Lecture Outline: Zapatistas

1. Introduction
   1. 1994 uprising in Chiapas
      1. Black-masked leader, known only by a pseudonym: Subcomandante Marcos
      2. (More details): Fighting for indigenous rights on behalf of colonized people.

       

   2. Questions/Outline
      1. Background on Chiapas
      2. Who are the Zapatistas, and what are they fighting for?
      3. Why have Zapatistas become such prominent critics of globalization?
      4. How has technology affected their movement?
      5. Why has the Zapatista movement made links beyond Mexico, and what role have they played in a global NGO movement?

    

2. Background: the state of Chiapas
   1. Where is it in Mexico?
   2. Social divisions in Chiapas
   3. Colonialism and Ethnic conflict as roots of confrontation.
      1. Colonial Rule: 3 important concepts
         1. Encomienda
         2. Repartimiento
         3. Debt
      2. Hacienda system
      3. Struggles against Colonial Power
         1. 1867-1870: Guerra de Castas (war of castes)
         2. 1910: Emiliano Zapata
         3. 1974: San Juan Chamula uprising
      4. Ongoing discrimination
         1. Racism:
         2. Social and Economic Apartheid in Chiapas
3. Who are the Zapatistas, and what are they fighting for?
   1. Who they are
      1. A group of armed guerrillas fighting for the rights of the "campesinos," or the Mexican peasantry.
      2. Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), or "Zapatistas."
      3. "Subcomandante Marcos"
   2. What they are fighting for
      1. Political and cultural autonomy
      2. Economic restructuring
4. Zapatistas as critics of globalization
   1. they have come to realize that they are not just struggling against the Mexican government, but against the exploitation of LOCAL peoples by GLOBAL corporations and multinational capital.
      1. The Zapatistas find themselves now at the center of a struggle between the global and the local.
      2. They have become the MOST prominent critics of a particular aspect of globalization: NEOLIBERALISM.

    

5. How technology has shaped the Zapatista movement.
   1. Changing understandings of what they are fighting against have shaped the WAY the Zapatistas fight for dignity, justice, autonomy, and livelihood.
   2. Early Protests: pre 1994
   3. 1994 insurgency and NAFTA
   4. Organizing in cyberspace: www.ezln.com
      1. Affecting the Zapatista movement
      2. Has become the centerpiece for hundreds of NGOs around the world who are opposed to globalization and neoliberalism.
      3. What is significant about cyberorganizing among the Zapatistas?
         1. I think of this less as "netwar" than as a way of redrawing GEOGRAPHY to the Zapatistas advantage.
   5. Effects
      1. Downfall of PRI
      2. The larger anti-neoliberalism movement has changed the way the World Bank does business.
      3. A new kind of politics: