zapatismo y la ion de los derechos indigenas

8/3/2019 Zapatismo y La ion de Los Derechos Indigenas

1/4

This article was downloaded by: [186.172.16.61]On: 11 December 2011, At: 07:27Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic

StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors and

subscription information:

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlac20

Zapatismo and the Legitimacy of

Indigenous RightsNiels Barmeyer

a

a Latin America Institute, Freie Universitt Berlin, RdesheimerStrae 5456, 14197 Berlin, Germany

Available online: 18 Nov 2011

To cite this article: Niels Barmeyer (2011): Zapatismo and the Legitimacy of Indigenous Rights,

Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 6:3, 329-331

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17442222.2011.617592

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representationthat the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of anyinstructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primarysources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17442222.2011.617592http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlac20http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17442222.2011.617592http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rlac20


2/4

Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies

Vol. 6, No. 3, November 2011, pp. 329331

Zapatismo and the Legitimacyof Indigenous Rights

Niels Barmeyer

The Moral Force of Indigenous Politics: Critical Liberalism and the Zapatistas.

By Courtney Jung. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

In her book, The Moral Force of Indigenous Politics, Courtney Jung argues the case for

reframing the claims of indigenous groups in ways that are consistent with their

origins as well as with their social character. The author accuses the contemporary

normative discussion over multicultural citizenship of making a fetish of culture by

either demanding the privatization of cultural commitments or by insisting on the

obligation of democracies to protect the cultural groups making up their citizenry.

As an alternative, Jung presents the perspective of critical liberalism, which argues

for establishing the legitimacy of particular claims through the language of structural

injustice rather than cultural difference. Critical liberalism reorients the political

frame away from notions of identity, consensus, and collective rights. Instead,

it emphasizes the importance of contestation and membership rights as agents for

change in the self-perception and political participation of indigenous peoples in a

society that hitherto excluded them.

Jung argues that social identities such as race, gender, ethnicity or class function as

vessels of political identity, as a result of the way they have been used by the state to

regulate access to power. Turning cultural practices, skin color, biological sex, and

property ownership into boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, the state has been

central for the constitution of political identities. In her analysis the author traces

the formation and transformation of political identity among Mexicos ruralpoor. In this, she focuses on the realignment, from peasant to indigenous identity,

outlining the historical changes in self-perceptions among the autochthonous

population of Mexico starting from the time of the colony and putting particular

emphasis on the recent history of the Zapatista struggle in Chiapas.

Since the early 1990s indigenous identity has become a political alternative to

peasant identity and, as it has been used a resource by millions of the worlds most

dispossessed people to challenge the terms of their exclusion, the author regards it as

a political achievement rather than an accident of birth. Moreover, she contends that,

because they have been constructed as the antithesis of neoliberal globalization,

indigenous people are able put forth a powerful moral critique.

While Jung recognizes that liberalism has often been criticized for the exclusions,

which sustain it, she argues that the liberal rights regime also offers the terms by

ISSN 17442222 (print)/ISSN 17442230 (online)/11/0303293 2011 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17442222.2011.617592


3/4

which such exclusions can be contested. She notes that, although rights legitimate

democratic systems by setting forth a promise the state is pledged to uphold, they

also offer internal normative standards by which democratic governments can be

held to account. They provide oppressed peoples with a basis on which to constitute

the terms of struggle through the formation of new political identities, which Jung

regards as a condition of their political agency.

The book outlines how, over the course of the 20th century, indigenous peoples

have increasingly used the language of rights to establish the legitimacy of their

political presence. Indigenous identity thus emerges in the space that has opened

up between the international promise of indigenous rights as laid down in

convention 169 of the International Labor Organization and the failure by national

states to fulfill such promises. Indigenous activists use the same language of self-

determination and autonomy, consciously employing the proper terminology to link

their demands to the language in international declarations using them like a raftto put forth their demands. The author concludes that, while rights provide no

guarantee, they do offer a framework for participation and voice serving as a political

wedge anchored in moral leverage.

With a focus on the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, Jung investigates peasant

politics during the 1970s and 1980s, which laid the base for later indigenous politics.

It was thus the constitutional right to land redistribution that allowed peasants to

establish a genuinely political voice. The author convincingly shows that peasant

political identity in Chiapas has been neither automatic nor spontaneous but was

shaped by a broad range of activists ranging from the Catholic Church to Maoists

radicals. The focus on Chiapas emphasizes the authors key point, which holds that

the origins of the indigenous rights movement are to be found not in the desire to

protect traditional indigenous communities and practices, but instead in a history of

peasant political organization. Unfortunately the author describes the Zapatistas

shift of focus from a class-based social revolutionary perspective to indigenous

customs and traditions without considering the guerrilla movements strategic

motives for survival. This shortcoming is particularly salient as, although the case

of Oaxaca is prominently featured in the book, the influence of Oaxacan indigenous

rights activists who acted as the Zapatistas advisors in the San Andres negotiations

on indigenous autonomy remains without mention.Jung uses the example of the Zapatistas to illustrate how indigenous politics have

brought about a democratic opening both by establishing a new discourse of rights

and culture and by creating links to international forums and movements. When the

author contends that, by making common cause with feminists and the womens

rights movement, they have identified themselves as part of a progressive political

alliance of marginalized populations, explicitly eschewing a political stance rooted

in hidebound traditionalism, one would appreciate some further differentiation. It is

questionable how deep such progressive rhetoric by the Zapatistas reaches as often

the popular base of indigenous movements is not only antipathetic to feminist ideas

but it is simply not in charge of putting out the message heard by an international

audience; this is done by a select few public relations-specialists who are well-versed

in tuning their words to current global discourses, be they feminist, environmentalist

330 N. Barmeyer


4/4

or against neoliberal globalization. Due to an apparent limitation in first-hand

sources on the Zapatista movement, the authors portrayal of it appears overly

optimistic with regard to the proactive role of women and an alleged gender equality,

disregarding the stark discrepancies between the rebels media image and realities

on the ground.

In the face of limitations and the many risks of cooptation, Jung remains doubtful

whether indigenous political organization will develop the capacity to genuinely

transform politics and emphasizes the risk of it being limited to the sphere of culture.

She cautions that, as long as the indigenous idiom of political contestation limits

itself to cultural claims, it will not challenge the fundamental premise of neoliberal

reforms that impoverish and marginalize indigenous subsistence farmers. In her final

analysis, however, she regards the construction of indigenous political identity as a

strategic victory, which allows autochthonous groups to reach beyond the state for

alliances to exert pressure for their demands by using electoral and legal strategiesthat were beyond the scope of peasant activists in the 1970s and 1980s.

The book concludes that the responsibility of states lies in the fact that they

themselves have forged social groups and political identities by using markers such as

cultural practices, phenotypic traits, biological sex, and wealth to organize access

to power and delimit the boundaries of citizenship. Jung contends that, like race,

class, and gender, culture too develops political resonance when it has been used as

a marker of selective inclusion and exclusion. However, the author warns that

cultural groups commit a strategic error when they anchor their political claims

in cultural difference as they risk being limited to demands for cultural protection

and the preservation of tradition, which do not fundamentally challenge the

structural conditions of their disadvantaged position. In fact, some states may even

promote self-government of their indigenous populations, using territorial auton-

omy to evade state responsibility for providing development and social services.

On the whole, Jungs astute and complex analysis is both illuminating and

convincing as well as a highly enjoyable read.

Niels Barmeyer is at the Latin America Institute, Freie Universitat Berlin, Rudesheimer Strae

5456, 14197 Berlin, Germany (Email: [email protected]).

Zapatismo and the Legitimacy of Indigenous Rights 331

zapatismo y la ion de los derechos indigenas

Documents