Double Translation and the Spread of Cosmology: Marxism and Indigenous Maya Culture in the EZLN

Abstract

This article exposes the double relationship between subjects of knowledge produced as a result of the encounter amongst agents of different cultural matrixes in the building and upcoming of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). It also analyzes some of the elements or political-cultural significant which shows the contagious process produced between western-urban and Mesoamerican Mayan cosmologies in the neozapatista organization. A prima facie explanation is posed of why and how the colonial side of that relationship (that of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas) has prevailed in the identity and principles of struggle in the EZLN.