This article investigates the fictional narratives written by „Sub-commandante Marcos“ of the Zapatista movement EZLN. It is shown that Marcos uses three distinct frames of reference in his fictional account of the Zapatista guerrilla: an ethnic, a national and a post-national one. Contrary to other studies that emphasize the harmony between the three levels, it can be argued that there exists a fundamental tension between them. There is a tension between the ethnic discourse and the Mexican nationalist discourse which envisions a nation rather than a nation dominated by a single ethno-cultural group. Finally, it can be deduced from these tensions that the EZLN guerrilla is subject to divergent pressures.

Despite the wealth of interest in South Mexico’s Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), few studies have attempted to deconstruct the discourse of the Zapatistas according to its component parts. Most scholars have so far addressed the Zapatistas from the standpoint of political theory, international relations or anthropology, and in so doing have tended to engage primarily with broader polemical agendas. Furthermore, in their determination to typologise the Zapatistas as ‘this’ or ‘that’ sort of movement, scholars have overlooked the nuances and shades of meaning that exist within the Zapatista discourse, as well as the evolution of those meanings over time. As a result, the content and ongoing construction of the Zapatistas’ message has been eclipsed by a more encompassing, contested, and ultimately chimeric quest to reify the movement’s ‘essence’ or ‘truth’. This thesis represents an empirical analysis of the EZLN’s collective discourse that focuses on the content and constructed nature of their collective action frames. Combining three strands of social movement frame analysis, it avers to draw-out the ever-changing detail of the EZLN’s discursive output and so add value to the debates that surround the Zapatistas. It also makes several theoretical contributions to social movement frame analysis.

This thesis deals with issues of indigeneity, warfare and representation as they relate to the Zapatista struggle in Chiapas, Mexico between the years of 1994-2003 –a period widely known as a period of low intensity warfare. During this period, militants of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) engaged fiercely in the creation and defence of de facto “indigenous” municipalities and territories, posing a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the Mexican “state” and its faculty to govern. The environment of war, accompanied by a prevalent Indianist discourse, highly structured the ways in which Zapatista lives came to be represented by activist and academic writings alike. Generic images of Zapatista militants came to dominate the literature. Within this context, my thesis argues for the importance of moving away from images of Zapatistas as public figures and investigating, instead, everyday Zapatista lives. I argue that a refocus on specific-situated-local-everyday politics necessarily entails engaging with “internal” conflict, division, hierarchies, and power differentials. Framed by an ethnographic approach, the analysis presented here is based on 17 months of fieldwork. My discussion on indigenous autonomy and self-determination, therefore, goes well beyond claims to indigenous rights and engages, instead, historical as well as on-the-ground expressions of what self-determination looked like on an everyday basis. My discussion on warfare, moves beyond condemnations of militarization in the area and pays attention to some of the ways in which warfare worked to structure peoples’ lives and daily perceptions as well as outsiders’ understanding of the conflict. While generally my analysis is confined by the particularities of time and space, a generous examination of an ample literature gives it theoretical depth and political relevance beyond the Zapatista case.

This thesis deals with issues of indigeneity, warfare and representation as they relate to the Zapatista struggle in Chiapas, Mexico between the years of 1994-2003 –a period widely known as a period of low intensity warfare. During this period, militants of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) engaged fiercely in the creation and defence of de facto “indigenous” municipalities and territories, posing a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the Mexican “state” and its faculty to govern. The environment of war, accompanied by a prevalent Indianist discourse, highly structured the ways in which Zapatista lives came to be represented by activist and academic writings alike. Generic images of Zapatista militants came to dominate the literature. Within this context, my thesis argues for the importance of moving away from images of Zapatistas as public figures and investigating, instead, everyday Zapatista lives. I argue that a refocus on specific-situated-local-everyday politics necessarily entails engaging with “internal” conflict, division, hierarchies, and power differentials. Framed by an ethnographic approach, the analysis presented here is based on 17 months of fieldwork. My discussion on indigenous autonomy and self-determination, therefore, goes well beyond claims to indigenous rights and engages, instead, historical as well as on-the-ground expressions of what self-determination looked like on an everyday basis. My discussion on warfare, moves beyond condemnations of militarization in the area and pays attention to some of the ways in which warfare worked to structure peoples’ lives and daily perceptions as well as outsiders’ understanding of the conflict. While generally my analysis is confined by the particularities of time and space, a generous examination of an ample literature gives it theoretical depth and political relevance beyond the Zapatista case.

