Uprising of Hope: Sharing the Zapatista Journey to Alternative Development (Crossroads in Qualitative Inquiry)

About this book

The Zapatistas of Chiapas Mexico have often been portrayed in reductive polarized terms; either as saintly activists or dangerous rebels. Cultural anthropologists Duncan Earle and Jeanne Simonelli drawing on decades-long relationships and fieldwork attained a collegiality with the Zapatistas that reveals a more complex portrait of a people struggling with self-determination on every level. Seeking a new kind of experimental ethnography Earle & Simonelli have chronicled a social experiment characterized by resistance autonomy and communality. Combining their own compelling narrative as participant-observers and those of their Chiapas compadres the authors effectively call for an activist approach to research. The result is a unique ethnography that is at once analytical and deeply personal. Uprising of Hope will be compelling reading for scholars and general readers of anthropology social justice ethnography Latin American history and ethnic studies.