Constructing autonomy: Zapatista strategies of indigenous resistance in Mexico

Authors

• Richard Stahler-Sholk, Eastern Michigan University

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2017

Department/School

Political Science

Publication Title

The New Global Politics: Global Social Movements in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Contemporary social movements in Latin America and beyond have been characterized by an emphasis on autonomy. The Latin American region has experienced an increase in levels of social mobilization since the 1980s, with new tendencies and characteristics of the movements. This chapter examines the Zapatista strategy of autonomy, which is based on maintaining much more distance from the state. The everyday practices of autonomy in Zapatista indigenous communities continually define a specific collective identity for the movement and for the populations that make up the Zapatista support bases (bases de apoyo). To be sure, the differences in strategies and identities between the Zapatistas who reject government aid and their counterparts who accept it can be a source of conflict, which the government foments as part of its counterinsurgency campaigns. The Zapatista movement is unusual in that its origins are in an armed rebellion that morphed quickly into a social movement.

Comments

R. Stahler Sholk is a faculty member in EMU's Department of Political Science.

Recommended Citation

Stahler-Sholk, R. (2017). Constructing autonomy: Zapatista strategies of indigenous resistance in Mexico. In H. E. Vanden, P. N. Funke, & G. Prevost (Eds.), The new global politics: Global social movements in the twenty-first century (pp. 13-28). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315522296-3