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Copyright of Latin American Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scholars often assume that social movements and civil society organizations can draw on deep wells of traditional resources, such as money and lawyers, to finance legal mobilization. However, resource mobilization is rarely so straightforward in developing countries such as Mexico. I show how under‐resourced civil society organizations create and mobilize alternative resources which they share with marginalized communities, increasing those communities' access to environmental justice. This occurs in developed countries too, but where money is scarcer, alternative non‐material resources are more important. The findings contribute to debates on social movement resource mobilization and on legal mobilization in defence of vulnerable communities facing development pressures from extractive and other industries. The article also provides a fine‐grained analysis of how environmental movements act on the ground, focusing on Mexico as an important case of environmental mobilization in a context of poorly resourced and vulnerable communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the class dynamics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador. It argues that the nature of contemporary demands for food sovereignty is heavily influenced by the outcomes of peasant movements' historical and ongoing internal class dynamics. Processes of class differentiation within peasant organizations in both countries have led to the interests of certain classes predominating over or at the expense of others. Despite La Vía Campesina's projection of 'unity in diversity', incorporating sometimes conflicting class interests into the movement is particularly challenging. As such, class analysis must be brought back into debates around food sovereignty in order to gauge (and potentially further) the movement's transformative potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social justice struggles across the Americas have, over the last half century, transformed the urban areas of this region into international staging grounds for protesting the global devastation wrought by capitalist exploitation, state terror and social hatred. This paper maintains that there is much to learn for struggles against this triangulation in other parts of the world. In particular, through a discussion of how contemporary activism in Mexico against feminicidio, drug wars and brutal repression draws from a long legacy of protest across the Americas, I seek to illustrate the relevance for other places as people fight a cruel modernity that evolves through terror, profit and hatred. Critical geography has long contributed to exposing these connections and can still deepen its commitments to mapping the landscapes of the growing populations of disappeared and marginalized peoples in Mexico and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, we argue that post-2010 activisms, ranging from the Arab revolts to the Occupy movement, the Indignados and anti-austerity protests in Europe, and the pro-democracy protests in Russia and Mexico, exhibit three kinds of commonalities. These are a common infrastructure of networks and meetings that facilitate rapid diffusion; a generational background shaped both by the precarity of paid work and by exposure to and participation in global information streams; and, most fundamentally, a shared articulation of demands and practices. We further argue that three interconnected concepts have been at the core of both demands and the identity of these movements: democracy, social justice and dignity. Flowing from these three shared values and practices, post-2010 activisms also share a mistrust of institutional politics and a determination not to become corrupted by power, which run deeper than in previous generations of activists and which pose an ongoing challenge to their involvement with formal politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political transnational practices-that is, both the physical and symbolic border-crossing political practices-of two Zapatista groups. This study seeks to contribute to the existing body of literature on transnationalism and citizenship by focusing on immigrants' political transnational activities in the global South, as well as transnational activists' practices in the global North influenced by the global South. I argue that transnational ideological and political influences are bidirectional, that is, influences also flow from the global South to the global North. In addition, I argue that different transnational practices are strongly shaped by structural opportunities and constraints on activists, in this case, by citizenship status and economic class. My arguments are drawn from fieldwork and in-depth interviews conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area with two Zapatista groups, which I name the Localizers and the Globalizers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RESUMEN Este artículo examina la movilización popular y social en Oaxaca, México a través del ejemplo del movimiento de la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO). Estas páginas se centran en la manera en que el concepto de “indigeneidad” fue utilizado en representaciones e identificaciones de la APPO por diversos actores sociales. Un análisis más profunda de la actual movilización social en Oaxaca, ejemplificado por la APPO, sugiere que el uso de indigeneidad como etiqueta de identidad requiere una perspectivacrítica. Este trabajo argumenta que una dependencia aparente de modos de pensar dicotomizados (por ej., indígena/no-indígena) nos limita a la hora de revelar los diálogos de identidad dentro de la APPO y otras formas actuales de movilización colectiva a gran escala en Latinoamérica. También obstaculiza el reconocimiento de la extensión y medios con los que las identidades generadas por movilizaciones aquí y más allá son constituidas por una sociedad civil más global (y virtual). This article examines popular social mobilization in Oaxaca, Mexico, through the example of the 2006 movement of the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO). It focuses on the way the concept of “indigeneity” came to be used in representations and identifications of the APPO by various social actors. A deeper examination of current social mobilization in Oaxaca as exemplified by the APPO suggests that the use of indigeneity as an identity label should be approached with a more sharply ground critical lens. This work argues that an apparent continued analytical reliance on modes of dichotomized thinking (e.g., indigenous/non-indigenous) is limiting in terms of revealing the complicated interpellations of identity at play in the APPO and other current forms of large-scale collective action in Latin America. It also prevents recognition of the extent and ways in which movement identities here and elsewhere are being constituted by an increasingly global (and virtual) civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of neoliberal globalization, portrayals of “literacy” and “knowledge” are increasingly emphasized for their instrumental value for individuals and markets. At the same time, locally situated movements have emerged to challenge, resist, and transform these representations. This article examines a grassroots movement in Mexico, the Feria Pedagógica (Pedagogical Fair), as one such site of contestation. Grounded in nonmainstream notions of “civil society,” this movement represents an alternative educational space where literacy practices are tied to the construction of counterhegemonic identities and epistemologies.[literacy, civil society, social movements, popular education, Mexico] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the role of NGOs as mediators of change may yield important theoretical insights into the processes by which neoliberalizing projects become embedded in and consequently transformed by specific settings. In recent decades, NGOs have played an important role in mediating intertwined and often contradictory processes of political and economic liberalization in countries around the globe. However, changes to the political context in which NGOs work have altered the nature of the interventions these groups make. This article examines how members of a Mexican NGO community centered in the provincial city of Tulancingo, Hidalgo, rework cultural idioms of mediation to position themselves as legitimate intermediaries linking rural cooperatives, state officials, international donors, and global activist networks. Their strategies for confronting their own entrapment in processes of structural reform illuminate the constraints faced by Southern activists in negotiating possibilities for social change after the Washington Consensus. They also underline the importance of renewed attention to the role of intermediaries in enabling and enacting structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As states weaken and public health care deteriorates throughout the developing world, new spaces are opening for civil society groups to fill the gaps of declining health systems. In Mexico, popular health groups have responded to health care decline by building community clinics, establishing health promoter training programs, and opening natural medicine pharmacies. Lower- and working-class women are the primary participants in these groups that use a self-help approach to find practical solutions to local health care problems. However, little is known about participants’ circumstances, motivations, or the ideals they embrace. Drawing from women's narratives, I explore the “micropolitics” of women's participation in local health groups. I examine their efforts to reclaim control over the health process as a metaphor for claiming control over their lives. Highlighting the “instrumental effects” of participants’ medical encounters and healing relationships, this case illuminates some unintended consequences of health care decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author reviews some of the conclusions of the literature on peasant rebellions in the light of current land struggles of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico. The author argues that conventional explanations of peasant rebellions are inappropriate for the analysis of current land struggles in Latin America in the midst of the process of neoliberal globalization. Neither struggle can be characterized as ‘quasi-feudal’, nor as conservative reactions, but instead should be interpreted as attempts to create a basis for self-subsistence and autonomy. Consequently, the author proposes Marx's concept of alienated labour as an alternative explanatory concept, because it highlights one of the main objectives of the members of the MST and the EZLN, which is the control over their livelihood through a struggle for their re-peasantization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forms of official multiculturalism that many recent scholars have characterized as a reflection of post–Cold War social movements and emergent forms of neoliberal governmentality can be experienced locally in ways that reflect a greater degree of continuity with older institutions and styles of politics. In Yucatán, ambiguities in the meaning of officially sanctioned categories such as “Maya” and “indigenous” have persisted even as local people and representatives of the state collaborate in the consolidation of official cultural institutions. The collective experience of several generations of Maya speakers in negotiating this ambiguous discursive space creates strong parallels between contemporary multiculturalism and older indigenist policies. [ Maya, Mexico, Yucatán, multiculturalism, indigenous policy, ambiguity] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the public's perception on women's studies and the social justice movement in northern Mexico. The author discusses how women's studies departments in the education system in Pennsylvania are treated socially and legally. The essay also illustrates the association of women's studies with the social justice movement in northern Mexico.

