Mayan Rebels in Chiapas

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

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timately such economic interaction policies were only a pretense at redistribution of wealth, even though PRI programs that were hegemonic were countered by indigenista efforts to retain elements of Mayan culture. Social Organization Social organization units or groups in the Chiapas Mayan community above the household level include grassroots organizations, religious groups, and artisan co-ops. The dominant identity forged by these groups is one of progressive economic development that retains local autonomy and cultural identity. Artisans routinely produce products for the international market, but distinctly local culture is conveyed through the exchange of such goods. Civil-religious interaction and activism is also achieved. Nash (2001) tells the story of a delegation of Tzeltales from Oxchuc who danced with a San Cristobal bishop. In Nash's (2001) view, it is this kind of blending but retention of cultural identity that reflects the Chiapas Mayan's strategy of integration with the larger economic sphere of globalization: "The images of the bishop, flittering in the midst of the thirteen men and thirteen women dancing in the cathedral's chapel of the Virgin Purisima, were a vision of how one might settle dis
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Approximate Word count = 1748
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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