Indigenous Organizations in Chiapas, Mexico[1] by Gabriela Vargas-Cetina

© : Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science Vol 1 (3) 2001 Postcolonial Sites and Markets: Indigenous Organizations in Chiapas, Mexico[1] by Gabriela Vargas-Cetina Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán ABSTRACT Soon, a minor constellation of indigenous cooperatives had sprung across the Chiapas jungle. This article discusses different forms of This woman does not charge for her services as misrecognition regarding indigenous people in the organizations’ consultant; her only income Chiapas. It is based on the author’s extensive comes from the sales of crafts she makes, which fieldwork with Chiapas organizations between she markets along with the crafts produced by 1995 and 1999, and questions the idea that the indigenous people in the cooperatives, mak- postcolonials’ participation in the geography (the ing them pass for indigenous products. writing of the world) could transform current power structures. Indigenous organizations have Why do people from many countries want to adjust their everyday operations to those per- to work for free for indigenous people in Chiapas? ceptions from which indigenous people are ‘oth- Why do the indigenous communities accept this ers’ who live in a realm different from non-indig- type of help? And, why is it so difficult for a non- enous everyday life. The paper calls attention to indigenous person to sell crafts, while it is so the ways in which misrecognition affects the much easier for those people seen as indig- markets and the long-term viability of indigenous enous? Is the crafts market the only specialty organizations in Chiapas. market indigenous people have an advantage in? Could an indigenous organization sell, say, elec- INTRODUCTION trical appliances, directing them to the “indigenous” niche markets? These questions seem In 1997 a woman from San Cristobal de las not to make much sense, because we already Casas began a project to promote the creation “know” the answers. However, the very fact that of cooperatives and collectives in the municipali- we have “natural” answers for them should make ties of Las Margaritas and Altamirano, in the state us stop and think hard about our preconceived of Chiapas. These two municipalities are part of notions of “indigenous peoples” and their place the region where the Ejército Zapatista de in the contemporary world. This paper, based on Liberación (EZLN) has its widest base among the six years of research in Chiapas, between 1995 indigenous population. To get her project going, and 1999, reflects on issues concerning indig- this woman sought funds from the Chiapas gov- enousness, the publicly imagined Chiapas, and ernment and from international foundations. the market as they affect actual indigenous or- 68 Gabriela Vargas-Cetina ganizations in that state of Mexico. Here I argue Most Indians, however, did not speak the national that there are multiple misperceptions of who or language and did not know their rights before what indigenous people are, and these national Courts and Tribunals. Even so, they were misperceptions, in turn, increasingly affect the transformed into “farmers” and “peasants,” along everyday operations of indigenous organizations with non-Indian rural producers (Ferrer Muñoz, in Chiapas. 1999-2000). Gayatri Spivak (1999: 30) says that the In 1915 a Decree emitted by the Govern- only way postcolonials are ever going to stand ment of President Venustiano Carranza restored on equal footing with those from colonial nations to indigenous communities the lands that had is through their participation in the geo-graphy, been expropriated from them (Zaragoza and the writing of the world. I want to speak to this Macías, 1980: 99). The notion of ejido, the way notion, and suggest that having the possibility of in which the Spanish friars had named the com- writing the world is not enough in itself. The con- munal lands of some Indian groups in central ditions of that —or any— writing continue to be Mexico, was often used to encompass the Indian colonial environments and colonized relation- communities’ landholdings in the entire country. ships. The case of indigenous organizations in It would not be until the 1920s that the govern- Chiapas is paradigmatic in this respect, as they ments, emerging from the Mexican Revolution of have both limitations and advantages when en- 1910 to 1925, would recognize Indian communi- tering the national and international markets, pre- ties’ rights over the ejido lands to which they had cisely because of their subordinate position in become entitled in the Constitution of 1917 contemporary Mexican society. (Zaragoza and Macías, 1980: 147-153). By then, however, Indian communities were considered As the mythical legend goes, Christopher rural communities, different from others only in Columbus arrived in the beaches of what we now that their inhabitants spoke languages other than call the Americas believing he had reached Asia. Spanish and were more exotic than other rural Because of this confusion, the people living there people. If the ejido was a way to give