Speed - At the Crossroads of Human Rights and Anthropology

SHANNON SPEED

At the Crossroads of Human Rights andAnthropology: Toward a Critically EngagedActivist Research

ABSTRACT In this article, I consider anthropologys engagement with human rights today. Through the lens of my experience in a

case brought before the International Labor Organization by a community in Chiapas, Mexico, I consider the ethical, practical, and

epistemological questions that arise in research defined by rights activism. I argue that the critical engagement brought about by activist

research is both necessary and productive. Such research can contribute to transforming the discipline by addressing the politics of

knowledge production and working to decolonize our research process. Rather than seeking to avoid or resolve the tensions inherent

in anthropological research on human rights, activist research draws them to the fore, making them a productive part of the process.

Finally, activist research allows us to merge cultural critique with political action to produce knowledge that is empirically grounded,

theoretically valuable, and ethically viable. [Keywords: human rights, Chiapas, activist research]

POISED AT THE CROSSROADS: RECONSIDERING THEANTHROPOLOGY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Anthropologists interested in research on human rights to-day are facing far more than the ubiquitous debates re-garding universalism and cultural relativism. Although thatdebate had anthropologists somewhat paralyzed in termsof rights research and advocacy for several decades (seeGoodale this issue), many have since forged ahead into var-ious fields of engagement with human rights. Those whodo face a host of other challenges.

Since the 1970s, anthropology has been grappling withserious internal and external critiques that caused the dis-cipline to question and redefine some of its most basic pre-cepts. These critiques were launched from various quarters:not only from our postcolonial research subjects but alsofrom feminist, postmodern, postcolonial, and critical racetheorists.1 All of these scholars challenged anthropologicalrepresentations of others and pointed to the disciplineshistory of collusion with colonial power in producingrepresentations that supported colonialist logics and ratio-nalities. Scientific epistemology came under fire: The defi-nition of anthropology as a social science was questionedand the validity of claims to a knowable truth regardinghuman cultures was challenged. Following feminist theo-rists, anthropologists grappled with the understanding thatour representations of others were products of our own so-

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 108, Issue 1, pp. 6676, ISSN 0002-7294, electronic ISSN 1548-1433. C 2006 by the American Anthropological Association.All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss Rightsand Permissions website, at http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

cial positioning and our own situatedness in relation tothose people and cultural dynamics we chose to represent.Further, these subjective representations had concrete andat times powerful effects on those we represented in ourwork (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Haraway 1988; Lyotard1984; Marcus and Fischer 1986; Prakash 1990; Said 1978).Attention was drawn to the ways that the myth of scientificobjectivity had served to conceal both indirect, unintendedeffects of anthropological research and work with obviouspolitical ends, such as spying for government agencies un-der the guise of fieldwork (Price 2000). Thus, scientific objec-tivity was not only an impossible goal but also potentiallysomething more insidious: a cover for the harmful politicaleffects of our work on those about whomwe researched andwrote.

The crisis of representation meant that anthropol-ogists had no choice but to seriously examine how weconduct our business (Denzin 2002). Anthropologists tooka variety of approaches to dealing with these issues; twosignificant currents are important to note for my argument.For some, it led to a retrenchment in the realm of thetheoretical and the textual, which allowed cultural critiqueto stand alone as anthropologys contribution and avoidedthemessier engagement with increasingly vocal and criticalresearch subjects. Others developed collaborative or ac-tivist approaches. They strove to take responsibility for the

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potential effects of the knowledge produced about peopleand their cultures, to contribute to decolonizing therelationship between researcher and research subject (Halen.d.; Harrison 1991; Mutua and Swadener 2004; TuhiwaiSmith 1999), and to engage in a form of anthropologythat was committed to human liberation (Gordon 1991;Scheper-Hughes 1995).

Concerns about ethical conduct and the politics ofknowledge production are perhaps even more salient andpowerful in situations of rights violations inwhich the sub-jects are in perilous circumstances. Here, one would expectadvocacy to be the prescription: If our research subjects arein danger, then anthropologists should use their positionsand whatever prestige or power they might affordtodefend and make known their subjects rights against vi-olation. Many anthropologists have done this admirably.Certainly, during the same period in which anthropologywas experiencing its strongest period of self-reflection, thecorpus of research on human rights was growing quickly,and important articles took note and called for more suchresearch (see Messer 1993, 1995; Nagengast and Turner1997).2 Yet new work on human rights also brought cri-tiques of rights and rights activism that problematize aca-demic advocacy.

The growth in rights research was a product of thedynamic expansion of the discourse of human rightsthroughout the world. With the end of the 1980s and thefall of the Berlin Wall, the projects of socialism and com-munism also lost currency. This was the juncture at whichthe discourse of human rights, along with that of neolib-eral democracy, truly globalized. In the void left by thegrand political narratives for social change, rights becamethe terrain on which virtually all movements for social jus-tice and equality were waged (see Grandin 2004). Althoughthe discourse of human rights had been globalizing sincethe postWorld War II period among the states, in the post-socialist moment, human rights also globalized as a dis-course of resistance (Brysk 2002; Donnelly 2003; Falk 2002;Ignatieff 2001; Wilson 1997). This pushed virtually all po-litical struggle into the legal realm, so much so that withina decades analysts would state: So saturated by legalism iscontemporary political life, that it is often difficult to imag-ine alternative ways of deliberating about and pursuing jus-tice (Brown and Halley 2002:19).

It was clear that new engagements with rights were tak-ing place and new conceptualizations were emerging; it wasalso clear that for anthropologists the need to understandand theorize about this process was imperative. For some,this meant setting aside the old debate about relativismand universalism, which had become largely unproductive.Sally Merry, Richard Wilson, and others encouraged us toengage with and theorize about discourse of human rights.In the seminal volume he edited, Wilson tells us that evenin 1997, at present, discussions of the cross-cultural appli-cability of human rights still revolve around the univer-salism/relativism debate (Wilson 1997:3; see also Merry1997). These analysts suggested that anthropologists stop

focusing on the debate itself; instead, they urged fellowscholars to turn to the uses, meanings, and conjuncturalrelationships of rights in particular local contexts (Wilson1997:14).

