Wednesday, October 19, 2005
checking in with the Junta of Good Government
After a long stretch in town, it's good to be heading back out to the jungle. I prefer either the slow but fascinating unfolding of daily life in the remote rural communities, or the happy intensity of Mexico City--but San Cristóbal, while a pleasant little tourist town, gets boring fast.
I catch a 7:00 a.m. combi to the city at the jungle's edge, get to the bus lot around 9:30, and I'm lucky to get one of the last tickets left on the bus that leaves two and a half hours later. It's overfilled, and the driver and assistant spend most of the time before departure accommodating cargo and cajoling and negotiating with passengers about what will get tied to the rack on top of the bus. I'm in the last row and the jugs of gasoline are stashed behind me, so I breathe fumes for the next three hours. There's a drunken young man across the aisle from me who argues loudly and crudely with the assistant about whether he has paid his fare. Between slugs from his beer can he announces that he hasn't slept all night because he took the night bus from Cancún, on his way back from work in the U.S. To show how important and newly wealthy he is, he gives some money and stick-on tattoos to a young boy as payment for watching his bags. He is wearing paint-spattered work clothes and well-worn alligator boots and has relatively sparse luggage, so I suspect the employment did not work out as well as he had hoped; maybe he is drinking off his frustration.
I arrive around 3:30 p.m. at the Caracol, where I have decided I should check in with the regional Junta of Good Government to give them a preliminary report on how the research is going. They hadn't set any specific reporting requirements or timetable, but it seems like a good idea to touch base to keep their trust, to keep the process interactive, and to ask them some follow-up questions about themes that came up in the communities that they might be able to put in broader context.
The Vigilance Commission (two men and an older woman) takes down my name and purpose of the visit to pass on to the Junta and shows me to the waiting area, a dark sort of hallway between long sheds. I watch the dogs and pigs wander by as I wait about a half hour for the previous appointment to conclude, then I'm invited into the room where three men, ages about 30-45, sit behind a long table. I briefly summarize how the research is going, give them copies of my interview notes and a list of my questions for the Junta, as well as a proposal I have for a small solidarity project to support autonomous education (about which, more later). They ask a few questions about whether I'm planning to work in other municipalities, and how many communities I've visited so far. Then they explain that part of the Junta is busy meeting with some UN officials, and they'll need to study all the papers I've brought and consult when the rest of the Junta is available. Meanwhile I can go rest in the "camp" and they'll send for me tonight or tomorrow.
The last week and a half in San Cristóbal has been devoted to fairly mundane activities. I typed up all my interview notes while I could still read my handwriting, got caught up on some reading, and attended two seminar presentations at CIESAS, a prominent local anthropology institute. The topics were typically micro ethnographic anthropology, not a focus I find all that interesting, but it's nice to be included in the small community of academics in town. I also had a chance to get together with Marco, the sociologist from Mexico City who is just finishing three years of field work in Tojolabal communities, before he and his assistant Marsella returned to the capital. He is one of the very few people doing serious sustained research in communities in the so-called "conflict zone," amidst the gallons of ink spilled by armchair academics who churn out a lot of superficial and inaccurate impressions based on the speeches of Marcos (theatrical zapatismo) and a dose of whatever they want to find in the movement (good or bad) to confirm their preferences.
Marco and Marsella came over for wine and cheese by the fireplace (yes, it's getting chilly at night as dry season approaches) and we compared observations of Zapatista communities at great length, continued at La Pera where we repaired to hear some trova (Latin American social protest music). Marco casts the Zapatistas in a more negative light than my read, and we discussed our different perspectives with great interest but few conclusions. One factor may be simply that we work in different regions, and the decentralized Zapatista movement really works very independently out of each of the five Caracoles. But I think the difference also lies in a dilemma that also explains why there is so little serious fieldwork in Zapatista regions. Getting permission is very difficult and time-consuming, as I have discovered. I think it helped that I've been doing human rights work here for 11 years, but even that did not mean automatic entree, and I ended up getting permission in only one of two regions where I had hoped to work. In short, the closer you are to the Zapatistas, the more they will open up access to the communities, but then it becomes harder to step back and get the opposition/government perspective. On the other hand, those who keep an arms-length academic detachment are never trusted enough to get a real inside view of Zapatista community life. Marco and I may have leaned toward different sides of that dilemma. He is more of a traditional academic with apparently no solidarity background, and the bulk of his informants about zapatismo seem to be ex-insurgents and others who left the movement. He didn't get the access he wanted, which he views as evidence of censorship and secretiveness. Nevertheless, he is a careful researcher, and the chapters he shared with me will no doubt be valuable additions to the sparse body of fieldwork on this movement.