In Chimalapas, Mexico, nongovernmental actors attempted to integrate campesinos into the discourse and practices of the Western environmental movement. The political economy school of anthropology assumes that cultural identity and practice flow from historical experiences grounded in relevant national and institutional contexts. In this article, I argue that although the movement in Chimalapas drew from the well-developed symbolic toolkit of the environmental movement, it was not able to create a space for local concerns within a transnational agenda that was already fairly well established and inflexible. Political ecology was the hinge of this movement: a political-economic analysis that validated traditional agrarian concerns in Chimalapas but included an environmentalist discourse legible to international funders. In this way, environmentalists in Chimalapas attempted both to create new practices and to link old practices to new expressions of culture and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the utility and futility of the concept of resistance in relationship to urban popular movements in Cancun. While Cancun has become the most popular tourist destination in Mexico, the city is characterized by severe inequalities and neighborhood segregation, the legacy of city planning. Urban settler movements have organized to pressure the city and state governments for land for purchase, public works, and services; yet the power of these movements has been curtailed by government strategies of co-optation, orchestrated enthusiasm, and the bureaucratization of resistance. Many city residents expressed doubts that democratic elections and settler movements could ever successfully ameliorate their condition of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development NGOs have been accused by some of being new instruments of control, domesticated by the neoliberal project. For others, they elaborate and pursue alternative dreams. In this paper, we argue that, although the majority of NGOs have been co-opted to serve hegemonic development agendas, they nevertheless present a fluid, contradictory web of relations, within which a significant minority seeks to make spaces of resistance, and where even the most neoliberal NGOs are used by some clients to create new associational spaces. Drawing on work with NGOs in Ghana, India, Mexico and Europe, we explore various strategies deployed by this minority of“independent thinking NGOs”. We argue that there is an important production of Melucci's submerged networks or latent social movements, however limited their political impact to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the military coup that began the imposition of neoliberalism in Argentina led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, which celebrates its 25th year anniversary in March 24, 2001. History of the movement which originated in Mexico; Success of the movement to mobilize Mexican society to demand indigenous autonomy and dignity; Diffuse dialogues which linked the Latin American south to the southeast of Mexico.

