Self-Determined Development and Fair Trade in Chiapas

Zinacatan: The Land of Bats

When we arrived in Zinacatan, we were met by several Tzotzil women whose small informal business it is to invite tourists to their homes for lunch. We split up in groups of five, and when we arrived at our host’s home, there were huipiles and skirts and other back-strap loom weavings displayed for sale. We sat by the wood fire in their kitchen and ate tortillas with crumbled cheese and egg, and spicy ground roasted pumpkin seed.

We asked the women about their work as weavers and the wages they received. After a cursory calculation, we concluded that they were making approximately $0.15/hour for their labor. This included the material costs of thread, which we were told have doubled in the past two years making their earnings even less. Having worked in the fair trade business with weavers in Guatemala, and from the quantity and diversity of their work, I would venture to say that some of the weavings were also purchased from other women in the community. If that is the case, it would mean even lower wages for the women they purchase from. We asked about the competition in town our host explained with frustration that one family in the community had more or less cornered the tourist market. When large tour busses arrive, tour guides receive a commission for bringing tourists to this family’s home.

The urgency and competition of textile sales is not unique to Zinacatan. I sometimes wonder in this age of mass-produced textile production, with designs mimicking the work of weavers and textile artisans around the world, how their work can be valued fairly for the art and tradition that they represent. I also question if the concept of fair trade is on the radar of many of these women, especially since fair trade is still a predominately northern concept of U.S., Canadian, and European buyers and the relatively small number of “southern producer groups” partnering with them. Many Maya women weave because they can work from home and it is a skill they have mastered and a way for them to earn additional income to contribute to the family economy but what other options exist for the future?

Jolom Mayaenik: Fair Trade Weaving Cooperative:

When we visited Kinal Azentik we learned about the fair trade women’s weaving cooperative Jolom Mayaenik. Their high quality and unique weavings are produced primarily for export and the prices were clearly more than you would find in the market or in Zinacatan. In fact, in doing another rough calculation we determined that the women were making approximately $1/hour. During our lunch, I sat next to Kinal Azentik’s Program Director, Ricardo Iglesias and asked him more about the weaving cooperative. I was impressed by the focus on collective ownership, self-determined development, relationship building, emphasis on political awareness, workshops focusing on themes of indigenous and women’s rights and perspectives, and business capacity building workshops. Jolom Mayaetik incorporates a holistic vision of personal and collective development founded on an indigenous and gender perspective. This struck me as an organization poised for sustainable success because of their focus on continuously challenging their individual and collective potential, their unique and competitive product mix, their network with well established fair trade buyers, and their self-determined leadership model. It is easy, however, to romanticize about an organization like Jolom and in our readings we are reminded that, “the economic profitability of cooperative work has been minimal. The crafts do not make the women who produce them rich, but they do give them the possibility of a certain sense of economic independence, for example, of being able to contribute something to their household.”[1] Aside from being able to earn their own income the non-financial benefits of being a member of Jolom are many. The emphasis on capacity building and leadership training can only lead to more freedom and opportunities within the fair trade marketplace, or in other business ventures, and is promising in building better futures for themselves and their families. Jolom has a “Training Center for Indigenous Women, a physical, social, political, and cultural space where they can reproduce what they have learned, and train themselves in new areas, as well as make new openings for the younger generations that are experiencing important changes in their communities.”[2]

With all of the positive aspects of Jolom, I personally still question how economically sustainable initiatives are that depends primarily on foreign purchases in order to exist. What alternative locally-based economic development opportunities exist for these women?

However, more than the financial benefit, they are finding new spaces where their voices can be heard. I think that Amartya Sen puts it nicely in his book Development as Freedom: “Development has to be more concerned with enhancing the lives we lead and the freedoms we enjoy. Expanding the freedoms that we have reason to value not only makes our lives richer and more unfettered, but also allows us to be fuller social persons, exercising our own volitions and interacting with – and influencing – the world in which we live.”[3]

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[1] Castro Apreza, Yolanda. Women of Chiapas. J’pas Joloviletik-Jolom Mayaetik, K’inal Antzetik, An Organizational Experience of Indigenous and Mestiza Women. 216

[2] Castro Apreza, Yolanda. Women of Chiapas. J’pas Joloviletik-Jolom Mayaetik, K’inal Antzetik, An Organizational Experience of Indigenous and Mestiza Women. 214