Afterwards I talked with Mariana, an anthropology grad student who is also among the very few doing fieldwork in the communities, and one of my two advisors (along with her classmate Melissa, who finished her fieldwork) on how to secure permission. Mariana spends a great deal of time living in the communities, and her perspective is much closer to mine than Marco's. In reconstructing the history of the movement, Mariana and I tend to see the other strands that parted company with the Zapatistas in the '80s and '90s as self-serving or coopted (the Maoists-turned-entrepreneurs, the Communists-turned-politicians), whereas Marco sees them as pragmatic and adaptive. But we all share an interest in the question of what makes some of the grassroots supporters accept the sacrifices of staying wiwth the Zapatista movement when others leave. The government is pouring resources into these tiny villages to woo away the base, and the Zapatista policy of refusing government programs is a strategic decision that calls for short-term economic hardship in the hope of bringing about more fundamental political change (though the Zapatistas try to offset some of the hardship with their own projects, some supported by solidarity, but carefully screened to maintain community control).
I continued talking about all this with Sonia and Anna, two very bright researchers at the Institute of Indigenous Studies where I'm affiliated. They are in a sort of in-between position, having done political work with proto-Zapatista indigenous organizations in the distant past, but now doing anthropology research as outside academics without access to Zapatista communities. Sonia reinforced my opinion that the differences in the communities cannot be reduced to simple economic calculation or land tenure prospects, but probably require a deeper understanding of factors rooted in very local histories. Anyway, these are some of the puzzles I hope to unravel by spending more time in the communities.
I mentioned to Mariana my idea of going to the state capital of Tuxtla to interview Martha Cecilia, the government's "special representative" for agrarian reform, and Mariana was also very interested, so we're planning to team up to request the interview together. I've been hearing for a couple of years now about Martha Cecilia's aggressive travels throughout the "conflict zone" to recruit peasants to a variety of government programs that undermine their commitment to collective organizing. Apparently she's a very wily political operator, so this could be quite interesting. Our plan is to dress nicely and go with our respectable U.S. academic hats on. We're going to prepare first by talking to Gustavo, a very knowledgeable sociologist at one of the local NGOs who had some interaction with Martha Cecilia about the government's schemes to evict settlers from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve.
The latter theme seems to be resurfacing, as some Mexican Congresspeople a few weeks ago issued a public statement calling on the Executive to resume evictions and also to investigate foreigners in the area who might be engaged in activities other than tourism. Montes Azules has a long and somewhat sordid history. The government declared the reserve in the early '70s, supposedly for environmental protection of rainforests, around the same time they granted exclusive rights to a largely overlapping "Lacandón Community"--over 600,000 hectares to a few hundred Maya Caribe settlers. It turned out to be a transparent bid to bribe the "Lacandón" leaders to sign over lumbering concessions to strip precious hardwoods--so much for conservation--and created tensions with preexisting settlers of various ethnnicities and varying degrees of prior legal claims to the land (including El Conejo and some of the surrounding communities where I've been working). In more recent times, transnational corporations are keen to get access to biodiversity resources, hydroelectric power, and other lucrative prospects (ostensibly including ecotourism, though that could be more of a smokescreen). The government also wants to clear out Zapatista supporters to gain strategic control of the southern jungle stretching to the Guatemalan border. All very interesting.
