To See with Two Eyes

Throughout Latin America, native peoples have long been viewed as obstacles to development. In Mexico, beginning in the late 1930s, the government organised indigenous peoples into peasant organisations tied to the official party in an attempt to assimilate them into mestizo society. The unexpected result was the emergence of political consciousness among Indians in Chiapas, Mexico. Since the 1994 Zapatista uprising, indigenous peasants increasingly have cast their demands within a framework of legal and cultural autonomy. In this book, based on fieldwork in eastern Chiapas with the Tojolabal-Maya people, Shannan Mattiace shows that on the ground, the struggle for autonomy is integrally related to peasant politics and everyday struggles for survival. Her years of fieldwork prior to 1994, and after, have provided her with important ethnographic accounts and extensive interviews. 'To See With Two Eyes' will be of interest to scholars in Latin American political science, anthropology, and history.