[3] Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York, 2000. 14

Indigenous Women’s Identity in the Marketplace

Within the first day of my stay in San Cristobal de las Casas I was drawn to the number of indigenous women selling items from common trinkets to unique weavings along the streets or in the square or marketplace. They seemed to be on every street we ventured down. As soon as they would see us, they would gather up their items and come, with open arms to offer their products for sale. At first, this seemed slightly annoying, but throughout the week, their persistence made me take particular notice of them. What surprised me most was how every woman seemed to be selling the exact same items. I wondered to myself why individuals did not diversify or specialize to create a unique market niche within a highly touristic town?
As we continued to study various indigenous groups in the area, especially the role of women, I realized the answer to my question had far less to do with the individual than with the community. Visiting various women’s cooperatives, we could see how important weaving is to shaping identity for indigenous women. It is a skill that strengthens family bonds as mothers teach their daughters and is a skill that revolves around the home. Weaving is a part of daily activities and household chores for women formally involved in cooperatives like Jolom Mayaetik and Kinal Antsetic. As Greenfield, Maynard and Childs also documented in their article about indigenous culture and learning, weaving is connected to identity in that which tribe a woman belongs to also influences what she weaves as different groups have different traditional patterns and colors. What they make is completely wrapped up in who they are. Therefore, it is only natural that they all sell similar products as it is so ingrained within their communal identity.

In addition to the same products in the market and along the streets, I was also struck at how many women were selling items. However, there presence is evidence of their social progress after the 1994 Zapatista uprising. According to Collier and Quaratiello, and as explained on our walking tour, the culture is more tolerant to an increased indigenous presence since the uprising. This is most likely due to the indigenous community taking a stand and the international interest and subsequent tourism that followed. There was also a financial incentive for the rest of Chiapan society to tolerate the growing indigenous presence from the new interest in Chiapas. So while it seems like there is significant competition among indigenous women to sell their products, their increased attendance in the market and along the streets is a sign of development. There is still discrimination, but this shows how their community activism is taking steps toward social justice, which is a significant step for sustainable development.
Even though at first glance indigenous women selling in the market may seem like a poor thought-out economic strategy, it really goes deeper than just a means to making a living. It is a strong reminder that different cultural nuances and practices have layers and reasons to why they exist. A woman’s identity in her products and the political undertones to the number of vendors are only two components to the indigenous market vendors in San Cristobal, and the indigenous women’s role is just one aspect of Chiapan culture that we were able to glimpse during the trip.

Sources and Further Reading

Collier, George A., and Elizabeth Lowery Quaratiello. 1999. Chiapas and Mexico. Pp. 15-36 (Chap. 1) in Basta!: Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas. Oakland, CA: Food First Books.

Greenfield, Patricia, Ashley E. Maynard, and Carla P. Childs. 2000. History, Culture, Learning, and Development. Cross-Cultural Research 34 (4): 351-374.

Jolom Mayaetik website http://www.jolom-mayaetik.org/

Kinal Antsetic website http://kinal.laneta.apc.org/kinal.htm

By Jamelyn Lederhouse

Bioprospecting & Indigenous Identity in Chiapas

Concepts of identity are difficult to convey to an outsider. Words are often not enough. Sometimes it takes an image to communicate the complexities of the self or the group. It was a painted mural that changed my understanding of the identity of the indigenous Mayan communities of Chiapas. Prior to visiting the region, I had read that many of the communities were dependent upon corn for their survival. It did not occur to me how much meaning a crop could hold for a community until I visited Caracol de Oventic, an autonomous Zapatista community in the cloud-covered mountains of Chiapas. There I saw many murals in which the Zapatistas were represented by their most important crop –corn . In image after image, powerful messages were being communicated about this self-sustaining, resistant community.

This idea was at first startling to me. The idea that a plant could represent a person or people was very foreign to me. But as I thought further about this concept, I realized how rational it was to associate your identity with your primary source of energy. The murals of Caracol de Oventic revealed that for the Zapatistas, corn had many complex meanings. Their art revealed ideas of solidarity, self-reliance, power, and the importance of anonymity.

