I do not believe, nor do I want to promote, that CMP/Promedios is the only means of facilitating and promoting indigenous media; rather, I hope to share my story, including my mistakes, over the past ten years to encourage others to join in this struggle. I use the word “struggle” very consciously, since any person involved in social change--as an artist, academic, or activist, or all the above--must be aware of the role they play within greater human rights, especially the presentation of these realities. In this article, I will emphasize the contexts in which media as agents of social change operate: local, domestic and global.

I’ve been a documentary video maker for over 25 years and, early on in my career, I became aware of the power of media to create social change. I’ve produced videos on AIDS, women’s reproductive rights, job loss and gentrification, in addition to videos on Cuba. Throughout my career, I have come to the conclusion that documentary video making is not only about the end product, but also about the process.

This became most clear to me in the late 1980’s, when I saw a short video production of Video Sewa, a women’s organization based in Ahmedabad, India, that uses video as a means of empowering illiterate, unemployed, and self-employed peasant women.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN/Zapatistas) is a Mayan indigenous organization based in Chiapas, Mexico. On January 1st, 1994, the EZLN declared war against the Mexican Government in an armed uprising that took over six towns in Chiapas. The stated reason for the uprising was that indigenous people, their rights, and their culture were not recognized in the Mexican Constitution, and thus indigenous people in Mexico were treated socially and through legal fiat as second-class citizens. These were (and are) people denied the rights guaranteed to all Mexicans under the Mexican constitution. It is significant that the Zapatistas chose January 1, 1994 for the uprising, since it was the date that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. As a primarily agricultural people, the prospect of NAFTA would have a significant impact on indigenous peoples throughout Mexico, and yet their concerns were never heard, let alone solicited.

Media were always a part of the Zapatista “arsenal”; in fact, in the days immediately following the uprising, the Zapatistas (via sympathetic supporters) used the internet to broadcast their cause to the world. This strategic use of the media was to create a call to international civil society to join them in building a new world. This use of the internet generated much international interest and the global scrutiny that is often credited with forcing the Mexican government into a truce 12 days later and into negotiations with the Zapatistas.

Since 1994, the Zapatistas have become a “spectacle” spawning everything from PhD dissertations to conferences to rock music. Based on the inundation of requests for interviews, office visits, and access to the communities, our organization has had to create a mechanism to filter and control our time and focus. We appreciate the interest in our work but struggle to ensure reciprocity.

Mapping the territory

Not every indigenous community in Chiapas is Zapatista. The communities that we work with are communities that clearly identify themselves as Zapatista, also known as “Zapatista civilian communities” thereby distinguishing them from the armed wing of the Zapatistas, the EZLN. These communities organize themselves via local, regional, and municipal authorities, elected through community consensus. They also have a rotating governance board, the Good Government Assemblies (Juntas de Buen Gobierno), that deal with all matter of decision-making for their given autonomous municipality. The members of the Good Government Assemblies rotate out every 15 days and are members of the communities that are part of each particular autonomous municipality. In some regions, the Good Government Assemblies have been so successful at mediating local conflicts (cattle theft, land disputes, etc.) that they are now referred to by local Mexican government judiciary to mediate between Zapatista and non-Zapatista individuals.

Other communities exist that support the Zapatista cause but do not identify themselves as Zapatista. At the other end of the spectrum are the non-Zapatista communities that can range from communities that self-identify with political parties (PAN, PRD, PRI) to communities that openly support paramilitaries. Many of these paramilitary organizations receive support from local ranchers and, in many cases, state and federal funds.

Before I left Chiapas, I began a discussion with Zapatista authorities about bringing video technology to their communities; they expressed a strong interest. I also spoke with representatives of local NGOs who had a working relationship with the Zapatista communities as well, and they were very supportive. Their pre-existing relationships with the Zapatista communities helped facilitate our communication and gave us credibility within the communities.

So I went back to the U.S. with the kernel of an idea and the Zapatistas’ OK to move ahead. In this stage of the project, I really only envisioned a workshop or a series of workshops in one region—I never imagined what the project would become.

Getting Organized

First Workshop

Due to the larger political and military events taking place throughout Chiapas by the Mexican government, it took two years to fund and organize the first workshops. The Acteal massacre in 1997 created panic within the Street Level Youth Media group, and we had to reorganize some of our initial plans. In February 1998, we held the first bi-national workshops as part of a youth intercultural exchange project under the name Chiapas Youth Media Project; the participants were Street Level Youth Media from Chicago, Fabio’s group of indigenous youth from Mexico City, and Guillermo’s group of indigenous video makers from Oaxaca. These first workshops were funded by a grant from the US-Mexico Fund for Culture, based in Mexico City.

We arrived in Ejido Morelia when there was a lot of tension about illegal logging that resulted in a physical altercation. The entire incident illustrated the difficulty in organizing cultural exchanges in a highly-conflicted area. The staff of Street Level wanted constant assurances that “nothing would happen,” and when something did happen, be it a very minor incident, it threw them into a panic, adding tension to an already tense situation.

Keywords : self representation; identity; photography indigenous; carnival; tzeltal.

Autor: Jeroen van der Zalm
MA (Masters of Art-Magister) en Estudios Culturales, especialización en Antropología Visual, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam-CEDLA. Asesor en Comunicación Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos Bartolomé de Las Casas.
e-mail: jzalm@hotmail.com

Through the success of the first video workshops in Ejido Morelia and Oventic, it was apparent the Zapatista communities were interested in continuing with the video training. In March 1998, we decided to formalize the project as the Chiapas Media Project (CMP), a non-profit organization based in the U.S. Pretty early on in the project, it became clear to me that there were certain aspects of my cultural conditioning (white, middle class, college-educated American female) that were causing conflicts within the project. Most notable was my frustration at the long meetings with local Zapatista authorities and the slowness of decision-making within the communities. My dissatisfaction with this process created friction within our staff, and I quickly realized that my strengths could be better utilized elsewhere. At that time, I removed myself from the day-to-day decision-making in Mexico and focused on international distribution and promotion.

