Grappling with Contradiction: Mariana Mendoza Moves to Decolonize Climbing

Fellow: Mariana Mendoza | Category: Case Studies

Mariana Mendoza describes herself as “resilient/stubborn, heart-led, strange Mexican.” She is a Mexican immigrant muxer living in Los Angeles, who grew up in Mexico City in a middle-class household with significant access to assert her rights. Her organizing journey spans anti-corruption campaigns in Mexico and migrant justice, climate justice, and transformative justice work in the United States.

The Work

Through the Practitioner Fellowship, Mendoza collaborates with indigenous, immigrant, and people of color communities to analyze how dominant narratives within outdoor recreation and rock climbing perpetuate settler colonialism and violent power structures. The collective develops interventions to challenge assumptions and redefine power relationships through storytelling.

Project Motivation

Mendoza explains that climbing communities remain “mostly oblivious about their role in practicing and sponsoring settler colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and ableism.” She aims to develop consciousness about how outdoor enthusiasts support oppressive ideologies while creating reparative alternatives.

Story-based Strategy Application

SBS tools like Narrative Power Analysis revealed dangerous climbing community assumptions, such as dismissing Indigenous sacred relationships with land and framing climbing as universal freedom. The framework helped identify fragile narratives vulnerable to counter-storytelling.

Follow the work: @decolonizeclimbing on Instagram.