Kuxlejal Politics: Indigenous Autonomy, Race, and Decolonizing Research in Zapatista Communities
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.80 (691 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1477314474 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 296 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-08-08 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Mora's findings allow her to critically analyze the deeply complex and often contradictory ways in which the Zapatistas have reconceptualized the political and contested the ordering of Mexican society along lines of gender, race, ethnicity, and class.. This in-depth ethnography summarizes Mariana Mora's more than ten years of extended research and solidarity work in Chiapas, with Tseltal and Tojolabal community members helping to design and evaluate her fieldwork. She demonstrates how, despite official multicultural policies designed to offset the historical exclusion of indigenous people, the Mexican state actually refueled racialized subordination through ostensibly color-blind policies, including neoliberal land reform and poverty alleviation programs. Over the past two decades, Zapatista indigenous community members have asserted their autonomy and self-determination by using everyday practices as part of their struggle for lekil kuxlejal, a dignified collective life connected to a specific territory. The result of that collaboration—a work of activist anthropology—reveals how Zapatista kuxlejal (or life) politics unsettle key racialized effects of the Mexican neoliberal state.Through detailed narratives, thick descriptions, and testimonies, Kuxlejal Politics focuses on central spheres of Zapatista indigenous autonomy, particularly governing practices, agrarian reform, women's collective work, and the implementation o
This work is a gift to us all by one of the most inventive exponents of Mexican anthropology at present, in the best tradition of Latin American critical thought." (Arturo Escobar, Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)"This book shows in meticulous detail how the Zapatista movement responds to deep-rooted forms of oppression inflicted on colonized peoples. It reveals, in particular, how women gain agency under the collective decision-making practices of mandar obedeciendo,
Mariana Mora is an associate professor and researcher at the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS). She coedited the book Luchas “muy otras”: Zapatismo y autonomía en comunidades indígenas de Chiapas.