Turning Weakness Into Strength

Abstract

Social movement activists of the 1980s urged their constituencies to integrate grass-roots activity and international consciousness with the slogan Act locally-think globally. But movements to support the rights and better the conditions of indigenous peoples of the Americas have followed the opposite path. A movement that epitomizes local knowledge and consciousness has engaged in extensive international activity with surprising success; the anthropologist Stefano Varese has described this as Think locally, act globally (NACLA, 1991). How has a movement representing the most marginalized within its own societies been empowered by acting globally? What can a study of the Indian rights experience tell us about social movements and transnational relations?' International relations are an increasingly important determinant of domestic social change, while transnational alliances play a growing role in social movement activity (Alger, 1988). Yet most treatments of social movements are still framed in terms of implicit levels of analysis that subsume domestic protest and reform under relations with the state. These questions assume particular significance in Latin America. Historical patterns of U.S. domination have so thoroughly colored the region's international relations that many scholars treat Latin American international relations as a version of inter-American relations in a way that takes the claims and agenda of the