ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an analysis of how the Zapatistas are constructing Un Mundo Donde Quepan Muchos Mundos (a world where many worlds fit) through autonomy as a response to injustices generated by neoliberalism. The piece is aimed at demonstrating how a moral economy comprised of Indigenous worldviews, decentralized governance, gender equity, anti-capitalist collective work, and place-based education can provide viable alternatives to our rapidly globalizing corporate food regime. I begin with a brief explanation of neoliberalism and continue by illustrating the consequences of its policies and discourse. I then transition into a short synopsis of the Zapatista Uprising by offering an overview of the exploitation, alienation, and dispossession that rural farmers in Mexico were facing because of free-market economics, with a focus on NAFTA and Indigenous campesinos. I next describe how the Zapatistas are building an economy of solidarity that incorporates mutual aid, food sovereignty, and Indigenous traditions as a response to the debilitating products of global capitalism, state authority, and hetero-patriarchal repression. I finish by highlighting how both ‘Women’s Revolutionary Law’ and inclusive language have been implemented into Zapatista communities, thereby creating more fair and just social relations. The purpose of this chapter is thus to share, not to impose a model, how the Zapatista resistance is decolonizing a food system governed by the logic of neoliberal capitalism, in hopes of possibly sparking ideas for solutions to similar problems in other places.
