The ethnographies in this dossier show the frictions, differences and even contradictions in cultural dynamics when traditional ways of organizing life, the longing to recover the past and keep it alive, internal social rules, moral principles, the demands and aspirations of younger generations, external and internal intellectual proposals, learning to organize political struggles and dialogues with the State, the influence of markets, national policies and the multiple paths to achieve the desired futures come together. If there is one tradition worth remembering from the utopian proposals of the last centuries, it is that the subject of change requires the collectivity to develop its capacity for agency towards change, towards the dreamed horizon.

The objective of this text is to discuss practices, rules, horizons of hope and disenchantment in the composition of community autonomy in San Isidro de la Libertad, Chiapas, based on my ethnographic experience and the experiences of three young community members. Certain local practices confer political power to the autonomy project: making milpa, celebrating saints, holding assemblies, eating as a family, among others. The re-signification of these practices in a collective narrative of the past, present and future of the locality is an unfinished process that I call "utopianization of traditional life". In turn, these practices shape the ideal subject of their community utopia, one that embodies hope but also reflects, generates and comes from multiple fragmentations.