As human rights have globalized, important critiquesof rights have emerged. Some analysts have pointed to theways that rights work in conjunction with capitalism andserve as regulatory discourses, at once normalizing certainrelations of power and co-opting more radical political de-mands (Brown 1995; Gledhill 1997; Hale 2002). Theoristssuch as Wendy Brown and Janet Halley (2002) extendedthis critique of rights to rights activism by leftist intellec-tuals, including academics. In Left Legalism/Left Critique,Brown and Halley make a strong argument for a returnto cultural critique as a form of activism, noting that le-galism . . . incessantly translates wide-ranging political ques-tions intomore narrowly framed legal questions (2002:19).Brown and Haley suggest that activist scholars who are en-gaged in rights struggles too often focus on short-term legalgoals. In the process, they fail to reflect critically about themanner inwhich their scholarly production, geared to theselegal goals, may actually reinforce structures and discoursesof inequalityin part by fixing identities and delimitingculture in the law, subjugating them to a stable set of reg-ulatory norms (Brown and Haley 2002:24; see also Merry1997).

Today, anthropologists of human rights face the ethicaland practical dilemmas all anthropologists face. Retrench-ing in the realm of theory is ethically tenuous, particularlygiven the potential vulnerability of the research subjects in-volved. But engaging in advocacy is not a simple solutioneither, if we take Brown andHalley seriously. Are anthropol-ogists in advocacy roles failing tomaintain a critical analyti-cal focus? If so, are they in the process inadvertently servingneoliberalism (in a disturbing parallel to our former serviceto colonialism) by facilitating the fixing of cultural iden-tities in law and reinforcing the legal regimes that under-pin neoliberal power? As an activist anthropologist that hasgrappled with these questions, I suggest that an approachof collaborative research that merges activism and culturalcritiquealthough it doesnt fully resolve these questionsis precisely what is needed in the current moment of theanthropology of rights.

Nicolas Ruiz and the International LaborOrganization (ILO): A Critically Engaged ActivistResearch Experience

Since 1996, I have worked in Chiapas as an activist for hu-man rights and indigenous rights. As part of an activist re-search project, I conducted doctoral and postdoctoral workand collaborated with two different human-rights organi-zations. From 1996 to 1998, I coordinated the San Cristobaloffice of Global Exchange, a U.S.-based nongovernmen-tal organization (NGO) conducting human rights docu-mentation and accompaniment work. From 1998 until thepresent, I have been an advisor to the Red de Defensores

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Comunitarios por los Derechos Humanos (Community Hu-man Rights Defenders Network). This organization trainsyoung indigenous people from conflict zones of the stateto conduct their own human rights defense work, reducingthe communities reliance on NGOs and attorneys and thuscontributing to local autonomous processes.

In 2000, the Defenders Network initiated Project ILO169.3 Part of this project involved the elaboration of a rep-resentation before the ILO regarding violations of its Con-vention 169 (ILO 1989) by theMexican government againstthe community of Nicolas Ruiz.4 I worked in collaborationwith the Defenders Network and the community, supply-ing the ethnohistorical information and analysis necessaryto substantiate the communitys claims to indigenous iden-tification and to territorial rights.

Nicolas Ruiz is a community and municipality in theCentral Zone of the state of Chiapas. With a population ofless than 5,000, it is one of the smallestmunicipalities in thestate. Founded by Tzeltal Indians, it has not been defined asan indigenous community by the state or by residents forseveral decades. However, the community is currently re-asserting its indigenous identity. For more than a century,Nicolas Ruiz has been engaged in an ongoing land struggle,waged alternately against large landholders and against thestate. In recent years, Nicolas Ruiz was one of the munici-palities most often mentioned in news articles and reportson the Chiapas conflict. This notoriety was caused not onlyby the land conflict but also by the serious and often vi-olent intracommunity political conflict that Nicolas Ruizhas suffered since 1996, which is tied to the larger conflictaffecting the state.

In 1994, a largely indigenous armed uprising began inChiapas. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)made wide-ranging demands on issues of land, democrati-zation, social justice, and womens and indigenous rights.Although open combat with the Mexican Army lasted only12 days, political polarization, militarization, paramilita-rization, and low-intensity warfare (not to mention contin-ued social injustice) have all contributed to ongoing socialconflict in the state. Social conflict was not born in Chiapaswith the uprising; however, the presence of the Zapatistamovement since 1994 and the governmental response to ithas shaped politics and political conflict at the communitylevel in many areas of the state, including Nicolas Ruiz.

The community was formed in 1734, when Tzeltal In-dians from the nearby area of Teopisca purchased a largetract of land from a Spanish landholding family.5 The orig-inal tract of land was quite large, but over the course of the19th century, Nicolas Ruiz lost significant portions of it toregional landowners and political bosses.6 Most tracts weretaken from the community through deception or fraud.7

Further lands were lost during the years of the agrarian re-form in Chiapas, when parcels of land claimed by NicolasRuiz were granted to other groups as ejidos (communal landgrants). Residents of Nicolas Ruiz have fought continuouslyto regain these lands, by petitioning the government, in-vading lands, and using any other means at their disposal.

Much of the communitys history and identity into andthrough the 20th century has been forged in the struggle toregain its lost lands.

Markers of indigenous identity were disappearing inNicolas Ruiz by the mid20th century. According to inhabi-tants, by 1960, men and women no longer wore traditionaldress and few Tzeltal speakers remained.8 Residents whoseparents or grandparents had been Tzeltal speakers told methat their parents purposefully did not teach their childrenthe language, because they felt it would keep them fromgetting ahead (field notes, July 7, 1999). It is important tonote that inMexico, the primary identifier of an indigenousperson is language. This association is made in official des-ignation of indigenous status: In the census, for example,language is the identifier of an indigenous person. This link-age is made much more widely, however. In fact, most peo-ple interviewed throughout the course of several years re-search, including activists and indigenous people, assertedthat someone who did not speak an Indian language wasnot indigenous. I have been told, or heard the statement onseveral occasions that a person from an indigenous commu-nitywhohad stopped speaking the language after relocatingto a city used to be indigenous. In 1999, thenSecretariode Gobierno (State Interior Minister) Rodolfo Soto Monzontold representatives of Nicolas Ruiz that if they wanted to beconsidered indigenous, they would have to provide proofthat they still spoke Tzeltal.9 In current census statistics, theindigenous population of the municipality is listed as lessthan one percent.

