Postcolonial and Anti-Systemic Resistance by Indigenous Movements in Mexico

Abstract

Indigenous resistance against neoliberalism reveals numerous social transformations and political contributions in the context of a postcolonial transition from the world-system. The Mexican indigenous movement, inspired by the Zapatista rebellion, renewed conversations between the country's diverse indigenous peoples but also established new alliances with non-indigenous sectors of national society in defense of the commons and alternative ways of life to the civilizational order of capital. The radicalism, led by the indigenous peoples in their process of transformation into a social subject deploys new forms of collective action that break with the ideological discourses and narratives of modernity. As in other parts of the global South, communities in Mexico are actively engaged in consolidating their ability to govern themselves, through strategies of autonomy and self-determination, providing a wide variety of services to improve the quality of life of their members, diversifying their productive base and renewing their cultural heritage, while defending and caring for their territories. The indigenous movement is currently experiencing a conceptual and discursive renewal that inverts the assimilationist thesis implicit in the slogan of “Never again a Mexico without us,” from which their historical exclusion in the project of nation was questioned, to “We, without Mexico" that poses a radical questioning of the worn-out model of the nation-state, which assumes as its main objective to think (and act) beyond the State and capital. As part of international networks and alliances, they are engaged in leaving the world-system.