Without History: Subaltern Studies, the Zapatista Insurgency, and the Specter of HistoryOn December 22, 1997, forty-five unarmed members of the indigenous organization Las Abejas (The Bees) were massacred during a prayer meeting in the village of Acteal, Mexico. The members of Las Abejas, who are pacifists, pledged their support to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a primarily indigenous group that has declared war on the state of Mexico. The massacre has been attributed to a paramilitary group composed of ordinary citizens acting on their own, although eyewitnesses claim the attack was planned ahead of time and that the Mexican government was complicit.In Without History, Jose Rabasa contrasts indigenous accounts of the Acteal massacre and other events with state attempts to frame the past, control subaltern populations, and legitimatize its own authority. Rabasa offers new interpretations of the meaning of history from indigenous perspectives and develops the concept of a communal temporality that is not limited by time, but rather exists within the individual, community, and culture as a living knowledge that links both past and present. Due to a disconnection between indigenous and state accounts as well as the lack of archival materials (many of which were destroyed by missionaries), the indigenous remain outside of, or without, history, according to most of Western discourse. The continued practice of redefining native history perpetuates the subalternization of that history, and maintains the specter of fabrication over reality.Rabasa recalls the works of Marx, Lenin, and Gramsci, as well as contemporary south Asian subalternists Ranajit Guha and Dipesh Chakrabarty, among others. He incorporates their conceptions of communality, insurgency, resistance to hegemonic governments, and the creation of autonomous spaces as strategies employed by indigenous groups around the globe, but goes further in defining these strategies as millennial and deeply rooted in Mesoamerican antiquity. For Rabasa, these methods and the continuum of ancient indigenous consciousness are evidenced in present day events such as the Zapatista insurrection. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 17 | |
Reflections on the Folkloric and the Impossible in a Subaltern Insurrection | 37 |
4 Historical and Epistemological Limits in Subaltern Studies | 62 |
5 Beyond Representation? The Impossibility of the Local Notes on Subaltern Studies in Light of a Rebellion in Tepoztlán Morelos | 74 |
Constituent Power and the Limits of Autonomy | 92 |
7 The Comparative Frame in Subaltern Studies | 124 |
8 On the History of the History of Peoples Without History | 138 |
Immanent History and the Comparative Frame in Subaltern Studies | 148 |
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Without History: Subaltern Studies, the Zapatista Insurgency, and the ... José Rabasa No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
Abejas Acteal Alboroto y motín Antonio APPO Article autonomy ayllus capital Casas CCRI-CG Chiapas Chichimecs Chimalpahin Cholula Christian Codex Mendoza colonial communiqué concept constituent power constitution critique cultural define Derecho discourse documents Edited entails essay EZLN Flores Magón folklore forms García Linera global Gramsci Guha Hardt and Negri Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca http://palabra.ezln.org.mx Ibid immanent Indian indígenas indigenous indios insurgency insurrection intellectual La Jornada language Latin American Lenin manifest Marcos Marx Marxism massacre Mesoamerican Mexican Mexico City missionaries modern movements multitude mural Nahua Nahuatl narrative Nochistlan nonmodern Oaxaca Paris Commune past political practices pre-Columbian pueblo question Rabasa reading rebellion revisionist revolution revolutionary Sigüenza y Góngora social society Spaniards Spanish Spivak stories struggle Subaltern Studies Subcomandante Marcos Taniperla Tenamaztle Tenochtitlan Tepoztecos Tepoztlán testimony Tezozomoc theory tion tlacuilo trace tradition Translated Tzotzil underscore understanding University Press uprising violence Votán writing Zapata Zapatistas