Indian com- came to be called Indians. Subsequent explora- munities control over their lands, it was also a tions and discoveries led to the realization, which way to erase them conceptually as Indians and Columbus apparently never quite accepted transform them into peasants. (O’Gorman, 1993[1958]), that these lands were previously unknown to European geographers When it comes to contemporary indig- and to the public at large. The logical conclusion enous people, we Mexicans engage in different should have been that the people the Spaniards forms of misrecognition. Relations between Mexi- had found were not Indians at all. However, cen- cans and Mexico’s native others seldom, if ever, turies of Colonial rule did not eliminate the noun manages to breach colonialism, as I explain be- Indian as a description of the original inhabitants low. Furthermore, the forms of colonial and those considered their descendants. misrecognition, take on similar implications be- yond Mexican borders. This is partly so because Under Colonial laws Indians were wards Mexican Spanish-speakers generally see our- of the Church and the Spanish Crown. Between selves as part of “Western culture.” Non-indig- 1810 and 1820 the troops of the Royalist and the enous Mexicans, most of whom live in cities, Independentist army, both of which included Indi- speak a language that came from Spain and prac- ans in their rank and file, fought over what today tice religions from Ancient Rome (Roman Catholi- is the country of Mexico (Arrangoiz y Berzabal, cism), Germany (Protestantism), and the United 1974[1871]; Ferrer Muñoz, 1999-2000). After States (Church of the Latter-day Saints). They 1825, Republican laws, modeled after the French also attend schools and settle disputes through legal system, put the Indians on equal legal foot systems of education and law first implemented with the rest of Mexicans (Ferrer Muñoz, 1998). in France. As John Womack Jr. (1998) points 69 © : Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science Vol 1 (3) 2001 out, Americans fantasize about Mexico, thinking and the San Cristobal Diocese organized an in- that it is an exotic place, and most of its citizens digenous Congress. Current leaders of indig- are indigenous people. However, neither of these enous organizations say that this Congress two fantasies is tenable; 71% of Mexicans live in brought Chol, Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Tojolabla speak- cities, speak Spanish as their first language, and ers together for the first time, not in their usual the philosophical bases of non-indigenous Mexi- role of peasants but as representatives and car- can’s outlook on life are not so different from those riers of distinctive cultures and valuable lan- underlying the thinking of Europeans or of other guages. Many indigenous organizations sprung urban inhabitants of the Americas. The colonialist up after the Congress. These included a new relationships established between most of Mexico branch of the Central Independiente de Obreros and the country’s indigenous peoples is, in fact, Indígenas y Campesinos (CIOAC), Alianza part of the wider colonial relations between an Campesina 10 de Abril, Bloque Campesino de imagined “West” and the imagined “indigenous Chiapas, Unión de Uniones, Tierra y Libertad, peoples” of the Americas. Quiptik Ta Lecubetsel, Unión de Trabajadores Agrícolas y Campesinos, and the crafts market Here I write as a concerned Mexican an- which later developed into the Crafters’ Coopera- thropologist, who sometimes catches herself tive Sna Jolobil (Alvarez Icaza, 1998; Gutiérrez moving within the conceptual categories born out Sánchez, 1998; Kovic, 1995, Vargas-Cetina, in of the kinds of misrecognition I am trying to de- press, Womack Jr., 1998). A member of ARIC- scribe here. My own interest in the colonial vi- Unión de Uniones describes the organizational sions and modalities under which the geo-graphy impetus generated by this Congress in the fol- of the world affects indigenous peoples stems lowing way: from my work with indigenous weavers’ organizations in Chiapas. These organizations have to “We had an indigenous Congress in 1974 of a thousand market their products in the national and interna- representatives. We discussed four themes and agreed that the tional markets with specific specialty niches in most important one was land tenure. Then, we were all separate mind. These niche markets are open to them individuals, so we formed this organization since 1974.”[2] precisely because of the producers’ self-repre- (Vargas-Cetina, fieldnotes 1997) sentation as “indigenous persons.” Right now, this niche may seem relatively advantageous for This was the first indigenous Congress to take these producers; however, in the long run it only place in Chiapas. Since 1964, a group of techni- perpetuates the same colonial relations now cians known as promotores bilingües (bilingual questioned worldwide by indigenous movements, promoters) had been busy among native speak- including the Zapatista indigenous movement in ers of languages other than Spanish explaining Chiapas.

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