Meanwhile back at the Caracol, I am joined in the camp by two Italian guys in their late 20s, medical students from Milan who have just returned from volunteering for two weeks in the Zapatista clinic in Polhó in the highlands, for some 8,000 displaced people who fled paramilitary violence. The main health problems they found were intestinal parasites, which virtually everyone has, and respiratory problems aggravated by the smoke from each family's cooking fire. The Italians are here to sign up for another two week stint, this time in the jungle region. We go for coffee and crackers at the café, where we are joined by a young Catalán woman who works with the cooperative on marketing fair trade coffee and artisanry. They ask me why there are so few people from the U.S. in Chiapas compared to Europeans, and I don't really have a good explanation. I think even before the Zapatista uprising there was more European backpacking tourism along the "Ruta Maya," and more fascination with indigenous culture, which perhaps the U.S. mainstream has blocked out due to guilt over extermination of Native Americans. Also there is a stronger anarchist political current in Europe, especially around the Spanish Civil War (after which many sought refuge in Mexico), and many contemporary European anarchists seem to have the somewhat misguided belief that the Zapatista movement is one of theirs. And finally, people in the U.S. are simply less aware of what's going on in the rest of the world than Europeans. One of the Italians asked me with some amazement if it's true that 90% of people from the U.S. have never left the country, and while I'm not sure of the statistic, it sounds plausible.
Leaving the café around 10:00 p.m. I am surprised to run into Rafael from El Conejo, who tells me he has been looking for me. The Junta has approved the solidarity project, and it happens that a group from the autonomous municipality is here in the Caracol for meetings, so he suggests that I take the opportunity to talk with them now to develop the plan. It turns out to be fortunate timing, as there are about a dozen compañeros including the Education Commission representative and several education promoters and they're leaving tomorrow morning, so I catch them for a late-night meeting.
The proposal was, since I'm going to be in Dallas for a week in December (9th-16th) visiting my sister and her family, that I put out the word back in the States and try to raise funds for school supplies for the autonomous schools in the municipality. The Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ) in Ann Arbor has kindly agreed to receive tax-deductible donations (details on the next blog post), and I'll bring the funds back here with me in December and buy the materials locally and bring them for distribution to the municipality. The education folks were delighted by the prospect of receiving badly-needed supplies, and they all chimed in to draw up the wish list of the most urgent items. They told me the autonomous municipality now serves 1,787 students in 44 different communities. The teacher training school is about to begin training its third generation of education promoters, and in 2006 the first generation of the most experienced teachers will prepare to become teacher trainers themselves, so the Mexico City solidarity collective (Semillitas del Sol, or little seeds of sunlight) that has been training the teachers will just serve as advisors. The Education Commission has plans and dreams to expand the number of schools throughout the 110 communities in the municipality (county), and some day to establish a "third level" (secondary school) where the promoters can continue their own autonomous education.
Tuesday morning a compa drops by the camp to deliver a stack of delicious warm tortillas. I go for coffee with the Italians, then hang out waiting to talk with the Junta. They call me in before noon, seven men (including Rafael who is back on shift representing the municipality), and spend about an hour clearing up some questions I had from the interviews in communities. Then they explain that they have approved the solidarity proposal for school supplies, and depending on the amount of donated materials they may divide them up among the four autonomous municipalities in the region according to need. They seem satisfied with my research, and to my surprise, they also ask me if I could expand my study to include visits and interviews in all four municipalities, since there are significant differences between them. I am happy to do so, especially since my range of cases was unexpectedly reduced after I didn't get permission to work in the other region. For now I'm committed to spending time in El Conejo in November when the teacher training school reopens, and then working on the solidarity project in early December, so I'll have a busy schedule of travel in the region in the New Year.
I think the fact that I have come up with a proposal of concrete benefit to the communities might help allay whatever skepticism the Junta may have had about the merits of "purely academic" research. Or maybe they're just getting used to seeing me. It also helped that my visit to the Caracol happened to coincide with Rafael's shift on the Junta, since he has gotten to know me through multiple visits to El Conejo. I think I've passed the informal test in the municipality by hiking many hours through the muddy mountain paths to the communities. In any event, I was pleased that the Junta was so open, even responding without raised eyebrows to my questions about more sensitive topics--such as their division with earlier peasant organizations, and current Zapatista policy on labor migration to the U.S.
A few hours later, the Junta sends for me to give me a letter confirming their authorization of the solidarity project. I say my goodbyes and go out by the roadside around 3:45 p.m. to see if I can catch a ride out. Luck is with me as a truck comes by after only about fifteen minutes, and I get back to the town at the edge of the jungle just in time to catch what is probably the last combi of the evening to San Cristóbal.
