Eyes Chiapas Mattiace, Shannan L.

¶ … Eyes

Chiapas

Mattiace, Shannan L. (2003). To see with two eyes: Peasant activism and Indian autonomy in Chiapas, Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Shannan L. Mattiace's 2003 combined ethnography, historiography, and polemic entitled to see with two eyes: Peasant activism and Indian autonomy in Chiapas, Mexico chronicles the struggle of the indigenous people of Mexico for political autonomy, power, and social recognition. These aims have often proved difficult to achieve in the context of a mestizo-dominated nation that is hostile to indigenous autonomy as well as is unwilling to acknowledge the rights of the poor to higher wages and to better living conditions. All too often, in contemporary Mexico, it has been more convenient for the ruling governments to try to assimilate Mexico's native populace into existing political institutions and to pretend that poverty does not exist.

The plight of Mexico's indigenous communities gained world attention during the 1990s, due to the military efforts of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, or EZLN), a revolutionary group that engaged in armed resistance on behalf of indigenous, impoverished people in the Chiapas and eventually secured the right to negotiate with the national government. Mattiace attempts to give a historical context to this recent struggle, and traces their Zapatista's roots to inequities existing well before the mid-1990s. However, Mattiace also wishes to distinguish the Zapatista's character, aim, and objectives from previous revolutionary struggles amongst the poor. Although the Zapatistas articulated aims that were of interest all of Mexico's economically disenfranchised, the origins of the movement lay in indigenous and agricultural communities. The Zapatista's cause revolved around legitimizing the identity of rural, indigenous, and agricultural laborers as well as more concrete political aims. Their ideological emphasis was primarily indigenous, rather than class-based, in contrast to previously-organized groups designed to empower the poor. Mattiace hopes to add to the existing research on the topic of social revolutions in Mexico by adding complexity to the characterization of revolutionary struggles over the course of Mexican history, and show the heterogeneous nature of the indigenous movement for justice.

Shannon L. Mattiace is trained as an anthropologist and a political scientist, and she uses field study methods in addition to providing a historical overview of indigenous political activism in Mexico to illustrate her thesis. She primarily uses the example of the Tojolabal-Maya tribe's efforts to gain a stronger foothold within the political system. She lived amongst and studied this community, and uses them as an illustration of her central contention -- that there is the need to strike a balance between the dueling calls from assimilation of native tribes and autonomy from Mexican central authorities, that there must be "a dialogue between Indian and non-Indian society about democracy" (Mattiace 2003, p. 155). Indigenous or national calls for autonomy may have, according to her thesis, replaced class-based calls for authority to some degree, but neither category of class nor race can be overlooked by either of the two groups in creating a new Mexico (Mattiace 2003, p. 3). Mattiace confesses her methodology is based in an ideological bias, as even before embarking upon her research, she came with the viewpoint of someone with a long commitment to social justice organizations and populist empowerment.

Dispersed between her ethnographic studies of the Tojolabal, Mattiace uses her more scholarly research chapters to stress that the struggle for recognition for Indian rights has been a long one, yet one which underwent a seismic shift in character after the 1994 EZLN movement, which explicitly defined the fight for native rights in terms of cultural autonomy (Mattiace 2005, p.4). Before, struggles for social justice were defined around more vaguely defined collective, peasant organizations that lacked a distinct cultural character. After state support weakened for these class-based groups, native tribes reconfigured their mobilization efforts as a fight for integrity based upon ethnic identity rather than class alone. The EZLN talks placed the final 'nail in the coffin,' according to Mattiace, for groups that defined themselves purely in terms of class-based solidarity. The success of the EZLN instead shifted the emphasis to native rights. This was also rooted in a wider trend to emphasize identity and other forms of self-identification on an international level, rather than class, given the death of Marxism as a viable challenge to capitalism.

