, 2021), driven by responding to common material needs. But mobilisation required continuous relational work to navigate ambiguity, rather than a one-time recruitment effort. Getting people to join required reaching out to other residents. Participants like Sandra, Lucia and Leticia would knock on doors to invite others to assemblies and protests. Whilst some neighbours facing water shortage joined the WDC, others ignored invitations or attended meetings briefly, only when they needed a water truck, and then disengaged once their need was met. Leticia and Lucia expressed frustration at this pattern, and many members noted that many of their neighbours would not attend meetings when invited, yet still benefited from the group’s achievements.

Identifying common ground is made easier through the spatial solidarity studied by Walter et al. (2017), where proximity leads to unity rooted in shared problems. But proximity alone did not lead to collective action. As Sandra noted, the lack of water was widespread, but neighbour mobilisation increased when the WDC connected shared needs with tangible goals. The relational work of women talking to other residents was central to turning neighbour relationships into the building blocks of collective organising (Jupp, 2012; Parry, 2005).

Keeping each other accountable: Expectations, rules and conflicts

To manage potential mistrust among neighbours, the WDC developed mechanisms for mutual accountability, rooted in a sense of shared responsibility. This was expressed through agreed-upon rules and collective expectations, particularly regarding participation in street assemblies, communication via WhatsApp groups, and the temporary distribution of water via trucks whilst the new well was under construction. However, these accountability mechanisms did not eliminate ambiguity. Conflicts emerged among WDC members, which required continuous compromise.

Accountability mechanisms helped prevent internal fractures within the group, especially during street assemblies and WhatsApp communications. Regular participation was encouraged through street assemblies held every two weeks, where leaders shared updates about the water situation and the well’s construction progress. Attendance was recorded on a list used to distinguish committed members from less active ones. In addition, members volunteered to monitor the construction daily, reporting via WhatsApp to ensure uninterrupted work at the well. These communication channels became key spaces for carrying out participation norms.

The WDC established clear procedures for water truck distribution. Only residents who attended meetings, such as street assemblies, and signed an attendance list could request trucks, and each household had to wait its turn according to the order of requests. This brought clarity to members by introducing a predictable and transparent system. Nonetheless, tensions could still emerge if people did not respect these guidelines.

One illustrative example of these tensions, and how they were addressed, came from an interview with Caralampia, a WDC member. She recounted how a conflict emerged when a water truck was requested by one of her neighbours, but when it arrived, another person living on the same street grabbed the hose and filled her own cistern without waiting for her turn. Although both women were WDC members, the one who jumped the queue did not regularly attend meetings. Waldo, a WDC leader, intervened by clarifying the rules in the group’s WhatsApp chat and at a subsequent street assembly. He also reprimanded those who had bypassed the system. His intervention highlights how the WDC actively implemented water distribution rules to maintain fairness. Access to water trucks remained a source of ongoing tensions that required WDC members to continuously remind each other about the rules.

Forms of communication could become sources of tension requiring ongoing relational work. Members such as Pilar and Martina commented that some participants would request water trucks for themselves or others without properly following procedures, avoiding the requirement to provide their family names as proof of meeting attendance. Other members would often reprimand them in the WhatsApp group when they did this, and participants mentioned feeling upset by how such exchanges led to conflicts that required the mediation of leaders.

The importance of having clear, fair rules and procedures resonates with Wutich and Ragsdale’s (2008, p. 2122) findings from water-scarce neighbourhoods in Bolivia. They observed that emotional distress linked to water scarcity was caused not only by limited supply, but by the absence of ‘clarity, perceived fairness, and predictability of the system’ for accessing water. In Santo Domingo, the WDC established rules that helped reduce neighbour unpredictability, without eliminating it, by making behavioural expectations explicit.

When neighbour relationships carry expectations of reciprocal commitment, as they did within the WDC, they depend on producing and sustaining mutual trust. However, this process is neither automatic nor easy. The WDC had to work through local suspicions and mistrust, linked to local electoral politics. Santo Domingo’s history of collective organising and urban activism has often been shadowed by cases of co-optation and manipulation by political parties. As Carolina explained in an interview, this has led many residents to suspect that grassroots groups are aligned with political parties or local leaders seeking personal gain. She explained that, for this reason, some residents initially believed the WDC was a front for political campaigning or fundraising, and emphasised that building trust among participants was one of the WDC’s most important achievements. Over time, however, trust grew through clear rules, especially the explicit prohibition of party-political campaigning within street assemblies or the WDC WhatsApp group. In her words, ‘Members are free to vote for whoever they want, but we don’t campaign for anyone here [in the WDC].’ This prohibition was central to the WDC’s credibility as a neighbour-based organisation.

