Awaking to the dream: Education, leadership, and political-cultural formation in four Neo-Zapatista communities of Chiapas

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which surfaced on January 1'' 1994, has generated a great deal of interest among social scientists, as expressed in the publication of several books and articles that analyze the uprising. Education, however, is one aspect of the neo-Zapatista movement that social scientist have not explored in those publications. After the uprising, the EZLN along with its base communities undertook the development of an education system autonomously from the Mexican state. The goal of this thesis, therefore, is to understand the role of that education system on the politicalcultural formation of the neo-Zapatista movement. Based on field research conducted in four neo-Zapatista communities and on the analysis of the relationship between regional culture, education, and leadership, this thesis concludes that one of the roles of the education system is the development, maintenance, and reproduction of a democratic leadership within the neo-Zapatista movement.