Specters of Colonialism: Building Postcolonial States and Making Modern Nations in the Americas

Goss, and Deepa Fernandes for their comments and Andreas Zurbrugg and Sarah Graham for research assistance. Finally, he thanks Jan Rus and the anonymous reviewers for their advice. Of course, any errors of fact or interpretation are his responsibility.On January 1, 1994, the Ej6rcito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation-EZLN) launched a rebellion in southern Mexico that coincided with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since their headline-grabbing revolt seven years ago the Zapatistas have engaged in a succession of confrontations with the government, the Mexican army, and local landowners and paramilitaries in the context of a stalled negotiation process. At the same time, they have been both subject and sponsor of a range of international conferences, and, more than any other rural insurgency in Latin America in recent years, their uprising has captured the imagination of activists and intellectuals around the world. In the eyes of many sympathetic international intellectuals, the Zapatistas and their main spokesperson, Subcomandante Marcos, have come to occupy a position comparable in some ways to the romantic guerrilla Marxism of the cold war era that was embodied by heroic and now thoroughly mythologized revolutionaries such as Che Guevara.' At the same time, virtually all sympathetic international observers agree that the uprising in Chiapas also represents an important departure from the guerrilla Marxism of that time.Beyond that there is considerable debate in Mexico and in the English-speaking world about the roots of the rebellion in Chiapas, how to characterize the Zapatistas, and what their rebellion means for post-cold war modes of resistance.' Some intemational commentators have focused primarily, if not exclusively, on the indigenous roots of the revolt, emphasizing that its support base is predominantly Maya (Gossen, 1998). Others, such as Roger Burbach, have characterized it as a &dquo;postmodern political movement&dquo; (1994b: 113-114), and this description has prompted vigorous dissent in some quarters. Daniel Nugent (1995: 124-138) challenged Burbach's use of the

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Theorizing the hemisphere Inter-Americas work at the intersection of American, Canadian, and Latin American studies

Sadowski-Smith

2004

Comparative American Studies An International Journal

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Specters of Colonialism: Building Postcolonial States and Making Modern Nations in the Americas

Abstract: 1 would like to thank my colleagues Diana Palaversich, Jasper Goss, and David Cahill for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this review essay. Any strengths of this article are undoubtedly a result of their input, while any errors are entirely my responsibility.

Cited by 3 publications

References 29 publications

The ghost of Hernán Cortés: the colonial heritage in the Americas in the Cold War and post-Cold War era

The ghost of Hernán Cortés: the colonial heritage in the Americas in the Cold War and post-Cold War era

Review Essay : Romancing the Zapatistas

Theorizing the hemisphere Inter-Americas work at the intersection of American, Canadian, and Latin American studies

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