Generating a sense of accountability required constant effort and was not an easily settled process. Just after the well opened in spring 2023, residents experienced approximately three weeks without water, causing tension within the WDC. Members thought the well was malfunctioning and complained in the WhatsApp group. This led to an emergency meeting with local authorities and an emergency street assembly to clarify that the well had been working, but the valves had been maladjusted. This incident revealed how mutual trust required continuous renewal rather than being definitively established.

Yates (2015, p. 14) notes the importance of developing new collective norms for interaction among individuals, networks and collectives as a feature of prefigurative politics in social movements. Collective norms were also crucial within the WDC, tied not to prefigurative politics but to the messy, everyday process of neighbours keeping each other accountable through active relational work. In this way, the WDC cultivated a form of accountability embedded in the experience of cooperation, sustaining the fragile infrastructure of neighbourly connections (Neal, 2022).

Mobilising a network of relationships: Family connections and neighbour links

The WDC is embedded in a network of pre-existing relationships that include multiple family ties. Joining the WDC in many cases resulted from the relational work of mobilising this network of existing social ties since, for many people, family and friendships shaped how they took part in the WDC. Members invited other residents, relatives and friends, while households internally shared and distributed the responsibility of attending meetings, so participation was not simply a matter of individual interest but was rooted in a network of relationships, obligations and care. However, mobilising these networks did not eliminate the elasticity of neighbours and was not exempt from tensions. Connections among most WDC members remained fragile, and participation sometimes developed reluctantly, out of family responsibility and obligation.

Due to low social and geographic mobility, multiple generations of residents tend to remain in Santo Domingo, frequently living in the same homes as their parents and older relatives. While this illustrates conditions of socioeconomic vulnerability, it also helps explain how participation in the WDC was motivated by family relationships. Attending meetings was often distributed as a task among household members, as part of the broader activities related to managing water needs. Attendance was monitored using lists, and people would register their presence by using the name and address of a household representative within the WDC, usually a woman. This reveals that, in a context of multifamily households, the distribution of labour associated with water and everyday needs was still disproportionately carried by women.

Family ties, while representing a duty to participate at first, could inspire participation and commitment over time. Leticia, one of the youngest participants, joined the WDC out of a desire to support her grandparents, who cannot use WhatsApp or attend meetings. Even though she didn’t know anyone in the group, she attended street assemblies to represent her family and help her grandparents. This led to what she described as ‘gotten so involved that I like it’. Leticia’s story shows how participation in the WDC could begin through a sense of responsibility within the family. Like Leticia, many participants became involved through an invitation or request from a family member and developed a personal conviction to remain involved. Verne joined because his sister urged him and convinced him that the struggle mattered; Caralampia joined to support her elderly mother; and Beni was brought in by one of his daughters.

Not all family members were equally keen to become involved in neighbour-based organising. As an example, Verne initially resisted his sister Monica’s urging to join, preferring other activities on Friday evenings when street assemblies were held. His participation began through family insistence, which eventually led to a personal conviction. Furthermore, disparities in the distribution of household obligations related to water access, while not the focus of this study, were also at play. Family obligations could generate ambivalent participation, so mobilising existing ties produced fragile alignments that required ongoing relational work.

In many cases, participation was not necessarily motivated by family responsibilities but by a desire to help the neighbourhood. Furthermore, being part of the WDC could also lead to family tensions. Magnolia commented that other members of her family living in the same plot refused to participate. Juan, who faced criticism from family members for becoming involved, mentioned that the WDC was a place to find fellowship even ‘more than in your own family’.

Street conversations among residents, especially those with whom members were friendly, also played a role in recruitment. This involved neighbours both actively reaching out and casually inviting others to join through informal conversations. Marisol learned about the group from another woman who lives on her street, while Facunda would attend meetings because her neighbours knocked on her door and brought her along. Many occasional chats, which often began with questions about water availability, brought new members to the WDC. Whilst these informal neighbour interactions mattered greatly, mobilising family relations was crucial to promoting participation. As previously mentioned, neighbour moral obligations are important but more flexible than those related to family and friends (Cheshire, 2015; May et al., 2021). Participation in the WDC could be motivated by these family obligations, connected to household responsibilities, and linked to long-lasting family stories.

Decisions related to personal selves are often influenced by networks of close relationships (Mason, 2004; Roseneil & Ketokivi, 2015). The WDC became a space where this relational network was mobilised for a shared goal. Klandermans and van Stekelenburg (2014) argue that belonging to a social circle that approves of involvement is crucial in explaining participation in collective action. In Santo Domingo, being part of a relational setting where activism was encouraged often led to participation in the WDC. Members of neighbour-based organisations are never isolated persons, but are embedded in relationship networks. WDC participants did not act alone but as part of households or the wider neighbourhood community, concerned not only with their individual interests but also with the needs of family members and neighbours.

