Rights in Rebellion: Indigenous Struggle and Human Rights in Chiapas by Shannon Speed (review)

This excellent study belongs to the tiny percentage of works emerging out of the 1994 Zapatista rebellion that are actually based on extensive experience and engagement within the indigenous communities of Chiapas. One of its valuable contributions is the modeling of an alternative to the positivist epistemology that keeps so many academics at a distance from, and in their own minds superior to, their "objects" of study. Speed draws on the feminist scholarship of Chandra Mohanty, as well as Charles R. Hale's work on activist/engaged scholarship, in rejecting paternalistic notions of solidarity in favor of an approach that recognizes the power differences involved in the choice to work in alliance with oppressed communities. She explicitly locates her own position in the struggles examined in this book, as part of a commitment to "decolonizing the research relationship" (p. 9).

The ethnography presented here relates to multiple sites, with special attention to the community of Nicolás Ruiz, the Northern Zone of the state of Chiapas, and the Chiapas-based Red de Defensores Comunitarios por los Derechos Humanos. A central focus of the work is on the interrelationship between the multiple discourses of human rights. Speed examines the discourse of the state regarding human and indigenous rights as it sought legitimation for its neoliberal project, global discourses used by the Zapatistas and their supporters in an effort to tap into transnational movements of solidarity, and indigenous communities' particular claims of rights that fit uneasily with Western liberal-positivist discourses of universal human rights. The crux of the argument is that state constructions of human rights, including the formal recognition by the neoliberal state of collective group rights, are different from autonomous constructions rooted in local subjectivities. The former are premised on the illusion of a neutral and benevolent state as the arbiter of unchanging truths, while the latter recognize rights of difference in norms and practices defined by the communities themselves.

Illustrating this difference, the author cites a young Tzeltal woman who asserts that "Our autonomy doesn't need permission from the government; it already exists" (p. 38), echoing Malcolm X's explanation of why he preferred the term "human rights" over "civil rights." The book proceeds through a series of ethnographic slices of reality in the communities to flesh out the competing discourses of rights. Through her participation as an observer with a human rights NGO, Speed experiences the contrasting perceptions of people in Zapatista communities who immediately grant her trust because she comes "from human rights," as opposed to her reception by paramilitary supporters and urban defenders of the status quo who associate the term with outside agitators. From a meeting in the highlands community of Zinacantán, she recounts the story of a traditional court whose members view the concept suspiciously, as a threat to the authority they have long enjoyed via their symbiotic relationship with the ruling PRI party. Scrutinizing the appropriation of terms and identities through the experience of the Zapatista community of Nicolás Ruiz, the author depicts the community's embrace of its collective indigenous identity and the decision to engage with globalized human rights discourse by joining the Red de Defensores. An intriguing chapter on gender conflicts within this Zapatista community, where indigenous usos y costumbres may clash with women's rights, illustrates how the tension between collective and individual rights represents not only conflict between the state and the autonomous rebels but is also a complex dilemma reflecting the intersectionality of identities within the communities themselves.

This book offers insight for anyone interested in understanding the complexity of the Zapatista struggle for autonomy and getting beyond simplistic assumptions about indigenous and campesino identities and interests. It is also a valuable and thought-provoking work for scholars examining the concepts of human rights and citizenship in the era of neoliberal globalization, and for anyone concerned with the ethics...