The Moral Force of Indigenous Politics: Critical Liberalism and the Zapatistas (Contemporary Political Theory)

Courtney Jung has written a very fine book on the politics of indigeneity in Chiapas, Mexico. The shifting discursive terrain from race to class to ethnicity/indigeneity is integral to her argument that sociocultural identities are "constructed" vis-a-vis modern state-making (and by implication, subject-making) processes. The theoretical argument in favor of a "critical liberalism" to further democratic engagement in multicultural societies is the basis for creating more inclusive polities. If one can make a criticism of this theoretical argument, it's that it evades the meanings and purpose of violence in securing rights. This is a grey area in liberal theory, both classical and contemporary, but contestation is never a purely pacifistic affair. I would have liked to see the violence of the Zapatistas theorized more explicitly within the critical liberalism paradigm.