The more I embraced this concept of identity, the better I understood the emotional backlash to bioprospecting in Chiapas. In 1999, eleven indigenous community organizations, known as Consejo Estatal de Parteras y M dicos Ind genas Tradicionales de Chiapas (Council of Indigenous Traditional Midwives and Healers of Chiapas), came together to oppose a $2.5 million dollar bioprospecting program initiated by the University of Georgia. The scope of the program was to collect and analyze thousands of medicinal plants from Mayan communities over a period of five years. The primary purpose of the bioprospecting was to isolate compounds from medicinal plants that could be developed for private use by pharmaceutical companies. The method for identifying which of the 6,000 plus plants growing in the region had medicinal purpose, and for which ailments, was entirely dependent on the existing body of Mayan knowledge and the communities’ healers willingness to share it.

The University of Georgia attempted to develop a comprehensive botanical survey of the Central Chiapas Highland in an effort to identify which plants had the greatest potential for generating profit for the university’s commercial partner, Molecular Nature, Ltd., based in the United Kingdom. In response to this project, many local organizations began leveraging the claim that their knowledge and resources were being stolen. The Council called into question the ethical standards of the researchers, who had not received prior consent from local communities before they began collecting hundreds of samples from the mountainside. They also attacked the project’s organizers for trying to skirt the issue of obtaining consent from the indigenous Mayan communities by developing a non-profit organization called PROMAYA (Protection of Mayan Intellectual Property Rights) to advance their political agenda. University of Georgia and Molecular Nature, Inc. essentially created their own civil society organization, PROMAYA, for the sole purpose of obtaining bioprospecting rights from this supposedly indigenous, Mayan organization. After two years of a heavy resistance and intense lobbying of the Mexican and US governments to recognize indigenous communities rights to their own knowledge and resources, the Council was successful. The University of Georgia project was terminated in 2001.

Bioprospecting projects often seek to gain prior consent from communities by offering limited benefits-sharing programs for any plant or organization that produces profit. In the case of Chiapas, the benefits-sharing contracts offered were so miniscule that they only averaged 0.3 to 0.5% of the total profit. Moreover, once a pharmaceutical company isolates a chemical compound from a plant specimen they are able to patent the compound under US Patent Laws. Ironically, only private, for-profit entities are able to able to seek patents for compounds. An indigenous tribe or community, according to patent law, has no legal right to its own local resources.

Understanding the indigenous communities’ connection to the plants that sustain them has caused me to become highly critical of bioprospecting. One of the strongest challenges that the Council made against bioprospecting in Chiapas was that organisms cannot and should not be taken from communities, where they are freely shared, for the purpose of limiting access to only those who are willing and able to pay. Seen from their perspective, I am able to recognize how brutal and alien American culture must seem to communities for whom hunger and disease are a very real aspect of daily life.

As I look at the murals from Caracol de Oventic, I cannot help but think that the smiling faces in the corn share a secret that we in the global north are unwilling to acknowledge. We may come from highly developed nations, but we are no less dependent on the earth and one another for our own survival. Our identities are entwined through the world we inhabit and the resources it provides.

References and Further Reading

“Biopiracy, Bioprospecting, and Resistance: Four Cases in Mexico” by Andres Barreda

The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan Random House, New York 2001

Etc Group websites:

http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/348

http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/232

Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) website http://www.rag.org.au/baa/biopiracy.htm

Chiapas and a Struggle for Recognition

Chiapas is a place where one gets the opportunity to further analyze words such as justice, liberty, equality, and dignity. Outsiders like me are also given the chance to explore the different meanings development and underdevelopment. These terms have no meaning if one does not place man at the center of our complex society. In the case of Chiapas, Indigenous Peoples are at the center of a world that has marginalized, oppressed, and exploited their place and relationship with the Earth. How to progress? How to create an environment that respects people of all nations?

Development is a kaleidoscope with many shapes, colors, and dimensions. At the social level, groups that are able to create peaceful relationships internally and externally are said to be progressing. Also, developed are those that have the capability to safeguard their independent position and live harmoniously. Populations are considered to be economically progressive when its members are able to effectively interact with the environment. Development ideas like these have prevailed since the Spanish first set foot in Mexico. For colonizers advancement included an increase in production. If the production of a particular society was not up to par with the dominant standard, there would be a change in the quality or character of its people. In Chiapas Indigenous Peoples were and still are targeted. Religious beliefs and political ideologies included. The presence of capitalism in a place like Chiapas has created tensions amongst its people, increased poverty, and deteriorated its environment.

