Cultural Politics and Resistance in the 21st Century: Community-Based Social Movements and Global Change in the Americas

198 Pages·2012·2.469 MB·English

by  Kara Z. Dellacioppa, Clare Weber (eds.)

Cultural Politics and Resistance
in the 21st Century

Cultural Politics and Resistance
in the 21st Century
Community-Based Social Movements
and Global Change in the Americas
Edited by
Kara Z. Dellacioppa
and Clare Weber
cultural politics and resistance in the 21st century
Copyright © Kara Z. Dellacioppa and Clare Weber, 2012.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-34004-6
All rights reserved.
First published in 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United
States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the
world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-34260-0 ISBN 978-1-137-01296-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137012968
Chapter 7 was previously published in Re-inventing Critical Pedagogy:
Widening the Circle of Anti-Oppression Education, eds. César Augusto
Rossatto, Ricky Lee Allen, and Marc Pruyn (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2006), 225–34, and is reprinted with permission. Chapter 9 was
previously published in Globalizations 5, no. 3 (September 2008): 357–77,
and is also reprinted with permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Cultural politics and resistance in the 21st century : community based
social movements and global change in the Americas / edited by Kara Z.
Dellacioppa and Clare Weber.
p. cm.
1. Social movements— United States. 2. Social movements—
Mexico. 3. Social change— United States. 4. Social change— Mexico.
5. Political culture— United States. 6. Political culture— Mexico. I.
Dellacioppa, Kara Zugman, 1969– II. Weber, Clare, 1963–
HN65.C833 2011
303.48’4097209051— dc23 2011025825
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: January 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Felix Aguilar, René Aguilar- Weber,
Joey Dellacioppa, and Sofia Alexis Dellacioppa

Contents
1 Local Communities and Global Resistance: Social Change
and Autonomy Struggles in the Americas 1
Kara Z. Dellacioppa
Part I Cultural Resistance and Identity 21
2 New Political Actors in Rural Mexico: The Challenges and
Achievements of Peasant and Indigenous Women 23
Aída Hernández Castillo and Gisela Espinosa Damian
3 The Rebel Girls of the Other Campaign: The EZLN and
Teenage Activism in Mexico City 49
Jessica K. Taft
4 Zapatismo and Community- Based Social Change:
Toward a Feminist Global Praxis? 61
Melissa N. Govea
5 La Otra Educación: Hip- Hop, Zapatismo, and
Popular Education 79
Oscar Marquez
Part II Political Resistance and Identity 99
6 Maíz y País: Indigenous Mexican Struggles against
Biotechnology in Agriculture 101
Jennifer Rogers
7 Generating Hope, Creating Change, Searching for
Community: Stories of Resistance against Globalization
at the U.S.– Mexico Border 117
Michelle Téllez
8 Struggles for Social Movement Autonomy in a Global
Port City 127
Clare Weber
9 Present in the World Economy: The Coalition of
Immokalee Workers (1996– 2007) 145
André C. Drainville
viii CONTENTS
Conclusion: Local Movements? Global Movements? 177
Clare Weber
Notes on Contributors 181
Index 185
1
Local Communities and
Global Resistance
Social Change and Autonomy
Struggles in the Americas
Kara Z. Dellacioppa
Introduction: New Languages of Resistance to Globalization
Over the last twenty years, we have witnessed an abundant growth of
research on globalization.Within this vast body of work, studies have
analyzed regional economic integration and debated the shifting role of
the nation-s tate (Robinson 2001; Wade 2003), the globalization of produc-
tion (Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994), and global citizenship (Sassen 2005).
By the late 1990s, social movements had emerged as a central research topic
of globalization (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Smith and Bandy 2005; Della
Porta and Tarrow 2005) that included a prolific body of scholarship on
the impact of neoliberalism on Latin American social movements (Esco-
bar and Alvarez 1992). However, it wasn’t until the Battle of Seattle in
1999 that a global (but diverse) “movement of movements” (Mertes 2004)
emerged, working to understand, combat, and possibly transform the “glo-
balization project” (McMichael 2000; Epstein 2001). Michael Hardt and
Antonio Negri’s “Empire” (2000) was widely read in leftist academic and
activist circles and was considered the most “optimistic” reading of global-
ization.Their descriptions of the cacophonous revolts of the “multitude”
included all movements from the Hamas of the Gaza Strip to the Land-
less Movement of Brazil (without making much distinction between the
two). However, their reading of the current global climate, while innova-
tive, lacked an empirical analysis of social movements and of the structure