While friendliness could emerge within the WDC, neighbour elasticity persisted inside the group, and neighbours could easily disengage. Many participants mentioned they did not socialise with other WDC members outside assemblies. As Martina noted, work commitments limited time for friendly socialising beyond meetings. Collective action remained strongly anchored in family or friendly ties existing outside the WDC. Family and friendship ties encouraged participation without eliminating neighbour ambiguity.

Linking to a neighbourhood history: Collective memory in Santo Domingo

The WDC identified itself as part of a wider history of neighbourhood struggle. In Santo Domingo, family stories are often connected to the collective memory of how the neighbourhood was built. This history of ‘making’ Santo Domingo motivated the decision to become involved for many participants.

Linking to this collective memory motivated engagement and situated the well campaign as part of wider neighbourhood history, giving meaning to the contemporary struggle. However, this shared history did not resonate equally for all residents, revealing generational and experiential divides that the WDC had to face continuously. During an interview held whilst walking in Santo Domingo, Waldo mentioned that everything in the neighbourhood was obtained by a collective struggle that connected different generations:

If the neighbours had not fought, like everything that has been fought for here in Santo Domingo, we would simply have nothing. The streets, the land, the markets, the schools, the water, the drainage, the electricity, everything has been the product of the neighbourhood’s struggle, of the different generations. I’m talking about those who arrived in ’71, ’72, who, in my case, were my parents. I am the second generation, and now with my son, he would be the third generation, because we are fighting for water. This is a history of uninterrupted struggle for different issues here in the neighbourhood. And that memory unfortunately has not been inherited by everyone, or not everyone has had the interest.

Waldo mentioned a ‘memory’ of activism that not all residents inherited in the same way. This pointed to divisions in Santo Domingo. Younger residents often did not identify as strongly with the neighbourhood history as older residents. Alma, a participant in her fifties, complained about the apathy of younger generations and commented that it was ‘really difficult to get young people to attend meetings’. Participant observation confirmed that, with some exceptions, most WDC members were in their fifties or older, indicating generational differences in involvement.

Even with these nuances, the story told by Waldo resonated with many participants, who recognised how the example of previous generations, and their own memories, inspired them. Several participants, including Caralampia, Sandra and Magnolia, mentioned that their parents had to fetch water daily or were involved in building Santo Domingo through faenas. Sandra emphasised that her mother’s example motivated her to become involved in the struggle. Participation was embedded in family and neighbourhood histories. Older participants, such as Pilar, Tita and Beni, recalled taking part in the faenas, collecting drinking water and introducing the pipe network. They described this as an achievement they were willing to defend.

The memories of struggle and popular urbanisation are not entirely positive for everyone. Several older members, including Pilar, Sandra and Magnolia, mentioned that this process also involved conflicts over water access and tensions that had to be resolved by figures such as block leaders. Behind the faenas were also obligations that some residents fulfilled reluctantly. Some participants, like Susana, mentioned that her parents had not been very involved in neighbourhood organising during this time due to distrust of other residents. The history of Santo Domingo is powerful, but it is not a tale of community unity and harmony, since it also involved conflicts and, on some occasions, a lack of neighbour solidarity.

This complex history, as well as the differences of engagement between generations, suggest that appeals to shared memory work unevenly. People for whom this history resonated strongly likely became active WDC members, whilst others chose not to participate. And yet, the shared history of Santo Domingo was consistently invoked by the WDC. During street assemblies, group leaders would remind other members of this history and recall the solidarity experienced during the early years of the neighbourhood as an inheritance and example to follow. Through banners, posters and slogans, the WDC appealed to a collective narrative, framing their campaign for the water well as part of a prolonged neighbourhood struggle.

Collective action frames have been identified as key elements of neighbourhood and place-based activism (Martin, 2003; Robles Rendón et al., 2011). This article identifies these frames as connected to family stories, personal biographies and memories. It also shows that these are complex narratives whose resonance is not guaranteed among neighbours. By producing spaces like street assemblies where the history of Santo Domingo was recalled, the WDC engaged in collective acts of remembering that reinforced collective memory and senses of belonging (Blokland, 2001). Sustaining these spaces involved constant relational work that was usually, while not exclusively, carried out by women.

Morgan (2008, p. 38) argues that communities can be thought of as a ‘nexus of stories’ and claims that stories serve as sources of information, identity and even moral guidance for many communities. The WDC embedded itself in a narrative, connecting it to previous struggles and shaping the stories that give meaning to inhabiting Santo Domingo. By claiming a connection to this shared history, the WDC builds the possibility of protest, navigating neighbour ambiguity and actively rewriting the stories that make up this neighbourhood.