I catch a 7:00 a.m. combi to the city at the jungle's edge, get to the bus lot around 9:30, and I'm lucky to get one of the last tickets left on the bus that leaves two and a half hours later. It's overfilled, and the driver and assistant spend most of the time before departure accommodating cargo and cajoling and negotiating with passengers about what will get tied to the rack on top of the bus. I'm in the last row and the jugs of gasoline are stashed behind me, so I breathe fumes for the next three hours. There's a drunken young man across the aisle from me who argues loudly and crudely with the assistant about whether he has paid his fare. Between slugs from his beer can he announces that he hasn't slept all night because he took the night bus from Cancún, on his way back from work in the U.S. To show how important and newly wealthy he is, he gives some money and stick-on tattoos to a young boy as payment for watching his bags. He is wearing paint-spattered work clothes and well-worn alligator boots and has relatively sparse luggage, so I suspect the employment did not work out as well as he had hoped; maybe he is drinking off his frustration.
I arrive around 3:30 p.m. at the Caracol, where I have decided I should check in with the regional Junta of Good Government to give them a preliminary report on how the research is going. They hadn't set any specific reporting requirements or timetable, but it seems like a good idea to touch base to keep their trust, to keep the process interactive, and to ask them some follow-up questions about themes that came up in the communities that they might be able to put in broader context.
The Vigilance Commission (two men and an older woman) takes down my name and purpose of the visit to pass on to the Junta and shows me to the waiting area, a dark sort of hallway between long sheds. I watch the dogs and pigs wander by as I wait about a half hour for the previous appointment to conclude, then I'm invited into the room where three men, ages about 30-45, sit behind a long table. I briefly summarize how the research is going, give them copies of my interview notes and a list of my questions for the Junta, as well as a proposal I have for a small solidarity project to support autonomous education (about which, more later). They ask a few questions about whether I'm planning to work in other municipalities, and how many communities I've visited so far. Then they explain that part of the Junta is busy meeting with some UN officials, and they'll need to study all the papers I've brought and consult when the rest of the Junta is available. Meanwhile I can go rest in the "camp" and they'll send for me tonight or tomorrow.
The last week and a half in San Cristóbal has been devoted to fairly mundane activities. I typed up all my interview notes while I could still read my handwriting, got caught up on some reading, and attended two seminar presentations at CIESAS, a prominent local anthropology institute. The topics were typically micro ethnographic anthropology, not a focus I find all that interesting, but it's nice to be included in the small community of academics in town. I also had a chance to get together with Marco, the sociologist from Mexico City who is just finishing three years of field work in Tojolabal communities, before he and his assistant Marsella returned to the capital. He is one of the very few people doing serious sustained research in communities in the so-called "conflict zone," amidst the gallons of ink spilled by armchair academics who churn out a lot of superficial and inaccurate impressions based on the speeches of Marcos (theatrical zapatismo) and a dose of whatever they want to find in the movement (good or bad) to confirm their preferences.
Marco and Marsella came over for wine and cheese by the fireplace (yes, it's getting chilly at night as dry season approaches) and we compared observations of Zapatista communities at great length, continued at La Pera where we repaired to hear some trova (Latin American social protest music). Marco casts the Zapatistas in a more negative light than my read, and we discussed our different perspectives with great interest but few conclusions. One factor may be simply that we work in different regions, and the decentralized Zapatista movement really works very independently out of each of the five Caracoles. But I think the difference also lies in a dilemma that also explains why there is so little serious fieldwork in Zapatista regions. Getting permission is very difficult and time-consuming, as I have discovered. I think it helped that I've been doing human rights work here for 11 years, but even that did not mean automatic entree, and I ended up getting permission in only one of two regions where I had hoped to work. In short, the closer you are to the Zapatistas, the more they will open up access to the communities, but then it becomes harder to step back and get the opposition/government perspective. On the other hand, those who keep an arms-length academic detachment are never trusted enough to get a real inside view of Zapatista community life. Marco and I may have leaned toward different sides of that dilemma. He is more of a traditional academic with apparently no solidarity background, and the bulk of his informants about zapatismo seem to be ex-insurgents and others who left the movement. He didn't get the access he wanted, which he views as evidence of censorship and secretiveness. Nevertheless, he is a careful researcher, and the chapters he shared with me will no doubt be valuable additions to the sparse body of fieldwork on this movement.
