Rights in Rebellion : Indigenous Struggle and Human Rights in Chiapas

Rights in Rebellionexamines the global discourse of human rights and its influence on the local culture, identity, and forms of resistance. Through a multi-sited ethnography of various groups in the indigenous communities of Chiapas, Mexicofrom paramilitaries to a Zapatista community, an indigenous human rights organization, and the Zapatista Good Governance Councilsthe book explores how different groups actively engage with the discourse of rights, adapting it to their own individual subjectivities and goals, and develop new forms of resistance to the neoliberal model and its particular configurations of power. Far from being a traditional community study, this book instead follows the discourse of human rights and indigenous rights through their various manifestations. The author offers a compelling argument for the importance of a critical engagement between the anthropologist and her "subjects," passionately making the case for activist research and demonstrating how such an engagement will fortify and enliven academic research.

Shannon Speed is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is coeditor of Dissident Women: Gender and Cultural Politics in Chiapas (2006).