The historical record clearly demonstrates that the peo-ple who founded Nicolas Ruiz were Tzeltales. The only sig-nificant influx of outsiders took place when the indenturedservants of nearby ranches concentrated in the town duringthe violent years of the Mexican Revolution. Undoubtedly,the current residents of Nicolas Ruiz are descended primar-ily from Tzeltal Mayans. Their institutions, like those of vir-tually all indigenous peoples, are not pristine duplicationsof pre-Conquest forms. Although inevitably shaped by cen-turies of influence by the state and other outside actors,they nevertheless are arguably distinctive from the domi-nant culture.

Since the communitys formation, land has been heldcommunally in Nicolas Ruiz, and decisions are made byconsensus (of the adult men). Today, 90 percent of theland in Nicolas Ruiz is held communally and is distributedin parcels to individuals. Men become comuneros, whichmeans that they are entitled to work a parcel of land andhave a corresponding responsibility to participate in thecommunity assembly. Decisions about virtually every as-pect of community political life are made in the com-munity assembly by consensus, in which all comunerosparticipate.10 Maintaining consensus is critical to the func-tioning of the system; for people in Nicolas Ruiz, consensusis the heart of their form of local governance.

In political decisions, the consensus for several decadeshad been that the community should adhere to the rul-ing party, the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), and


benefit from this political alliance, hopefully by recoveringtheir lands.11 The consensus model worked sufficiently wellfor the community to be able to select the candidates formunicipal president in the community assembly, then sim-ply ratify this decision at the ballot box. Until 1996, votingstatistics in Nicolas Ruiz reflect 100 percent of votes as forthe ruling party. This changed, however, with the Zapatistauprising of 1994, which challenged the PRI partys hege-monic power and presented alternatives for political orga-nization and struggle. In 1995, the comuneros of NicolasRuiz shifted their loyalty to the PRD party by consensus de-cision in the community assembly and in 1996 elected thefirst PRD municipal president. That same year, Nicolas Ruizdeclared itself a community in resistance and became aZapatista base community.

This move marked the entry of Nicolas Ruiz into theChiapas conflict. It was only a short time later that localconflict surged when in 1998, 23 families officially returnedto the PRI party. It is this division and the ensuing con-flicts that have kept Nicolas Ruiz in the newspapers forthe last four years. The majority felt that this dissent wasan intolerable violation of the norms of the community,which had been long based on consensus decision making.As one resident expressed it, We were in agreement for 264years [since the founding of the community in 1734], andthis changed everything (conversation with author, March2002). Although this comment likely masks significant pastincidences of internal disagreement, the fact remains thatopen conflict of this kind had never existed in Nicolas Ruiz.

In the assembly in March of 1998, the comuneros de-cided to revoke the land use rights of the dissenting commu-nity members because they were no longer fulfilling theircorresponding responsibility of participating in the assem-bly. This revocation resulted in a massive raid by the army,state and federal police, and immigration officials on June3, 1998. The raid was a clear sign that the state governmentwas going to back the small PRI minority by force.12 PRIcommunitymembers, wearingmasks on their faces, accom-panied the police through the town, pointing out houses ofcommunity leaders. They entered the private home wherethe important documents of Bienes Comunales (Commu-nal Properties, the body charged with administering com-munal goods including land) were kept, and removed theoriginal land titles, among other vital records. The commu-nity has never recovered these documents. One hundredand seventy-seven people were arrested; 16 were chargedwith despojo (despoilment). The judge in the case ultimatelyfound them innocent and they were released, after havingspent half a year in prison. The conflict has never been re-solved, and the violence that characterizes it led one jour-nalist to characterize Nicolas Ruiz as the Tierra sin Ley(lit., Lawless Land; Gurguha 2000). Such lawlessnesswas not something inherent to Nicolas Ruiz or its inhab-itants: The fact that this raid was one of several carriedout by government forces in 1998, all against autonomousor pro-Zapatista municipal seats, tied both the local con-flict and the governments role in it to the larger conflict

particularly to state counterinsurgency and low-intensitywarfare.

The history of Nicolas Ruiz has involved, in large part,a struggle to recover their lands. These struggles, and theirenemies and allies in them, have defined their identity overtime. Identity in Nicolas Ruiz is historically and contin-uously constructed in relation to other social groups andthrough the ongoing struggles over its land and territory.During the period in which land struggles were waged viathe state through agrarian reform and agrarian policies,Nicolas Ruizs community identity became campesino (peas-ant). That is, indigenous identity gave way to campesinoidentity as state discourse and state policies engaged landstruggles through agrarian reform and agrarian assistanceto the campesino population. As the state made reformsdesigned to facilitate its entry into the neoliberal worldorder, its discourse shifted. In 1992, constitutional reformrecognized the existence of indigenous people as part ofa pluriethnic population. After 1994, the Zapatista upris-ing and Chiapas conflict brought Nicolas Ruiz into dialoguewith new interlocutors, including the Zapatistas, organizedgroups of civil society, NGOs, and human rights groups.Community members had increased engagement with thediscourse of human and indigenous rights, and as the dis-courses of the state shifted away from the agrarian and to-ward the indigenous as a basis for rights, people in NicolasRuiz began to rethink and redefine their understanding ofthemselves. By the year 2000, this redefinition had led themto reassert their identity as an indigenous community. Be-cause of the indigenous conflict in the state, however, thegovernment was reluctant to class them as indigenous,preferring to deal with the conflict in the community as anagrarian conflict.

