ABSTRACT

Thomas Benjamin explains the contradictory reality of poor people liv­ ing in a rich land which exists in Chiapas as a sort of conspiracy against indige­ nous people (Benjamin 1996). Mayan descendants living in Chiapas are among the most impoverished of Mexico’s population. “Their marginalized conditions are not caused by lack of economic resources or because their conditions of underdevelopment” (Ruiz Garcia 1994). Rather, as most studies on Chiapas confirm, marginalization is produced by unjust political and social structures based on the exploitation of land and the exclusion of indigenous people (Poynton 1997). At the local level, indigenous people perceive their marginal­ ized condition as caused by the adverse intentions of economic and political institutions. “The government and the finqueros [rich landowners] are the same thing. They are together and they want to screw the Indians” (quoted in Benjamin 1996, 223).