ABSTRACT
This chapter explores ways in which the transdisciplinary field of cultural studies can address changing patterns of cultural identity. It describes how the current processes of globalization have generated discussions about the role of civil society as the medium through which the conventional compromise between the state and the diverse sectors of the nation—the e pluribus unum—is renegotiated. The chapter reviews how globalization has altered the objects and methods of the study of culture, particularly in relation to Latin America. It looks into the specific effects of neoliberalism on Latin American political and social movements. The chapter examines the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, as a new kind of indigenous movement that departs from conventional notions of both leftist political movements and grassroots organizations. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) brought the crisis on itself, but the new consensus that there must be reform has to be credited to the Zapatistas more than to any other sector of the opposition.