Enter the Activist Anthropologist

Thus, in 2000, Nicolas Ruiz was facing three problems: itshistoric land struggle, the internal conflict with the localpriistas (PRI party militants), and the related problem of thegovernments refusal to accept their self-identification andnegotiate with them as an indigenous community. The De-fenders Network had a relationship with the communitythrough several channels. The founder of the Network (alsothis authors husband) had been the attorney for the com-munity since the government forces carried out the raidand jailed residents. Two of the Networks members (calleddefenders) were from the community of Nicolas Ruiz. Ihad begun conducting doctoral research in the communityin 1999. We had important political and ethical reasonsfor working with the comuneros, as opposed to the dis-senting priistas. First, the comuneros, in allying with theZapatista struggle, were part of a larger struggle that we (Ias an individual and the Defenders Network as an orga-nization) also allied with. The priistas, however, struggledfor a return to a form of political power (PRI party rule)that from our perspective had maintained power relationsthat oppressed indigenous people for decades. Although the


priistas were a minority in Nicolas Ruiz, they were backedby the full force of state power, as the raid demonstrated,whereas the comuneros formed part of an opposition po-litical party and an oppositional movement being stronglyrepressed by the state. In fact, community fractionalizationand internal violence was prevalent throughout the zonesof Zapatista support, and it was understood by many to bepart of a government divide-and-conquer strategy char-acteristic of low-intensity warfare.

At the Defenders Network, we saw possibilities for thecomuneros of Nicolas Ruiz in the ILO Convention 169.Mexico has signed and ratified the convention, and thus,like all ratified international agreements, it is consideredlaw at the level of the Mexican Constitution. ILO Con-vention 169 provides the broadest international agreementto date on the rights of indigenous peoples, establishingrespect for the full measure of human rights and funda-mental freedoms (Art. 3.1) as well as the full realizationof the social, economic and cultural rights of these peo-ples with respect for their social and cultural identity, theircustoms and traditions and their institutions (Art. 2.2.b).There are three aspects of the ILO Convention 169 of partic-ular importance for Nicolas Ruiz. First is the establishmentof self-identification as the criterion for defining indigenousgroups (Art. 1.2). Second is the right to retain their owncustoms and institutions (Art. 8.2) and the right to respectfor the methods customarily practiced by the peoples con-cerned for dealing with offences committed by their mem-bers (Art. 9.1). And third is the issue of land rights (Arts.1316). The ILO Convention 169 establishes that indige-nous peoples have a right to the lands or territories, orboth as applicable, which they occupy or otherwise use,and emphasizes in particular the collective aspects of thisrelationship [to the land] (Art. 13.1).

In June of 2001, we approached the authorities ofNicolas Ruiz regarding the possibility of jointly preparinga representation before the ILO.13 We explained our viewthat the community had a claim to recover lands, that theydeserved restitution for unrecoverable lands, and that theMexican government had been complicit in reducing theirland titles through the discriminate use of land censusesand agrarian reform, a violation of ILO Convention 169Land Articles 13, 14, and 16.14 We pointed out that in de-fense of their position in revoking the land rights of thedissenting minority members of the community, theythemselves had invoked their usos y costumbres (traditionalcustoms and practices), a position that would be supportedby ILO Convention 169 Articles 8 and 9. We also discussedthe possibility of arguing that the government was violatingArticle 1.2 on self-identification, by defining Nicolas Ruizas nonindigenous because they had lost the use of theirlanguage.

The first thing Nicolas Ruiz as a community needed todo was to establish its right to define itself as indigenous.As a pueblo indgena (indigenous people), the communitycould fight for its land claims as territory rather than privateproperty. Further, the community authorities would have

the right tomake internal decisions about punishment of itsmembers (such as revoking land rights) based on its internalcustoms. The right of the state to intervene on behalf of thedissenting members it favored would be limited, because,as an indigenous community, Nicolas Ruiz has the right toautonomy in local decision-making processes. The ILO casepresented a new strategy for pursuing their goals and theirself-defense, one that was dependent on this reemergentindigenous identity.

The response from the community was positive. Theywere clearly interested in making a claim for lands theyhad lost over the years as well as in defending themselvesagainst further violent invasions by state forces. Notably,they were particularly interested in the potential for assert-ing their identity as an indigenous community and estab-lishing their right to define themselves in this way. In thewords of one, I think this is very important to be able tosay to the government, We are not Zona Centro [a regiondefined as nonindigenous]; we are Tzeltales, we feel thatwe are part of the pueblos indgenas (conversation withauthor, June 7, 2001). Another said, This is what is mostimportant [about participating in the ILO representation],that they recognize whowe are.We are Tzeltales (conversa-tion with June 7, 2001). Two weeks later in the communityassembly, more than 600 comuneros voted unanimously todeclare themselves as indigenous people as part of the ILOrepresentation.

To document their claims, they needed anthropologi-cal information and analysis. This would be fundamentalto the case; without it, they would have nothing on whichto base their claims. Ellen Messer suggests that one impor-tant potential form of activism emerged as anthropologistsrespond to indigenous demands for historical cultural doc-umentation on human rights claims (1993:237). The in-tegration of my ethnohistorical work into the ILO case fellwithin this field of engagement. I was eager to participate,understanding it as an opportunity to work collaborativelywith the comuneros on a jointly defined activist researchproject.

FORGED IN DIALOGUE: CONSIDERING THE ACTIVISTRESEARCH ENGAGEMENT

Above, I examined some of the tensions and roadblocksinvolved in the anthropological engagement with humanrights. Questions of cultural relativism, individual and col-lective rights, the ethics of research, the neocolonial natureof anthropologists with their research subjects, the poli-tics of knowledge production, and critiques of rights andrights activism as a form of struggle have all challenged andshaped anthropologys encounters with human rights. Thecritiques of anthropological practice must be addressed inresearch today, and that imperative is particularly acute forthose engaged in rights research. I want to argue that, at aminimum, critically engaged activist research provides animportant approach to addressing the practical and ethicaldilemmas of research and knowledge production, and an

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especially useful one for anthropologists of human rights.In this section, I will consider these issues through the lensof my involvement in Nicolas Ruizs ILO representation,highlighting some benefits and dilemmas in this criticallyengaged activist research.

Before continuing, I want to define what I mean bythis term. By critically engaged, I acknowledge the funda-mental enterprise of anthropology: critical cultural analy-sis. This is what our specialized training prepares us to do,and in the kind of research I am envisioning, it makes acontribution not just to our theoretical understanding ofsocial dynamics but also to concrete political objectives onthe ground. By activist research, I mean the overt commit-ment to an engagement with our research subjects that isdirected toward a shared political goal. These two under-takings are distinct and often are carried out separately.However, what I want to argueand the reason I use theterm critically engaged activist researchis that the two canbe productively practiced together, as part of one under-taking. This does not mean that the multiple tensions andcontradictions that exist between them cease to exist, but,instead, that these are productive tensions that we mightstrive to benefit from analytically, rather than seeking toavoid.

Starting from the Ethical and Practical: OnAddressing the Politics of Knowledge Production

Few people would debate that it is ethically tenuous foranthropologists to go into a field site and extract infor-mation from people struggling from a disadvantaged po-sition for their most basic rightsto their lives, to theirself-determination, and to their culture. It is even moreso when we take into account the unequal relations ofpower between the researcher and the research subjects. Al-though the balance of power between the researcher andthe researched varies in different contexts, in many casesresearchers have a good deal more say in how the researchis defined, what it would be important to know, and whatshould be done with the knowledge produced. This powerimbalance can increase the potential for harmful effectsof ones knowledge production on the people in question.Those engaged in human rights struggles are almost by def-inition vulnerable populations; thus the negative effectsproduced by an unreflexive approach to research and anirresponsible handling of the research product can be evenmore serious.

An activist engagementwith research subjects, at amin-imum, demonstrates a shared desire to see their rights re-spected, a promise to involve them in decisions about theresearch, and a commitment to contribute something totheir struggle through ones research and analysis. I believemost anthropologists studying human rights have somebasic commitment to them, whether in universal or cul-turally particular forms. Those doing research with indige-nous peoples often share a broad overlap of goals with theirresearch populationswhether it is cultural survival, devel-

opment rights, or indigenous liberation. An activist engage-ment provides a way for those mutual goals to be madeexplicit and defined in dialogue between researcher and re-search subject. This does not mean that it will be an equaldialogue; relations defined in larger fields of power still de-termine this relationship. However, it necessitates the ac-knowledgment of and dialogue about those power relationsin the definition of a shared project.

Such accountability is important not only for ethicalreasons but also for practical ones. The question of whethera researcher of human rights should have a commitment to,or accountability to, his or her research subjects, especiallywhen they are marginalized and disadvantaged, is not justone of anthropological ethics; inmany cases, it is a practicalone for the researcher of human rights. Today, the researchsubjects themselves are likely to expect and demand sucha commitment. Cognizant of the potential for exploitationby researchers and the potentialities for research productsthat undermine rather than support their struggles, indige-nous people and others are increasingly demanding a voicein what is researched, how the research is conducted, andwhat is donewith the knowledge produced. They frequentlyrequire evidence of political solidarities and a clear com-mitment to producing knowledge that is of some benefit tothem.

This stance on the part of indigenous communitiesand organizations was (and remains) marked in Chiapas,where political conflict simmered and the situation washighly polarized. Suspicion abounded; an air of if youarent with us, youre against us prevailed. People livingin tension-ridden environments that regularly broke intoopen conflict, as in Nicolas Ruiz, could not afford to haveanyone presentparticularly someone engaged in informa-tion gatheringwho was not on their side. I was onlyable to approach the community because of my work asan activist, in particular my affiliation with the DefendersNetwork. By approaching them as an activist researcher, Iwas able to make explicit my solidarity, and we could estab-lish what the extent and the limits of that solidarity wouldbe.

My work on the Nicolas Ruiz ILO representation al-lowed me to address the ethical and practical concerns de-lineated above in concrete ways. I was able to make anovert commitment to the community around mutually de-fined goals. The community had a direct role in defin-ing, in dialogue with the anthropologist and the activists,what it would be useful to know, and how we should goabout gaining that knowledge. In multiple interactions,we debated the documentary and oral evidence, as well asthe emerging analysis, with community members. This al-lowed the community members contribute to the devel-opment of the analysis itself. This collaboration allowedme to make explicit my commitment to the communitywhere our goals overlapped, and to incorporate the com-munity in the definition of what knowledge should be pro-duced and for what purpose. Moreover, this process enabledme to recognize and give weight to their analysis of the

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social processes and to ensure that this informed the finalanalysis.

Contentious Encounters? Tensions andContradictions in the Activist Engagement

Although the dialogic construction of the research processin activist research contributes to addressing the practicaland ethical issues inherent in knowledge production, it is byno means free of tensions and contradictions. In my workwith Nicolas Ruiz on the ILO representation, there were anumber of complexities and challenges in our interactionthat merit acknowledgement and careful attention.

One is the role of the anthropologistactivist as inter-ventionist. People in Nicolas Ruiz had been involved formany decades in a land struggle and for several years ina local political conflict, and they had been shifting theircommunity identity toward a reassertion of their indige-nousness. These dynamics were the result of the commu-nitys interactions with local elites, the Mexican state, theZapatistas, and other civil society actors, including humanrights activists. However, it was the anthropologist, alongwith other activists, who approached the community andguided them toward the notion of establishing recognitionof their indigenous identity as an alternative basis for ad-dressing their land struggle and their local conflict. Our in-tervention played a role in shifting the communitys dis-course from one of universal human rights (of their rightto life, to not to be arbitrarily detained, etc.) to one of col-lective cultural rights (the basis of claims to territoriality orpolitical autonomy). For some, this might constitute an un-ethical meddling in the community, one that guided themin a particular direction in their local identities and politics.

What constitutes unethical intervention in the livesand cultures of communities we work with has been hotlydebated in recent years, most notably around the Darknessin El Dorado controversy (American Anthropological As-sociation 2002; Gregor and Gross 2004; Tierney 2002). Thequestion of the effects, both intended and unintended, isperhaps most evident in activist research, which is overtlyinterventionist. The activist researchers explicit commit-ment to the well-being of the community is no guaranteethat such interactions will not have negative consequences.

However, local communities have been in interac-tion with many social actors over the course of centuries.All of these interactions shape their understandings and be-havior in some way, just as their internal interactions do.One virtue of activist research is that it makes the interac-tion open to definition and the effects open to scrutiny byboth the researcher and the community. More than just theanthropologists opinion of what is right for the commu-nity goes into the equation and responsibility of outcomesis shared. In short, it renders the shapingmore visible andmore accountable than research that sidesteps the issue orcloaks it in a veil of positivist objectivity. A related issue isthat the community may have divided opinions on what isright for them, as was the case in Nicolas Ruiz. Here, the ac-

tivist researcher, like all anthropologists, makes a personalethical decision regarding his or her alliances. The differ-ence, once again, is that it is more explicit and transparentthan in some other circumstances.

This raises other tensions faced by anthropologists ofrights: those between universalism and relativism and thosebetween individual and collective rights. The activist re-searcher must negotiate these divides not only on the the-oretical terrain but also on the practical terrain. The case ofNicolas Ruiz is one of a divided community, in which bothsides interpret their position in terms of rights. As an activistresearcher, I was politically and ethically allied with one ofthe factions because I supported the social change agendaof the Zapatista movement they represented and because Iopposed the counterinsurgency tactics of the governmentof which the other faction was a product. In this particularcase, I foundmyself (a person with a strong belief in univer-sal rights) in the relativist position of arguing that the localconflict could only be understood in terms of the commu-nitys cultural logic of consensus and supporting their groupright to maintain this culture even if it violated some indi-viduals right to work the land. In many other cases, I canimaginemyselfmaking a very different decision, dependingon the particularities of the case. Because we cannot resolvethe tension between universalism and relativism, perhapsthe only way to proceed is by recognizing the contingentnature of human rights and basing our actions in any givensituation on our own situated knowledges, our own socialpositioning. The tensions are by nomeans resolved here: Infact, they are brought front and center by activist research.

Another contradiction lies in the manner in which thecasting of the anthropologist as culture expert in the le-gal arena of rights struggles actually reinforces hierarchiesof power. One of the concerns of a decolonized research isthe unequal valorization of anthropological or scientificknowledge over knowledge produced by indigenous peo-ples. However, when the anthropologist is brought in asthe expert witness in legal cases to provide evidence that in-digenous culture is presentwhich was my role in the ILOrepresentation of Nicolas Ruizsuch hierarchies of knowl-edge are reinforced. Members of cultures are not oftengranted the authority to speak for themselves or define theirown cultures and identities; only anthropological specialistsare granted the authority to do so. In fulfilling the role ofculture expert in the Nicolas Ruiz case, I reinforced thosevalorizations, even as I sought to challenge them in my re-search process.

An even more complex issue, or set of issues, clustersaround the critiques of rights struggles on the legal terrain.Various analysts have noted the problematic nature of rightsstruggles, in that they reduce all justice issues to legal is-sues, which may be more manageable by states. One of theways that they are rendered manageable is through delim-iting, restricting, and reducing them by definition in lawsand regulations. Identity and culture, inherently fluid andchanging, are essentialized (e.g., the idea that indigenouspeople have a special relationship to the land) and fixed

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in law for the purposes both of creating regulations andof precedent for future cases. Indigenous peoplealthoughthis may be applicable to any number of groupswith theircultural particularities may find it difficult to meet thosedefinitions and thus qualify for rights.

Above, we examined the assertion that legal activistsmay focus on the shorter-term goal of winning importantcases and, thus, may be complicit in reducing, essentializ-ing, and rendering static particular cultural identities. Thismay be a sort of strategic essentialism, in the sense in-tended by Spivak (1988) in that identity is strategic when itsuits a situation for the purposes of struggle. But for an-thropologists steeped in antiessentialism, having to rendersuch reductive presentations of culture can be counter toour training and our politics, to the extent that we align our-selves with a politics of difference. This is true evenwhenweunderstand essentialism as strategically necessary for win-ning specific cases that might offer significant advances interms of gaining rights for particular groups.15 Here, notonly was there a risk of longer-term damage for indigenouspeoples if very limited and static definitions of indigenousculturewere to be established as precedent, therewas also animmediate pragmatic short-termquestion about how towina recommendation in the case. The question is whether ac-tivist researchers are failing to maintain a critical analysisnot because they are not objective but, rather, becausetheir attention is on immediate political goals.

As an anthropologist trained in social constructionismand antiessentialism and cognizant of the critiques of legalrights struggles, I could see the pitfalls of an essentializedpresentation of Nicolas Ruizs cultural identity. I worked tofind a way to define their indigenousness that continuallyemphasized the fluid and changing nature of culture andcultural identity without ceding the critical importance ofthat identity in lived experience and as the basis of claimsto rights. I argued that culture, identity, and tradition areall continuously being reinterpreted in light of the experi-ence at any particular historical moment. With this defini-tion, I attempted to legitimize their claim without losingthe historically constructed and unfixed nature of culturalidentity.16 Unfortunately, people in Nicolas Ruiz did notnecessarily agree. They viewed their culture as unified andtended to emphasize continuity over change. Emphasizingchange, in their view, made little sense in terms of the caseand did not resonate with their own perceptions. Thus, al-though anthropologists might understand identity as in-herently unstable and unfixed (Lowe 1991), we may haveto confront the fact that indigenous groups often find suchcultural fluidity contrary not only to their goals but also totheir very understanding of themselves and their cultures.

But importantly, the collaborative dialogue of an en-gaged activist research has the negotiation of these politicalrealities with critical cultural analysis built into themethod-ology. Whether or not we resolved the questions, in theNicolas Ruiz case we did spend time debating them; un-doubtedly both my understanding and those of the com-munity members I worked with were altered in the process.

