Zapata Lives!

Zapata Lives! is the first scholarly study to examine contemporary Mexican Zapatismo comparatively, with an eye to regionally varying histories of peasant and indigenous relations to the national state. Analyzing the mosaic of experiences of agrarian reform, in the heartland of the Zapatista rebellion in eastern Chiapas and in central Oaxaca, Stephen clarifies how Zapata arose, and lives on, as a powerful symbol for the equity and social justice that men and women of Mexico's rural south demand of their government.--George Collier, author of Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas Lynn Stephen's new book on Zapatismo is her best work to date and will win her great acclaim. It is a fascinating and highly accessible study of the interplay of state ideology, political economy, and local responses in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. Many scholars and students have been waiting for a richer contextualization of the Zapatista movement, and Stephen offers very effective tactics to frame such a study.--Kay Warren, author of Indigenous Movements and Their Critics Zapata Lives! is a testimony to the struggles and tentative hopes of indigenous populations in Mexico. It is also a testimony to the remarkable synergy that emerges from conjoining the ethnographic encounter with political events in their contested historical contexts. Articulate and compassionate herself, Stephen introduces her informants as the most articulate exponents of their own views and urges us to share their passions and perplexities. In short, this is an academically rich work that also engages the sensitivities and imagination of the reader.--Michael Herzfeld, author of Cultural Intimacy Ethnographic in method and encyclopedic in scope, this morally engaged book is indispensable to understanding historic transformations occurring in contemporary Mexico. Through comparative fieldwork in Chiapas and Oaxaca, Stephen reveals local impacts of and responses to the ongoing Zapatista rebellion, recent changes in Mexico's agrarian law, and the imposition of the North American Free Trade Agreement.--Michael Kearney, University of California, Riverside The Chiapas rebellion inspired widespread sympathy in the Mexican countryside, yet few followed the same path. Zapata Lives! unravels this puzzle by comparing agrarian political identities in both insurgent and quiescent rural communities. Stephen deftly explains local identity formation through the lenses of ethnicity, gender and class, as framed by diverse historical legacies of state-community relations. In the process, she breaks important ground in engaged anthropology, redefining what it means to be in the field.--Jonathan Fox, University of California, Santa Cruz