Focuses on the life story of Mexican revolutionary, Pancho Villa. Reputation; Views about politics and social problems; Involvement in the establishment of civil movements for electoral democracy; Factors influencing political reform.

Explores the ways in which participants in urban movements in the Ajusco foothills of Mexico City, Mexico deploy the concept of necesidad (necessity) to describe social conditions and the possibilities of grassroots organizing. Articulation by participants of the concept of necesidad in their criticisms of state policy.

The article presents information about the relationship between poor people and the state and capital in reference to the housing policy in Mexico. The successful mobilization for housing gives credence to the thesis that protest movements among the economically and politically weak are especially likely to occur when a community of people with social and cultural bonds experience sudden economic deprivation, when they lack attractive alternatives to exit and seek individual solutions to their plight and when they have the support of better situated individuals and groups. The experience of El Centro also suggests that movements are likely to succeed under such circumstances if the state claims rule in the name of democracy, if it is biased toward reform rather than repression, and if the protest challenges the regime's legitimacy. The generalizeability of the conditions that are postulated here to result in successful social movements among urban poor ultimately, of course, rests on analyses of other movements as well. However, since this model is extrapolated from experiences of other Latin American social movements, there is reason to believe that the success of the inner-city movement was not contingent on a unique set of circumstances, and that groups coveting change can learn from the Mexican experience about the conditions conclusive to successful popular protest.

In Monterrey, third city of Mexico, there exists one of the most important urban social movements in the world: the ‘posesionarios’ of the ‘colonias proletarias’. Quantitatively: they number 100 000 in a city of 1 600 000. Qualitatively: they are ideologically radical, politically conscious and realistic, mostly based on political self-reliance. A short stay within the movement has permitted the author to grasp some non-confidential information that should be disseminated as one of the most interesting experiences of recent urban struggles in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mexican village of Tepoztlán was restudied, seventeen years after Redfield's original study. Differences between the findings of the two studies are discussed, and some of Redfield's data are reinterpreted. The methodological implications of the differences are emphasized. The present findings are also compared with Redfield's generalizations from his Yucatan and other Mexican studies. The author finds Redfield's folk-urban conceptualization of social change lacking in some respects, and discusses seven specific limitations of this theoretical approach. Three general conclusions are drawn: (1) There is a need for more independent restudies in anthropology, and also for simultaneous studies of the same community or region by different investigators. (2) The approach to community and regional studies must be of the broadest type, in which the area is seen in its geographical and historical contacts. (3) The researcher must be aware of the selective role of the hypothesis itself in directing the gathering of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]