We might also consider the intended outcome of thecollaboration: the mutually defined goal of the work. Re-garding the case of Nicolas Ruiz, although the ILO did notissue a recommendation to the Mexican government, thisdid not necessarily mean that the case was not compelling.TheMexican government challenged the legality of the sub-mission by the Frente Autentico de Trabajo because it was notan official state labor union, dismissing the case on tech-nical grounds.We respondedwith the argument that if onlystate-controlled labor unions are permitted to submit repre-sentations, it is unlikely that any would ever be submitted.However, the ILO was not willing or able to override thischallenge. (Even if the ILO had issued a recommendationin the case, the government would have been at liberty notto act on it.) The case did not achieve the return of NicolasRuizs lost lands, nor did it garner recognition by the Mexi-can government that Nicolas Ruiz is an indigenous commu-nity. Certainly, this was a failure to achieve our short-termgoal.

Nevertheless, our collaboration was important for thecommunity and certainly for my study. For the community,the case provided external support and validation of theiridentity claims, which were being challenged at that timeby government officials. It made the community aware ofthe different standards applied in the international arenafor defining indigenous peoples and their rights. Also, itdemonstrated to the Mexican state that the community in-tended to define itself as indigenous and that it was capableof mobilizing both local external support and internationalresources. In recent years, government officials have notopenly challenged Nicolas Ruizs indigenous identity. Thisis not necessarily a result of the ILO case but, rather, of aprocess in which the ILO case played a part.

My own understanding of human rights and local cul-tural identities was greatly enriched by this engagement.Proceeding from the communitys defined needs and inter-ests, especially as they were made concrete through the ILOcase, and as we negotiated the tensions associated with theconcepts of identity, strategy, and meaning, I gainedinsights into the communitys (and my own) engagementwith human rights. Of course, it is hard to know and im-possible to measure what we would have known had our re-search experience and learning process been different. But,having to deal with the questions in the way that we didfor the case brought me to my current understanding ofhow identity and identity formationwasworking inNicolasRuiz.

I am somewhat wary of practical effectiveness criteriaas a basis for evaluating the worth of activist research, bothbecause it suggests a certain positivist nostalgia for notionsof controlled studies and measurable results and because itseems to place demands on activist research that are rarelyplaced either on anthropological research or an politicalactivism alone. In political activism, the immediate ben-efits are often hard to see and impossible to measure. Rarelyis this interpreted to mean that they do not exist. Insist-ing on definable and demonstrable positive results for the

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community or group involved can be a circular drive diffi-cult to exit. Who defines what is a positive result and howis this defined? How immediatemust it be to be identified asa product of the activist research collaboration? Might notan outcome that seems negative in the short run contributeto a situation that generates a positive result in the mediumor long run (or vice versa for that matter)?

Perhaps a better criterion for evaluating the success ofactivist research undertakings would be to ask ourselveswhether they address the critical questions directed at thediscipline. Do they address neocolonial power dynamics inour research processes? Do they seek to engage rather thanto protect our research subjects? Do they maintain a criti-cal focus even as they make explicit political commitments,thus creating a productive tension in which critical analysismeets (and must come to terms with) day-to-day politicalrealities?

THE ROAD FORWARD: TOWARD A CRITICALLYENGAGED ANTHROPOLOGY OF RIGHTS

For most anthropologists, field research and analysis entailsa significant engagement with the communities that arethe subjects of our research. But should this engagementbe explicitly activist? The tension between politicalethicalcommitment and critical analysis is always present in ac-tivist research, alongside numerous other tensions: that ofuniversalism and relativism or particularlism, of power rela-tions between researcher and researched, and of short-termpragmatics and longer-term implications. Yet such tensionsare present in all research. The benefit of explicitly activistresearch is precisely that it draws a focus on those tensionsand maintains them as central to the work.

Critiques of anthropological authority and feministstandpoint theory have given us a heightened awarenessof the socially situated nature of our knowledge produc-tion. Understanding the inherent inequalities of researchrelationships, we have reached some consensus in an-thropology of the importance of situating ourselvesincorporating a reflexive consideration of how our position-ing affects the knowledge that we produce. This includesconsiderations of our power and authority in the relation-ship with our research subject. Charles Hale (n.d.) arguesthat formulating explicitly activist research alliances, mak-ing our political commitments explicit up front, and main-taining the social dynamics of the research process opento an ongoing dialogue with the research subjects is sim-ply taking positioning to its logical conclusion. Criticalanalysis that is informed by an explicit politics has to grap-ple with those politics overtly rather than cede to the ten-dency to downplay their role. Critical analysis is continuallydrawn back to political grounding, whereas political strat-egy is continually challenged and potentially strengthenedby the insights of critical analysis.

To the extent that such research is possible, it will cer-tainly never bewithout contradictions. An explicitly activistengagement, when maintained in tension with critical re-

flection, forces us to address these contradictions, even ifthe conclusions generated are always partial, contingent,and subject to debate (as they are in all research). It is pre-cisely the contingent and subject to debate aspect of theactivist commitment that, rather than letting anthropolo-gists off the hook (Im just doing theoretical analysis), in-stead requires us to acknowledge power relations up front,deal with tensions as they arise, and find solutions in dia-logue with our research subjects. Maintaining critical anal-ysis and political pragmatics in tension pushes us to con-tinuously acknowledge and grapple with the contradictionsinherent in such a project.

In todays anthropology, especially when it entails workwith people for whom the consequences may be grave, thiskind of ongoing reflexivity and political accountability iscrucial. The paralysis in human rights research provokedby the universalismrelativism debate might be overcomeby projects that merge political action and research. This isnot because this research resolves definitively whether suchrights are universal or particular, which is a philosophicaltension that cannot be resolved. The debate cannot be over-come by circumventing it to avoid paralysis; instead, thatbinary must be kept as a productive tension in the work.The universality of rights claims that give them their forcealso allows for a convergence of struggle between disparatesocial actors. Yet the culturally specific (as well as the fluidnature of cultural specificity) is also a fundamental part ofrights struggles today, based, as they often are, not on ourbelonging to the human race but, rather, on belonging to aspecific cultural groupwithwhichwe are identified. Anthro-pologists are uniquely positioned to harness this productivetension through activist research by recognizing the contin-gent nature of rights discourses and approaching researchand action from our own situated knowledges, reflexivelyand openly.

