Autonomía digital y tecnológica

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In November 200 1, Nature published a letter in which University of California Berkeley’s biologists claimed to have found evidence of genetically modified (GM) DNA in regional varieties of maize in Oaxaca, even though the Mexican government had banned transgenic corn agriculture in 1998. While urban protesters marched against the genetic ‘contamination’ of Mexican corn by US-based agricultural biotech firms, rural indigenous communities needed a framework for understanding concepts such as GM before they could take action. This article analyzes how the indigenous organization, the Zapatistas, mobilized a program to address this novel entity. Their anti-GM project entailed educating local farmers about genetics, importing genetic testing kits, seed-banking landrace corn and sending seeds to ‘solidarity growers’ around the world. This article explores material-semiotic translations to explain one of the central aspects of this project, the definition and circulation of Zapatista corn–an entity defined not only through cultural geography, but also technological means. Through its circulation, Zapatista corn serves to perform a biocultural engagement with Zapatista’s political project of resistance to neoliberalism. While much has been written about both regulatory policy and consumer activism against GM in the Global North, Zapatista corn also provides a case study in indigenous, anti-GM activism founded on biocultural innovation and the creation of alternative networks for circulating corn.

En el territorio zapatista el castigo no consiste tanto en separar a la persona que comete un delito de los espacios y los tiempos de la sociabilidad mediante el encierro, como de una intensificación de la integración social mediante tareas de índole comunitaria.

Mientras que el Derecho coloca a denunciante y denunciado frente al Estado, el modo zapatista de hacer justicia trata de recomponer la relación entre ambos: denunciante y denunciado no entran en relación de delegación y dependencia con una instancia superior, sino que participan del intento de restauración de la relación entre ellos.