Thesis advisor: Jennie Purnell / The Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacint of the Zapatista platform. It will demonstrate that external conditions have influenced and frustrated realistic improvements in Zapatista gender relations. Finally, this thesis will assess the future of female participation within the Zapatista movement, and illustrate the limited social and political changes in indigenous communities. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Since 1994, Chicana/o artists, musicians, and activists have been in dialogue with the Zapatista indigenous movement of Chiapas, Mexico. Such a transnational bridge has resonated in a new and unique form of Chicana/o cultural politics centered on the Zapatista concept of “autonomy” and “autonomous organizing.” In Los Angeles, California, this brand of “Chicana/o urban Zapatismo,” as I refer to it in the dissertation, is symbolic of recent political and cultural organizing efforts by Chicanos to combat housing gentrification, economic restructuring, racial and ethnic cleansing, environmental pollution in low-income areas, and mass anti-immigrant hysteria. This dissertation contends that Chicana/o urban Zapatismo is a result of various local, statewide, national, and international social justice movements that embrace the global trend in urban and rural areas towards constructing locally rooted participatory and democratic methods of organizing that are “horizontal” and that mobilize against such far-reaching social forces as racism and global capitalism. Using ethnographic data and interviews collected between 2005 to 2007, this dissertation maps the emergence of Chicana/o urban Zapatismo by tracing its historical origins to the changing social, political, and economic conditions of ethnic Mexican communities in Los Angeles, California; capturing the everyday internal and external tensions between one primarily working class Chicano autonomous collective, the Eastside Café ECHOSPACE in El Sereno, California; offering the case study of the South Central Farm, a 14-acre Mexican and Latino immigrant community garden; and charting the trans-border organizing of Chicana/o urban Zapatistas surrounding the most recent Zapatista-initiated project, “the Mexican Other Campaign”. These four distinct case studies converge in Los Angeles in the creation of a unique political process referred to as “urban Zapatismo”. This ethnographic study suggests that by uncovering the everyday relationships and tensions between Chicana/o urban Zapatistas in Los Angeles and the communities they live in, researchers looking at the production of different forms of racisms and structural inequalities in urban areas may derive a greater understanding of social (re)organization and mobilization by a growing, diverse, and historically marginalized group like Chicanos in the United States. / text

Thesis advisor: David Deese / In recent years, the rise in the formation of regional organizations such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Mercado Común Del Sur (Mercosur) has drawn an increasing amount of attention from political scientists and economists. However, countries preparing for entry into regional organizations have the challenging task of promoting both economic and social integration. When preparing for accession into regional organizations, Mexico and Argentina implemented multiple changes in their economic and political practices. As a result of these changes, citizens who perceived themselves to be excluded from the benefits of regional integration formed social movements such as the Zapatista Army for National Liberation and El Movimiento de las Mujeres en Lucha to voice their opposition. This thesis explores the policy changes made as Mexico and Argentina prepared for accession into regional organizations, the social movements formed in opposition to these changes, and the responses formulated by Mexico's and Argentina's leaders in reaction to these movements. I conclude that countries preparing for entry into regional organizations must implement policies which address the political concerns of these groups, rather than simply their economic concerns. Failure to do so will lead to deep social divisions which will hinder the formation and development of regional organizations. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science. / Discipline: Political Science Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T20:04:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação trata da insurgência como princípio educativo da pedagogia latino-americana. Para tanto, recorremos à categoria experiência, proposta por E. P. Thompson, para dialogar com o processo de independência cubana, do final do século XIX, conduzido por José Martí, e com o original movimento indígena de Chiapas, sobretudo os zapatistas, que emergiu no final do século XX. Entendemos princípio educativo como uma exigência que surge, emerge da existência e está relacionada com o movimento da e na transformação dos sujeitos no processo de luta social e política. Para a realização da pesquisa selecionamos alguns documentos, como cartas, comunicados, artigos, discursos e declarações dos zapatistas e de José Martí. Como proposta de metodologia utilizamos a análise e interpretação de seus conteúdos. Além disto, propusemos uma aproximação da História com a Educação dialogando com o vanguardismo martiano, a rebeldia zapatista e a boniteza freireana, compreendendo os espaços dos movimentos sociais como “u / This thesis discusses insurgency as an educational principle in Latin American pedagogy. It does so using the concept of experience proposed by E. P. Thompson and establishes a dialog with the process of Cuba’s independence led by José Martí by the end of the 19th century and with the original indigenous movement in Chiapas, mainly the Zapatists, that emerged at the end of the 20th century. The author understands educational principle as a demand that emerges from existence and is related to the movement of and in the transformation of subjects in the process of social and political struggle. The research is based on a selection of documents, such as letters, communiqués, articles, speeches and declarations by the Zapatists and José Martí. The methodology consists of the analysis and interpretation of their contents. The author also establishes a relation between History and Education through a dialog with Martí’s vanguardism, the Zapatist rebelliousness and the Freirean beauty. She understands the spaces of

In August 2019 the indigenous social movement Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), decided to deepen their autonomy project and thereby to intensify their conflict with the Mexican state. The group that emerged in 1994 has for almost three decades been in conflict with the Mexican government. In the last decade, the conflict has been on hold until the group announced their expansion with 11 new autonomous zones in the south of the county. This thesis puts that decision in a political opportunity structure framework; what aspects of the framework can explain the unexpected decision by the movement? A qualitative text analysis of EZLN communique's finds that the movement took advantages of several political opportunities. Most significantly, the construction of the Mayan Train constituted reasons for adopting a confrontational strategy towards the government. Changes in the level of repression towards the movement have facilitated the confrontative decision made by the movement. When controlling for two alternative explanation theories, this study establishes the political opportunity structure as having a stronger explanation factor. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature on political opportunity framework and to revitalize the interest in the EZLN.

This paper deals with the issue of the Indian population in the southern state of Mexico, Chiapas. The objective was to find out what are the causes of adverse social, economic and political situation of the local indigenous population. The paper characterizes the most important historical events that affected the status of the Indian population in Mexican society today. It also discusses the impact of these events on the current problems of this population group. This paper also characterizes these particular problems and compares the living standards of the local Indian population with the living standards of the major and dominant society. Based on identified issues and socio-economic status of the local population, the work deals with the marginalization of the Indian minority in Chiapas. The work also describes possible solutions of the exclusion of Indian population. The paper also analyzed a practical example of an autonomous indigenous centre - Centre for Indian Education and Intercultural studies Abya Yala