Conclusion

This article has argued that collective organising at the neighbourhood scale requires managing a specific form of relational uncertainty, which is the neighbour as a nearby but ambiguous other. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with the Water Defence Committee in Santo Domingo, Mexico City, it has shown how neighbour-based organisations work with, rather than eliminate, the ambiguity of neighbourly relations in their process of formation. It distinguishes four mechanisms that were useful to face neighbour ambiguity: identifying common ground, keeping each other accountable, mobilising existing networks, and linking to a shared neighbourhood history. These mechanisms did not eliminate ambiguity but created temporary alignments amid ongoing uncertainty, as when participants like Lucia would invite neighbours to street assemblies and find solidarity, whilst simultaneously recognising that some commit to the struggle, whilst others easily disengage. This revealed collective organising as a fragile but meaningful accomplishment sustained through intense relational work.

These mechanisms generated an organisational space rooted in everyday relational work rather than ideological sameness or permanent cohesion. Knocking on doors, engaging in conversations with residents, establishing and enforcing rules, sharing household responsibilities, persuading relatives and recalling shared histories were the forms of relational work essential for motivating collective action. Through gradual negotiation and mutual adjustment, WDC members like Sandra became ‘used to each other’, temporarily managing ambiguity without eliminating it.

This study makes three key contributions to sociological thought. First, it provides an analytical perspective on neighbour-based organising by addressing an underexplored question of how neighbour-based organisations navigate neighbourly ambiguity, and by describing the relational work that makes organising possible. By examining internal dynamics rather than treating these groups as already-formed collective actors, the study shows that organising requires continuous relational work. Focusing on neighbour-based organisations as a unit of analysis, rather than neighbourhoods as spatial categories, highlights the processes through which people organise, revealing collective actors as fragile accomplishments rather than self-evident or homogeneous entities.

Second, it advances sociological knowledge of neighbours as personal relationships by demonstrating that solidarity and ambiguity coexist rather than cancel one another out. Neighbours remain elastic even within the organisations they form or join. Drawing on the case of the WDC, these organisations generate temporary settlements through clear and visible goals, practices of accountability, links to existing ties, and connections to broader historical narratives, while other mechanisms may be at play in different organisational and spatial contexts. These findings contribute to studies of personal relationships and relational sociology by showing how neighbours can become building blocks of collective action, and how ambiguous ties can function as political resources when conditions for pragmatic engagement exist.

Third, it contributes to broader understandings of collective action by showing how organising emerges in contexts of persistent relational uncertainty. Rather than treating ambiguity as an obstacle to be resolved, the findings show how organisations make ambiguous relations workable through practical arrangements and ongoing negotiation. In this way, collective action becomes possible, and at times probable, amid persistent relational uncertainty.

These insights extend beyond the Santo Domingo neighbourhood and beyond water struggles. Recognising and analysing the conditions for neighbour-based organising makes a significant contribution to community studies, urban sociology and social movement research, particularly within research concerned with how collective action is sustained among actors connected by proximity rather than strong prior ties or shared identities. Understanding how neighbours navigate relational uncertainty to organise matters not only in Mexico City, but wherever collective action begins from weak, personal or ambiguous ties.

Limitations of this study include its focus on active participants and a single campaign. Future research could examine the perspectives of non-participants, including younger generations, and explore how neighbour-based organising is sustained beyond specific moments of mobilisation. Attention to the often gendered division of labour within neighbour-based organisations would further illuminate everyday organising processes. Comparative studies across geographical contexts would also help to examine how the mechanisms identified here operate in different settings.

As cities around the world face the consequences of climate change and declining drinking water availability (Harvey, 2023), neighbour-based organisations offer crucial arenas for urban political engagement. Understanding these organisations as continuous achievements rather than static entities, and how they sustain cooperation amid uncertainty, respects their creative potential without essentialising solidarity or taking for granted the relational work enabling collective action. Analysing how neighbours move from proximity to protest to build fragile but meaningful spaces for collective action is crucial for understanding neighbours and their potential to drive change in urban everyday life.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONAHCYT) and the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield for supporting my doctoral research. I am grateful to Sarah Neal, Katherine Davies, Jayne Finlay and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback. Thank you to the members of the WDC who became participants of this study and shared their stories with me. Any errors are entirely mine.

ORCID iD

Andrés Sierra Martínez

Ethical considerations

This research was conducted with ethical approval from the University of Sheffield (Application Reference Number 048986).

Informed consent

Written and verbal consent to participate in this study was recorded individually from every research participant. Written and verbal consent for data to be published as part of the outputs of this study was recorded individually from every research participant. No personal data that could lead to re-identification are included for publication.

Funding

The research for this article was supported by a doctoral research grant from the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology of (CONAHCYT). Support from the Ministry of Public Education of Mexico (SEP) and the Department of Sociological Studies of the University of Sheffield is also acknowledged.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement

The data generated for this research and used in this article are available in the ORDA repository from the University of Sheffield:

Notes

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