Production and wealth are measurement tools of underdevelopment. The poor countries of the global South are considered to be “backwards” because of their unfortunate economic positions. However, one may ask who is really underdeveloped? Those that work hard to make a living on a day to day basis and fight for their dignity, or those that exploit, oppress, and massacre? The material wealth of a nation in having things such as social services, schools, hospitals, etc. have nothing to do with the level of “development” of a given community. Take into consideration the political structure of some indigenous groups in Chiapas, for example, Las Abejas. The members of this group have been able to organize themselves in a way that perhaps people in more economically stable countries would not be able to do so, and they have less resources. Furthermore, the Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas are living in a paradox of underdevelopment where, for instance, their own material production is landing in the hands of foreigners and they are not attaining the profits they deserve.

Developed or underdeveloped, Zapatismo in Chiapas emerged. Indigenous Peoples are ready to be heard. Article 39 of the Mexican constitution says that any public power derives from the people and is instituted for their benefit, and that at any time the people have the inalienable right to alter or to modify their form of government. The Mexican government failed its people and even signed the NAFTA, which only benefits about ten percent of the Mexican population and forgets about the “others.” Therefore, the EZLN with the use their words and not necessarily weapons want to put a halt to the genocide that has killed Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, and Chontal people in places like Acteal. Members of the EZLN want to work their land, feed their people, and put an end to curable diseases in their villages. The EZLN teaches us that one of the most important steps towards a more sustainable future is the recognition of those that are not necessarily like us. From the EZLN we also learn that we must have the ability to decolonize our minds, move away from our set political and social conditions, and have the ability to understand the system that oppresses us and eventually work for its removal from power. It will be perhaps then that we will be able to achieve justice, liberty, equality, and dignity.

REFERENCES

(subcomandante.), Marcos, Simon J. Ortiz, Elena Poniatowska, and David Romo.

Questions & swords. Cinco Puntos Press, 2001.

Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of power. University of California Press, 2004.

Rodney, Walter. How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Howard University Press, 1982.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing methodologies. Zed Books, 1999.

On Syncreticism, Inculturation and Cultural Sustainability: A Reflection from a visit to Chiapas, Mexico

“How far does the Catholic Church in Chiapas allows inculturation of Mayan indigenous?” I asked this question to Fr. Pedro Arriaga, a Jesuit priest who spent years with Tzotzil Mayan indigenous communities. However, his answers did not suffice my critical mind and my curiosity. Thus, I write this reflection to dig deeper to the issue. This article deals on questions on syncreticism, inculturation and cultural sustainability and to try objectively in finding some answers (or more questions?) to these issues.

Observation: Seeing with eyes of an outsider
It is undeniable that every foreigner visiting certain indigenous communities brings his/her own cultural and personal background in his/her observations. I am not excuse to it. Although I lived and worked for a number of years with indigenous communities in Taiwan, trying to understand and help inculturate some of their indigenous culture to present Christian beliefs, I still look at myself as an outsider to a community I learned to embrace and understand. Doing inculturation is a complex process for it calls for a “creative and dynamic relationship between Christian message and indigenous culture”. Inculturation puts emphasis on creativity and dynamism of relationship. The question is: How far? The things I saw in the church of Chamula made me asked that question.

The Case of Chamula: Syncretism or Inculturation?
The church in Chamula is run and manage independently by the indigenous community. According to a story, on the height of liberation theology in Chiapas, the indigenous community of Chamula expelled the parish priest who wanted to implement some revolutionary changes in the parish. Since then, the Catholic Church was prohibited from doing sacramental services, which only recently have gained access to do a monthly Sacrament of the Eucharist inside the church.

Indigenous people who seek physical or spiritual healing for themselves or for others frequently visit the church. Mayan priests are there ready to do rituals using herbs, chickens, candles, wooden sticks, soft drinks (Coca-cola or Pepsi) and chants. Smoke from burning candles fill the church; while cacophonies from mayan priests’ prayers surround the church’s solemn atmosphere. Catholic symbols are everywhere – crosses, images of saints, rosary beads and the likes. The church building is an everyday witness of how indigenous beliefs are intertwined with the beliefs brought by Catholicism.

The rituals in the church of Chamula are the epitome of syncretic practices and beliefs of Mayans and Catholicism but not inculturated forms. It is just a case of indigenous people combining traditional practices and beliefs with Catholicism. Theirs has not yet reached the stage of cleansing beliefs and practices that are incompatible for both indigenous Mayans and Catholicism. When that stage occurs, then inculturation begins to happen.

