FOR A GEOGRAPHY OF AUTONOMY: The zapatista territorial autonomy experience in Chiapas, Mexico.

Abstract

In the last three decades it´s possible to identify an ethnic emergence in several Latin American countries, favoring the (re)emergence of various ethnic and territorial identities, that were so far subdued by the hegemony of national identity. Among the claim speeches of these communities there is the reappropriation of the so-called "traditional territories" (pre colonial/state indigenous territoriality) through "territorial autonomy" processes. The existence of these politically autonomous territories indicates a qualitative change in the traditional relations between the State and the State Territory. Among the experiments already carried out, there is the zapatista autonomous territory in Mexico, which we take as a case study. We seek to analyze the implications of autonomous indigenous territories (both as a claim speech of Latin American indianism and as a concrete practice of the zapatista social movement) in modern spatial relations of power between State and Society.