The Zapatista Movement, Autonomous Education, and Indigenous Cultural Survival in Southern Mexico

Abstract

Abstract This chapter describes the role of the 1990s Zapatista movement in the cultural survival of Indigenous communities supporting the movement’s agenda in southern Mexico. It discusses how the Zapatista movement has facilitated transnational solidarity to its supportive Indigenous communities to sustain their autonomous authority and their education, health, and sustainable projects, while considering the role of archaeological sites in this process. The chapter argues that the survival of the Zapatista movement and the survival of Indigenous communities adhering to the movement’s ideals can be traced to two factors. First, over time Zapatistas have remained relevant social movement actors because of their ability to frame the movement’s discourse around various transnational mobilizing causes. Second, the survival of Zapatista-supporting Indigenous communities has been possible due to their relative success in sustaining their independent education, health, and sustainable projects. In some cases, by controlling public access to territories and archaeological sites Zapatista and non-Zapatista Indigenous communities have launched eco-tourism projects that sustain their continued autonomy. Nevertheless, granting Indigenous control over archaeological patrimony requires reforms at the constitutional level. Still, legal battles may only be possible over land tenure rights where heritage sites are located, because by law archaeological patrimony is property of the Mexican state. Being able to stop ongoing development projects that threaten Maya cultural sites and ecosystems of the Yucatán peninsula will assert Indigenous political power in the region and vis-à-vis the Mexican state, but the outcomes of current legal battles hang in the balance.