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QUESTION: Zapatista women and IT

Submitted by krkarpinski on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 1:12pm
question / pregunta: 

I am doing a project about the Zapatista's use of IT (mostly the internet). I am interested in finding information on how women in the Zapatistas have used IT or how they have been involved in its use in the Zapatista movement.

Answers

Answer posted by: mfitzgibbons

This is not a complete answer, so I'm leaving the question open.

It looks like there has been a lot of information published on this topic! I found many articles that have been published in scholarly journals by searching the index Google Scholar. You can try searching for variations of women and Zapatista or Chiapas and internet or information technology. Most of these articles require subscribes to view, but you could access them through an academic or some public libraries. One writer, though, has made several of his articles freely available: https://webspace.utexas.edu/hcleaver/www/hmchtmlpapers.html. In particular, the article called "The Zapatistas and the Electronic Fabric of Struggle" might help, but there's lots more there.

An outdated but potentially interesting bibliography is here: http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~geneve/zapwomen/biblio.html

Google Books is also useful for identifying books that have been published that you can then seek out at a library. One example is Women of Chiapas: Making History in Times of Struggle and Hope by Christine Engla Eber and Christine Marie Kovic. A preview can be seen here: http://books.google.com/books?id=zxojjpVBkckC&lpg=PA233&dq=Zapatista%20women%20internet&pg=PA233#v=onepage&q=Zapatista%20women%20internet&f=false

This book also has an interesting chapter: Cinderella or cyberella?: empowering women in the knowledge society By Nancy J. Hafkin, Sophia Huyer (Preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=X1AWyK8GrrcC&lpg=PA165&ots=tXIPl3tACe&dq=Zapatista%20women%20internet%20&lr&pg=PA166#v=onepage&q&f=false).

I hope that helps as a start.

Answer posted by: hgawlica

To add to the post above, you might find the Electronic Disturbance Theater’s work with the Zapatista community interesting for your research.

Here are a few resources to look at:

Electronic Disturbance Theater

The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) is a small group of cyber activists and artists (Ricardo Dominguez, Carmin Karasic, Brett Stalbaum, and Stefan Wray) engaged in developing the theory and practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD). Until now the group has focused its electronic actions against the Mexican and U.S. governments to draw attention to the war being waged against the Zapatistas and others in Mexico. But ECD tactics have potential application by a range of political and artistic movements. The Electronic Disturbance Theater, working at the intersections of radical politics, recombinant and performance art, and computer software design, has produced an ECD device called Flood Net, URL based software used to flood and block an opponents web site. While at present a catalyst for moving forward with ECD tactics, the Electronic Disturbance Theater hopes to eventually blend into the background to become one of many small autonomous groups heightening and enhancing the ways and means of computerized resistance.

Additional Links:

Chronology of SWARM
EDT/ECD Virtual Sit-Ins
Electronic Disturbance Theater
On Electronic Civil Disobedience
The Electronic Disturbance Theater and Electronic Civil Disobedience

Digital Zapatismo

Zapatismo has infected the political body of Mexico's "perfect dictatorship" since January 1, 1994. This polyspacial movement for a radical democracy based on the Mayan legacies of dialogue ripped into the electronic fabric not as InfoWar, but as virtual actions for real peace in the real communities of Chiapas. As of September 1997 reports of The Mexican military training and arming paramilitary groups with the intent of moving the "low-intensity" war to a higher level began to circulate among the Zapatista Network.  The Mexican military with the full support of the PRI government began the next stage of the war against peace. As the West stumbled about in celebration of a new year, the first report reached out across the internet and slapped us awake once more with the brutal reality of a neo-liberal agenda.  This time Zapatista Networks responded with a new level of electronic civil disobedience beyond the passing of information and emailing presidents. On Sunday the 18th of January 1998, a call for NetStriking for Zapata (from Anonymous Digital Coalition) came in via email.  In response to the situation, the Electronic Disturbance Theater staged a series of virtual sit-ins, which brought new possibilities of direct electronic actions to the forefront of the Zapatista Network.

Additional Links:

Digital Zapatismo
Zapatista Tactical FloodNet
Zapatista Tribal Port Scan Code
Zapatista Tribal Port Scan Code

If you any questions about Electronic Disturbance Theater or Digital Zapatismo, please let me know -- hope these resources help with your research.