Narrating Nature: Zapatista Encounters and the Remaking of Human–Environmental Relations

Book excerpt: This book focuses on the stories of Zapatistas as new ecological subjects. The Zapatistas have been extensively studied as a movement with a specific political consciousness derived from historical marginalizing (land) policies in Mexico that propelled the creation and rise of the movement and, later, their autonomy project. However, these factors have also been involved in the formation of their particular ecological consciousness. By focusing on the Zapatista case – specifically, on the stories of the Tzotzil people of Chiapas – this book contributes to a deeper understanding of the existence and importance of alternative and more caring ways of thinking of and relating to nature. This teaches us the possibility of human-nature relations that defy the dominant logic based on the capitalist, exploitative discourse that continues to promote the destruction of the planet and its peoples. In the light of increasing environmental degradation and the climate crisis, among others, and the intertwined augmented pressures on the global population’s well-being, human-Nature relationships have become a topical issue. These relationships are intrinsically politico-ecological, currently shaped by capitalist-modernity that functions based on extractivism. Therefore, it is imperative to shift towards more caring human-Nature relationships, which are being developed in and through political counter-movements. Taking the Zapatista movement as an example, this book explores other ways of thinking and acting towards Nature that allows for the development of non-exploitative human-Nature relationships. It follows the argument that the Zapatista fight is a politico-ecological one, in which the movement’s political aims and decisions are grounded in a Mayan-derived, indigenous worldview of Nature and in their influence in defining more caring human-Nature relationships; and that, therefore, their fight is also expressed through the ways they put these relationships in practice, particularly in their ways of doing agriculture (through agroecology, based on values such as care, respect, and democracy). In turn, these help to guarantee not only their resistance to the dominant extractivist system, but also their autonomy, the main aim of the civil part of the Zapatista movement.