Inculturation: Syncretism of goodness and beauty of both cultures
Inculturation must pass certain criteria to be authentic. There are a number of schemas use in evaluating the authenticity of inculturation, but most of them consist of basic elements namely, the Christian message, the cultural situations, and the pastoral agents.

Is the element being inculturated faithful to the Christian message? Does it shows universal goodness? Are the people themselves with the help of church leaders and scholars doing the process of inculturation? If these three elements are present, then authentic inculturation may happen. This process of authenticating inculturation may sound easy in this article, but it is a complicated matter that needs thorough understanding.

For us who are not so familiar with inculturation, let us just simply say that inculturation is done collaboratively by the indigenous community and church leaders in syncretizing the goodness and beauty of both indigenous culture and Catholicism.

Inculturation: A way for cultural sustainability
In the light of sustainable development, does inculturation helps in cultural sustainability? Inculturation is not changing of culture over another; it is rather preserving and developing the good elements of culture and adds Christian meaning to them. Some elements of both indigenous and Catholicism may lose in the process, but these elements may not be essential to both parties. An authentic inculturated element of indigenous culture shows values and goodness of its culture with deeper and relevant meaning because of integration of Christian meaning.

Inculturation is not an imposition of Christian practices and beliefs to certain culture, rather giving Christian message to already established values. The people themselves with the help of church leaders will discern which elements are to be inculturated. This kind of process is in consonance with the process on cultural sustainability that calls for decision from below.

For more readings on Inculturation and Syncretism kindly click:
www.loyolajesuit.org/peter_schineller/resources/SYNCRET1.doc
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14383c.htm
http://www.caribbeantheology.net/Inculturation.htm

Reference:
Schineller, Peter, S.J. Inculturation and the Issue of Syncretism: What is the Real Issue? www.loyolajesuit.org/peter_schineller/resources/SYNCRET1.doc [accessed April 1, 2010]
Shorter, Aylward. Inculturation of African Traditional Religious Values in Christianity – How Far? http://www.afrikaworld.net/afrel/shorter.htm [accessed March 31, 2010]

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Las Abejas

The Civil Society Organization called "Las Abejas", or "The Bees," is a Christian pacifist group of indigenous Tztotzil Mayan people. It was founded in the locality of Tzajalchen, Chenalho, in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico in 1992 following a familial property dispute that left one person killed. When members of the community took the injured man to the nearest town for medical attention, they were accused of attacking him themselves and jailed. When family members realized what had happened, they began a pilgrimage on foot to San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Along the way, Christian pacifists in other villages joined the group, which is dedicated to peace, justice, and anti-neoliberalism. Las Abejas freed their companions and grew as an organization.

When the Zapatista Army of National Liberation uprising took place in 1994, Las Abejas stood in solidarity with the demands for justice, democracy, education, health, land and dignity for the indigenous people as expressed by the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN). However they separated themselves from their violent means of achieving change and proclaimed themselves as "active nonviolent" civil society organization.

They paid a high price for their support however, when on December 22nd, 1997, forty-five of their members were massacred while praying in a church, in what's come to be known as the Acteal Massacre.

The Las Abejas logo, often used in the press communiques, symbolizes the sufferings and hope from Acteal (and its "Columna de la Infamia" or 'Pillar of Shame' at the center of the world.

Today, Las Abejas is a civil society movement represented by the civil society leadership in Acteal representing their demands for justice, reparation and human rights after the massacre and ongoing situations of paramilitary presence. Las Abejas of Acteal plays an important symbolic role for the catholic Church and oppressed indigenous groups in resistance.

Las Abejas is also represented by the "returned" displaced people in Nuevo Yibeljoj, organized as a Las Abejas Mexico civil association (A.C.) and seeking the government cooperation to recuperate their lost properties.

Tzajalchen remains also important for The Abejas as the founders remain quite active in the monitoring of the integrity of the organization, its national presence and international relations. They also play a vital role for helping young leaders elected in the yearly renewed "mesa directiva" (board of directors) and other service-leadership roles (cargos) of the organizations.

Please read the Acteal Blog of Las Abejas for updated news and communications.

Read the Las Abejas website for additional information on the Civil Society Las Abejas.

If you are interested to learn more about the identity and formation of Las Abejas consult this book: Tavanti, Marco. Las Abejas: Pacifist Resistance

and Syncretic Identities in a Globalizing Chiapas. New York: Routledge, 2003.

If you would like to understand the struggle, conflict and suffering of Las Abejas in Chiapas, see this video: The Victims of the War In Chiapas