Afterwards I talked with Mariana, an anthropology grad student who is also among the very few doing fieldwork in the communities, and one of my two advisors (along with her classmate Melissa, who finished her fieldwork) on how to secure permission. Mariana spends a great deal of time living in the communities, and her perspective is much closer to mine than Marco's. In reconstructing the history of the movement, Mariana and I tend to see the other strands that parted company with the Zapatistas in the '80s and '90s as self-serving or coopted (the Maoists-turned-entrepreneurs, the Communists-turned-politicians), whereas Marco sees them as pragmatic and adaptive. But we all share an interest in the question of what makes some of the grassroots supporters accept the sacrifices of staying wiwth the Zapatista movement when others leave. The government is pouring resources into these tiny villages to woo away the base, and the Zapatista policy of refusing government programs is a strategic decision that calls for short-term economic hardship in the hope of bringing about more fundamental political change (though the Zapatistas try to offset some of the hardship with their own projects, some supported by solidarity, but carefully screened to maintain community control).
I continued talking about all this with Sonia and Anna, two very bright researchers at the Institute of Indigenous Studies where I'm affiliated. They are in a sort of in-between position, having done political work with proto-Zapatista indigenous organizations in the distant past, but now doing anthropology research as outside academics without access to Zapatista communities. Sonia reinforced my opinion that the differences in the communities cannot be reduced to simple economic calculation or land tenure prospects, but probably require a deeper understanding of factors rooted in very local histories. Anyway, these are some of the puzzles I hope to unravel by spending more time in the communities.
I mentioned to Mariana my idea of going to the state capital of Tuxtla to interview Martha Cecilia, the government's "special representative" for agrarian reform, and Mariana was also very interested, so we're planning to team up to request the interview together. I've been hearing for a couple of years now about Martha Cecilia's aggressive travels throughout the "conflict zone" to recruit peasants to a variety of government programs that undermine their commitment to collective organizing. Apparently she's a very wily political operator, so this could be quite interesting. Our plan is to dress nicely and go with our respectable U.S. academic hats on. We're going to prepare first by talking to Gustavo, a very knowledgeable sociologist at one of the local NGOs who had some interaction with Martha Cecilia about the government's schemes to evict settlers from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve.
The latter theme seems to be resurfacing, as some Mexican Congresspeople a few weeks ago issued a public statement calling on the Executive to resume evictions and also to investigate foreigners in the area who might be engaged in activities other than tourism. Montes Azules has a long and somewhat sordid history. The government declared the reserve in the early '70s, supposedly for environmental protection of rainforests, around the same time they granted exclusive rights to a largely overlapping "Lacandón Community"--over 600,000 hectares to a few hundred Maya Caribe settlers. It turned out to be a transparent bid to bribe the "Lacandón" leaders to sign over lumbering concessions to strip precious hardwoods--so much for conservation--and created tensions with preexisting settlers of various ethnnicities and varying degrees of prior legal claims to the land (including El Conejo and some of the surrounding communities where I've been working). In more recent times, transnational corporations are keen to get access to biodiversity resources, hydroelectric power, and other lucrative prospects (ostensibly including ecotourism, though that could be more of a smokescreen). The government also wants to clear out Zapatista supporters to gain strategic control of the southern jungle stretching to the Guatemalan border. All very interesting.
Meanwhile back at the Caracol, I am joined in the camp by two Italian guys in their late 20s, medical students from Milan who have just returned from volunteering for two weeks in the Zapatista clinic in Polhó in the highlands, for some 8,000 displaced people who fled paramilitary violence. The main health problems they found were intestinal parasites, which virtually everyone has, and respiratory problems aggravated by the smoke from each family's cooking fire. The Italians are here to sign up for another two week stint, this time in the jungle region. We go for coffee and crackers at the café, where we are joined by a young Catalán woman who works with the cooperative on marketing fair trade coffee and artisanry. They ask me why there are so few people from the U.S. in Chiapas compared to Europeans, and I don't really have a good explanation. I think even before the Zapatista uprising there was more European backpacking tourism along the "Ruta Maya," and more fascination with indigenous culture, which perhaps the U.S. mainstream has blocked out due to guilt over extermination of Native Americans. Also there is a stronger anarchist political current in Europe, especially around the Spanish Civil War (after which many sought refuge in Mexico), and many contemporary European anarchists seem to have the somewhat misguided belief that the Zapatista movement is one of theirs. And finally, people in the U.S. are simply less aware of what's going on in the rest of the world than Europeans. One of the Italians asked me with some amazement if it's true that 90% of people from the U.S. have never left the country, and while I'm not sure of the statistic, it sounds plausible.
Leaving the café around 10:00 p.m. I am surprised to run into Rafael from El Conejo, who tells me he has been looking for me. The Junta has approved the solidarity project, and it happens that a group from the autonomous municipality is here in the Caracol for meetings, so he suggests that I take the opportunity to talk with them now to develop the plan. It turns out to be fortunate timing, as there are about a dozen compañeros including the Education Commission representative and several education promoters and they're leaving tomorrow morning, so I catch them for a late-night meeting.
The proposal was, since I'm going to be in Dallas for a week in December (9th-16th) visiting my sister and her family, that I put out the word back in the States and try to raise funds for school supplies for the autonomous schools in the municipality. The Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ) in Ann Arbor has kindly agreed to receive tax-deductible donations (details on the next blog post), and I'll bring the funds back here with me in December and buy the materials locally and bring them for distribution to the municipality. The education folks were delighted by the prospect of receiving badly-needed supplies, and they all chimed in to draw up the wish list of the most urgent items. They told me the autonomous municipality now serves 1,787 students in 44 different communities. The teacher training school is about to begin training its third generation of education promoters, and in 2006 the first generation of the most experienced teachers will prepare to become teacher trainers themselves, so the Mexico City solidarity collective (Semillitas del Sol, or little seeds of sunlight) that has been training the teachers will just serve as advisors. The Education Commission has plans and dreams to expand the number of schools throughout the 110 communities in the municipality (county), and some day to establish a "third level" (secondary school) where the promoters can continue their own autonomous education.
Tuesday morning a compa drops by the camp to deliver a stack of delicious warm tortillas. I go for coffee with the Italians, then hang out waiting to talk with the Junta. They call me in before noon, seven men (including Rafael who is back on shift representing the municipality), and spend about an hour clearing up some questions I had from the interviews in communities. Then they explain that they have approved the solidarity proposal for school supplies, and depending on the amount of donated materials they may divide them up among the four autonomous municipalities in the region according to need. They seem satisfied with my research, and to my surprise, they also ask me if I could expand my study to include visits and interviews in all four municipalities, since there are significant differences between them. I am happy to do so, especially since my range of cases was unexpectedly reduced after I didn't get permission to work in the other region. For now I'm committed to spending time in El Conejo in November when the teacher training school reopens, and then working on the solidarity project in early December, so I'll have a busy schedule of travel in the region in the New Year.
I think the fact that I have come up with a proposal of concrete benefit to the communities might help allay whatever skepticism the Junta may have had about the merits of "purely academic" research. Or maybe they're just getting used to seeing me. It also helped that my visit to the Caracol happened to coincide with Rafael's shift on the Junta, since he has gotten to know me through multiple visits to El Conejo. I think I've passed the informal test in the municipality by hiking many hours through the muddy mountain paths to the communities. In any event, I was pleased that the Junta was so open, even responding without raised eyebrows to my questions about more sensitive topics--such as their division with earlier peasant organizations, and current Zapatista policy on labor migration to the U.S.
A few hours later, the Junta sends for me to give me a letter confirming their authorization of the solidarity project. I say my goodbyes and go out by the roadside around 3:45 p.m. to see if I can catch a ride out. Luck is with me as a truck comes by after only about fifteen minutes, and I get back to the town at the edge of the jungle just in time to catch what is probably the last combi of the evening to San Cristóbal.
# posted by Richard Stahler-Sholk @ 7:49 PM 
