Histories and Stories from Chiapas

The 1994 Zapatista uprising of Chiapas' Maya peoples against the Mexican government shattered the state myth that indigenous groups have been successfully assimilated into the nation. In this wide-ranging study of identity formation in Chiapas, Aida Hernandez delves into the experience of a Maya group, the Mam, to analyse how Chiapas' indigenous peoples have in fact rejected, accepted, or negotiated the official discourse on 'being Mexican' and participating in the construction of a Mexican national identity. Hernandez traces the complex relations between the Mam and the national government from 1934 to the Zapatista rebellion. She investigates the many policies and modernisation projects through which the state has attempted to impose a Mexican identity on the Mam and shows how this Maya group has resisted or accommodated these efforts. In particular, she explores how changing religious affiliation, women's and ecological movements, economic globalisation, state policies, and the Zapatista movement have all given rise to various ways of 'being Mam' and considers what these indigenous identities may mean for the future of the Mexican nation. The Spanish version of this book won the 1997 Fray Bernardino de Sahagun national prize for the best social anthropology research in Mexico. Born in Ensenada, Baja California, on the northern Mexican border, R. Aida Hernandez Castillo has worked and lived among Guatemalan refugees and Chiapas' indigenous peoples on the southern Mexican border since 1986. She is now a researcher-professor with CIESAS (Center for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology) in Mexico City.