In 2001, we incorporated in Mexico as Promedios de Comunicación Comunitaria and now refer to ourselves as CMP/Promedios. We are organized as a collective with no director or hierarchical structure. We have three full-time staff in Chiapas, one full-time staff in Guerrero and one full-time and one part-time staff in the U.S. Our organization is an attempt to reflect the organizational structure of the Zapatista communities we work with. Our current work in Chiapas is to assist the communities to build and equip five Regional Media Centers. We see ourselves as working for the communities, taking their lead and working with them to create an autonomous media network that reflects their needs.

From the very beginning, we recognized the vulnerability of this project, and we realized that there needed to be elements of self-sustainability and that the self-sustainability needed to be a media product that could be shown, distributed, and sold. Unfortunately, selling indigenous made videos does not support the project on its own. We knew that we were working within a political process that was extremely critical of international capitalism and suspicious of government support and corporate interests. We needed to respect this political framework, balancing it with the reality of needing consistant funding. Therefore, for the first five years, the U.S. side of the project took full responsibility for securing funding.

As a video maker myself, I understood the costs involved just in equipment maintenance alone and knew that we would need some creative strategies for self-generating funds. In addition to foundation/corporate funding and personal altruism, we also created a system of self-generating income: video sales and university presentations.

When we first began discussions with the communities about the project, we explained that the equipment was theirs to do whatever they wanted with, but if they decided that they didn’t want to produce some videos for outside consumption (a product to sell to the outside world), it would be hard to maintain financing.

In the beginning of the video training process, we were all aware of the pitfalls of bringing in temporary “outsiders” to do the training, particularly as “instructors.” Bringing in people from outside of Mexico would not work from either a sociopolitical or economic standpoint--we did not want to replicate the colonial model. With very rare exceptions, all of the beginning video and computer workshops the first two years were taught by either indigenous video makers from Oaxaca or by Mexican CMP/Promedios staff.

In the first workshops, the students were primarily local authorities, put there to check us out and make sure we “weren’t up to no good.” We found this out later after working in the communities for a while, noticing that certain people dropped out of the courses that we would later encounter in leadership positions. Another dynamic operating was the presence of so many “outsiders.” Many people came (and continue to come) to Chiapas with much goodwill to assist the communities. There is a tendency for people to come and make a lot of promises--that they can’t accomplish--and never come back. This leaves people in the communities wary of first-time visitors. We knew from the beginning that we couldn’t make any promises we couldn’t fulfill and that the most important thing was continuity–to maintain a presence.

I was never an instructor in any formal video production or post-production workshop for the communities. My role was always more like a technical consultant advising on equipment and talking with the instructors.

These internal videos are almost exclusively in Mayan languages, and CMP/Promedios staff rarely see these productions.

We are currently distributing 24 videos internationally produced in Chiapas and Guerrero with most distribution done via our Chicago office. Video sales last year exceeded $17,000, with university sales making up the majority of the income. It has really only been in the last couple of years that the communities can see a direct financial benefit from video sales. Currently, video sales cover the monthly satellite internet connection fees in all four of the Regional Media Centers.

In 2003, I began attending large academic conferences like the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). Presence at these conferences has been instrumental in raising our visibility within the academy, greatly increasing our video sales, and adding names to our direct mail list. One of our other main sources of self-generated funding comes from honoraria from university presentations.

An added benefit of doing these academic presentations is the direct contact with the American university students. For many students, this is the first time they have heard of or seen indigenous media. The students are often affected by the power of self-representation.

The videos produced by the Zapatistas can have a powerful effect on even the most jaded college student. Seeing people organized collectively to work in their organic municipal garden (with no ski masks or guns) talking about how they want to be self-sufficient, not use chemical fertilizer, nor take government handouts, completely goes against their pre-conceived image (and corporate media misinformation) of the Zapatistas as armed guerillas only interested in state power. These academic presentations benefit CMP/Promedios in many ways: by increasing video sales, providing word of mouth promotion for future presentations, recruiting student interns, and creating a sensitivity to indigenous struggle and self-representation.

CMP/Promedios also seeks funding via philanthropic resources. At the beginning of the project, we made the decision that we would only apply for grants as long as there were no strings attached and no political agenda of the foundation that conflicted with our/the community’s agenda. We have found that we can secure funds that have no outside agenda attached to conflict with our work.

It took us a while to identify which foundations had funding priorities that matched our work and were willing to take a risk on a project such as ours. Support from private foundations has made it possible for us to grow as an organization.

In Ecuador, CONAIE, (Confederation of the Indigenous Nations of Ecuador) has been producing Indigenous videos for a number of years. In addition, there are a number of smaller initiatives whose work does not receive wide recognition or distribution. Video Production and dissemination within the communities has become a regular feature of indigenous life.

Many have asked me how I feel as a white, middle-class woman working with indigenous communities in Mexico. I have learned that there is an important role for “outsiders” to play as collaborators with indigenous communities/organizations in fostering media initiatives–namely, in the initial transfer of media technology and the creation of infrastructure and sustainability. As I have seen myself, my most important contribution has been my ability to raise the initial funding that supported the creation of a permanent infrastructure and my current role in getting the videos distributed to the widest audience possible. Utilizing the resources that are available here in the U.S. in furthering the collaborative work is the most important contribution I have made.