We also must negotiate the contradictions of engagingin rights struggles, especially when we may recognize othersources of oppression, such as capitalism, that will not beeliminated by rights strugglesand that may even be re-inforced by them. I have focused in particular on critiquesof rights and Left legalism, which argue that we may in-advertently support state efforts to define identity groupsin ways that are limiting and undermining of their forceas movements of resistance to oppression. But here again,I believe that critically engaged activist research is vital toaddressing, if not resolving, the inherent tension. Membersof identity groups often understand their own identity inways that are as essentialized and static as the definitionsof them inscribed in law. But by keeping a critical analysisthat focuses on these larger structures of oppression, as ananthropologist is trained to do, definitions are more likelyto be negotiated out before they make it into case law. Thisis not to say that the anthropologists role is to tell mem-bers of a group that their understanding of their culture andidentity is wrongfar from it. It does mean engaging in arespectful dialogue with members of a group with whomthe anthropologist is allied in a common struggle and

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reaching mutual understandings about legal strategies andtheir short- and long-term effects, both for the group in-volved and for others like them. Although mutual under-standings may not always emerge, a critical dialogue basedon shared commitment is, from my perspective, the bestway to keep the tension between critical analysis and polit-ical pragmatics ethically viable and productive.

At the intersection of anthropology and human rights,a critical activist engagement is ethically and practicallywarranted. Further, the kind of critical engagement im-plied by activist research allows us to merge culturalcritique with political action to create knowledge thatis at once empirically grounded, theoretically valuable,and contributes to the ongoing struggle for greater socialjustice.

SHANNON SPEED Departments of Anthropology and LatinAmerican Studies, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX78712

NOTESAcknowledgments. I am grateful for the comments of Miguel Angelde los Santos, Melissa Forbis, Kathleen Dill, Mark Goodale, CharlesHale, Susan Lees, and the reviewers at American Anthropologist, allof which greatly improved the text. Research was supported by theSSRC-MacArthur Foundation, the Ford FoundationMexico, and aMellon Faculty ResearchGrant of the Lozano Long Institute of LatinAmerican Studies at UT Austin.1. One aspect of these critiques was a challenge to the term researchsubject. The term carries othermeanings than subject as in topicincluding subject of power, which adds to the sensitivity aboutthe hierarchical relations of power that inhere in the relationshipbetween researcher and the researched. I use the term purposefullyin this text to remind us of the problematics of those power re-lations, although without the cumbersome quotation marks oftenused around the term to denote the authors recognition of theterms negative implications.2. Anthropologists made an increasingly significant contributionto documenting human rights violations in the areas in whichthey work (e.g., Binford 1996; Manz 1988; Sanford 2004; Scheper-Hughes 1995; Wilson 1999). The emergence of forensic anthro-pology in documenting past mass abuses and seeking justice forthem also constituted an important anthropological contribution(see Joyce and Stove 1991; Koff 2004; Maples and Browns 1995).Anthropologists collaboration in creating testimonials also pro-vided a unique, personalized perspective on the impact of rightsviolations for individuals and communities (e.g., Menchu andBurgos Debray 1987; Tula and Stephen 1994). An important pre-decessor in anthropological rights advocacy was the organizationCultural Survival, founded in 1972 by Harvard anthropologistDavid Maybury-Lewis with the goal of defending the humanrights and cultural autonomy of indigenous peoples and oppressedethnic minorities.3. This project was conceived and coordinated by attorney andsocial theorist Alvaro Reyes.4. The ILO Complaint was prepared by Reyes and Canadian attor-ney Lisa Glowacki, in collaboration with Ruben Moreno Mendezand Heron Moreno Moreno, representatives of Nicolas Ruiz in theDefenders Network.5. The history of Nicolas Ruiz in this section is drawn from primarysources, including documents in the possession of the communityin themunicipal archive and in Bienes Comunales, documents in theArchive of the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, and documentsin the Archive of the Registro Agrario Nacional in Tuxtla Gutierrez,Chiapas. A more complete history of the community is elaboratedin Speed in press.

6. In fact, by 1868 when San Diego was designated a municipality,it was measured at only about one-fifth of its original land.7. Oral histories abound, and those collected by the author arepresented in Speed in press.8. As early as 1900, census records show that there were no speak-ers of Tzeltal in Nicolas Ruiz. However, in 1998 older adults toldme that their parents had spoken Tzeltal, and these people wouldclearly have been alive after 1900. As recently as 1998, there werestill several very elderly Tzeltal speakers.9. This information was recounted to the author by authorities ofNicolas Ruiz in August 2000.10. Women do not hold land or participate in the assembly.11. Rus (1994) has demonstrated how indigenous communities inhighlands Chiapas were transformed into Revolutionary Institu-tional Communities (after the ruling partys name RevolutionaryInstitutional Party) as their local leaders and political processeswere integrated into the corporatist state through clientelism, as-suring the partys hegemony in Chiapas for decades.12. Although one might be tempted to interpret this as the gov-ernment fulfilling its role of protecting the rights of individuals tochoose their political allegiances, it is extremely unlikely that thegovernment would have intervened on behalf of supporters of anopposition party.13. A complaint regarding a violation of an ILO Convention bya signatory state is called a representation, and it is presentedonly through an established labor union. The Defenders Net-work worked in coordination with the Frente Autentico del Trabajo(Authentic Labor Front, or FAT by its Spanish acronym) to presentthe representation on behalf of Nicolas Ruiz.14. Nicolas Ruiz does not seek the return of lands lost to ejidalgrants, recognizing that the communities established on themhavenow lived there for decades and have a right to remain.15. Hale (2006) critiques this process in the important Awas Tignicase before the Inter-American Court.16. Because the case was set aside, there is no way to know if thiswould have worked as a convincing legal argument.

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Documents

Speed - At the Crossroads of Human Rights and Anthropology