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About the Project
Visualizing Memory: Indigenous Resistance in Chiapas, Mexico 1998-2009
Planning Grant
Visualizing Memory focuses on the Chiapas Media Project (CMP)/Promedios archive held in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. CMP/Promedios was launched in 1998 as a Mexican-US collaboration to facilitate the production and distribution of audiovisual works through regional media centers built by Zapatista communities in Chiapas. These materials, representing two decades of Indigenous peoples’ struggle to achieve autonomy and dignity in the face of overwhelming obstacles, are at risk of being lost.
The project catalogue 1400 videotapes and set up a digital and analogue digitization system for use by the community. During the process of creating the inventory the team identified various historical movements and organizing trends in the region– 1998 to date. Identification of these different trends of organizing allowed us to trace how the Diocese supported the movement for indigenous rights, the regional women’s movement as well as how the Diocese incorporated indigenous cultural practices into their vision of liberation theology.
One finding from the survey work is a set of archival material that documents the Zapatista communities' construction of self-governing processes is for us some of the most compelling footage. Members of the organization working within their communities are seen taking matters into their own hands. This documentation provides an important element to counterbalance the dominant media narrative of the Zapatista movement as an armed militant guerrilla movement.
Over the last 23 years ProMedios has documented the process of daily life within the movement. The small tasks are carried out by all members of the community in order to build their all-encompassing project. We can see via our footage that a very humble but profound social change has occurred over time.
Project Lead
Alexandra Halkin, Americas Media Initiative NFP
Host Institution
Americas Media Initiative
More Information
Visualizando la memoria: resistencia indígena en Chiapas, México 1998-2009
Visualizando la memoria: resistencia indígena en Chiapas, México 1998-2009 ha sido una oportunidad especial para incursionar en un proceso que se había postergado demasiado, inicialmente por falta de información así como la aparente falta de recursos.
El planteamiento fue el de realizar una profunda sistematización del material, no solo un inventario de elementos, con tal de poder compartir el contenido de las cintas con las diferentes comunidades a las que interpela el acervo, al mismo tiempo de poder poner a disposición de investigadores y realizadores cinematográficos el archivo audiovisual. Para ProMedios siempre ha estado implícita la posibilidad de generar un proceso formativo que permita en continuidad de la naturaleza de la organización ofrecer orientación y capacitación a otros grupos dado que en la región el acceso a capacitación tan especializada es completamente ausente.
Al finalizar este proyecto la organización completa las metas de manera satisfactoria y además logra consolidar las condiciones para construir una fase nueva de trabajo formando el Centro de Preservación de Archivos Audiovisuales Comunitarios (CEPAAC). CEPAAC que es en construcción servirá como una plataforma para generar encuentros entre instituciones que promueven y fomentan la preservación de archivos y organizaciones locales que requieren de asistencia técnica capacitación infraestructura y tecnología para la preservación de los archivos y acervos audiovisuales en la región de manera local dinámica y accesible.
Los impedimentos que frenaron la sistematización y digitalización de este archivo se han resuelto, esas carencias técnicas y económicas que se percibían previamente se han sorteado gracias a alianzas con instituciones como esta y otras que se han sumado una vez iniciado el proceso.
Collection Themes
Cultural Preservation
Indigenous culture is practiced in diverse ways, in celebrations, rituals, religious ceremonies both within the communities as well as externally. The resilience of indigenous culture can be seen throughout the ProMedios archive. Numerous recordings point to the ways indigenous culture is practiced in the indigenous communities and outside of the communities as cultural exchange events.
Defending Women's Rights
Chiapas, like in many other parts of the world, the struggle for women’s rights has a long history. The ProMedios archive contains recordings representative of the women’s movement beginning in the late 1990’s through the mid 2000’s. The ProMedios catalog contains numerous examples of large women’s rights marches supported by the EZLN, and collaborations with the urban women’s movement organized by local NGOs and women’s rights centers.
Community Resistance to Violence
Indigenous people’s struggles for just and dignified lives haven't always been pacifist– in critical moments they have had to pick up arms in self defense– however the vast majority of these movements have been pacifist. Within this selection of the ProMedios archive are peaceful demonstrations of the Las Abejas organization or the large network of pacifist organizations organized by the Catholic Diocese called “Communities of Faith” who are mobilizing in support of indigenous rights.
Building Autonomy
The concept of indigenous autonomy is much debated and in the case of Chiapas various political theoreticians have investigated and analyzed the EZLN’s autonomous governance structures and have come to their own conclusions. Within the ProMedios archive there are various examples of videos produced by the communities that demonstrate very concretely and in practical terms what building autonomy means for them.