Before, it has been assumed that collective, indigenous struggles for economic and political rights would be inherently problematic, given the cultural divisions between different tribes and their sense of personal 'closed' identity. It was also feared amongst many advocates that claims of worker solidarity, across urban and rural sectors could become problematic if identity politics were emphasized. A distinguishing feature of new, as opposed to old labor movements, was the stress upon dignity and recognition for native tribes rather than labor and wages alone (Mattiace 2003, p. 24). Before, Marxists may have rhetorically honored the indigenous people's unique nature and contribution to Mexico's past but saw native cultural preservation as a potential threat to class unity (Mattiace 2003, p.59).

The Zapatistas first gained prominence when they occupied several towns in Chiapas in the name of all Mexicans lacking adequate food, housing and healthcare -- they spoke for specific national interests of indigenous peoples and for all Mexicans at the same time, according to Mattiace (Mattiace 2003, p. 4). This idea that it was impossible for struggles to be both local and national was one of the reasons ethnicity was deemphasized in previous social movements but confounded by the initial success of the Zapatista movement (Mattiace 2003, p. 15). During the EZLN talks with the Mexican government regional and local indigenous movements and governing bodies began to rise in prominence -- the assumption that nationality was counterproductive for social justice struggles proved untrue, and in fact the cause of nationalists seemed to be a profoundly persuasive way to rally the poor around class-based issues and to make use of existing social networks (Mattiace 2003, p. 22).

Although the Tojolobal's struggles are often used as representative of the movement as a whole, Mattiace is careful to stress their uniqueness as a people -- another core contention of her work is that the movement for indigenous justice is not hegemonic. The Tojolabal-Maya were selected by Mattiace because the group exhibited features of culture-based movement for Indian autonomy, but theirs was not a so-called closed community -- its agricultural model connected it to greater Mexican society because the Tojolabal frequently had to find work as laborers. The indignities of sharecropping and the difficulties they experienced migrating to and from various properties where they worked fostered a deep sense of outrage at conditions of the poor vs. The right. This sense of the shared injustice of poverty as well as a common culture shaped the Tojolabal experience, even while ethnic identity was core to their political mobilization (Mattiace 2003, p.39). By comparing their lot in life with those whom they worked for, poverty and ethnicity became conjoined in the Tojolabal mindset.

The title of the book refers to what Mattiace calls the uniquely bifurcated or hybrid perspective of the Tojolabal in particular, but true of other indigenous communities. "To see with two eyes" was a familiar phrase of the Bolivian indigenous leader Victor Hugo Cardenas, who said that political radicals must see with two eyes, with the eyes of the poor peasants but also of indigenous peoples and their varying perspectives (Mattiace, 2003, p. 152). One cannot understand the plight of indigenous people and the long history of cultural repression as well as economic inequities they have suffered with a single lens -- poverty and ethnicity must both be examined as sources of oppression.

Achieving a sense of solidarity as indigenous people and retaining the integrity themselves as a people are two challenges faced by the Tojolabal. One reason the Tojolabal fascinate and confuse definitions of what constitutes an indigenous population is that they do not fit the traditional definition of a 'closed' community, according to Mattiace -- the Tojolabal are neither fully integrated with greater society, nor are they isolated and 'pure' in their culture unlike the other native tribes in the area. They often functioned betwixt and between both cultures, given that they have been exposed to mestizo society as laborers. However, the Tojolabal, like almost all indigenous groups seek political autonomy. Within the Tojolabal community, there was some debate and dissent as to how this should be achieved, either as a form of regional or local control, the latter of which was more popular amongst other Mayan tribes of the region.

As well as providing insight into the specific struggles of the Tojolabals, as learned through her field observations, Mattiace chronicles the attitudinal patterns of resistance and containment that have categorized the relationship of the Mexican state with indigenous peoples. In the 1930s the separatist political organizations of native tribes were forced by the ruling government to become members of the national party. There was a move to create a singular, fused Mexican identity, culturally and through the use of government influence (Mattiace, 2003, p.57). Ironically, this method of containment failed: being tied to the national party raised rather than inhibited the political awareness of tribes such as the Tojolabal.