In Mayan Visions: The Quest for Autonomy in the Age of Globalization, anthropologist June C. Nash (2001) provides an account of the Maya people of Chiapas as they struggle to forge a place in the rapidly emerging global marketplace. Within the Mayan drive for cultural autonomy, the Zapatista Movement is explored; one that shows the wide scope of social movements that includes indigenous, grassroots, national, and global activism in Chiapas. Nash's current study of the Maya people is informed by her years spent as an anthropologist in Chiapas during the 1950s. After an interim period in which she produced work on Bolivia, she returned to Chiapas and observed and was involved in events before and after the 1994 insurrection. In doing so she has located Amantenango del Valle, "a community that had declared [itself] autonomous, within Chiapas, Mexico and the global environment" (Nash, 2001, p. 206).
The dominance of finance capital, Western ideologies of community and identity, and capitalism have worked against indigenous communities and identities, often exploiting them while undermining culture and autonomy. As Nash (2001) maintains, once Chiapas won independence in 1824 the "latent class contradictions held in check during Spanish colonial hegemony were let loose, as freedom of commerce and business opened the floodgates of unrestricted investments and expropriation by elites and foreigners" (p. 47). Nash (2001) argues that the agency of various social groups, from women and indigenous peoples to the Maya and EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional), strives to retain local identity as they frame macroeconomic and political alternatives that offer some measure of localized autonomy.
This analysis will offer an assessment of the impact of globalization on the Chiapas Mayans, focusing on the responses of various activist groups and movements. To understand how globalization is impacting this...