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Epistemic Injustice and Resistance in the Chiapas Highlands: The Zapatista Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Sergio Gallegos  and
Carol Quinn
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Abstract

Though Indigenous women in Mexico have traditionally exhibited some of the highest levels of maternal mortality in the country—a fact that some authors have argued was an important reason to explain the EZLN uprising in 1994—there is some evidence that the rate of maternal mortality has fallen in Zapatista communities in the Chiapas Highlands in the last two decades, and that other health indicators have improved. In this article, we offer an account of the modest success that Zapatista communities have achieved in improving their health levels. In particular, we argue that Zapatista women have implicitly used a form of feminist standpoint theory to diagnose the epistemic (and economic) injustice to which they have been traditionally subjected and to develop an epistemology of resistance that is manifested in actions such as becoming health promoters in their communities. We also argue that this epistemology of resistance is partially responsible for the improvement of health levels in their communities. Finally, on the basis of our discussion of the Zapatista case, we suggest that standpoint theory could play an important role in other healthcare settings involving oppressed minorities.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Spring 2017 , pp. 247 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Hypatia, Inc.

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