Social Movements and Social Change: Zapatismo & Latin America's "Third Left"

Social Movements and Social Change: Zapatismo & Latin America's "Third Left" is a Social Science class taught by Margaret Cerullo.

Course Description
Today, newspapers speak of a decided tilt to the left in Latin America (Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, for example, all have presidents who affirm socialism). This movement is accompanied, or propelled by, indigenous coalitions, that are challenging even governments firmly in the US orbit (Uribe's Columbia). This was not the case fifteen years ago, when, to everyone's astonishment, the Zapatistas rose in revolt in Chiapas. Surfacing the same day that NAFTA went into effect, January 1, 1994, they announced a different vision of Mexico's future. The actions and writings of the Zapatistas constitute an extraordinary case study in which many preoccupations converge: the economic, the political, indigenous rights, women's rights, civil society, cultural memory, and writing that is poetic and political. Focusing on the Zapatista revolt enables us to consider an example of 'local' resistance to 'global' designs, the ongoing challenge to neoliberal economics and to limited conceptions of 'democracy' that condemn populations to invisibility, their cultural memory to oblivion, and their needs and knowledge to subaltern status.

Learning Goals

 * Multi-Cultural
 * Reading
 * Writing