Using-Fusing-and-Refusing in the Era of Post-Politics in Mexico: Indigenous Women’s Disagreement(s)

Mexico’s democratization continues to be marked by a “post-political” landscape that encourages the use of the state and Indigenous forms of self-governance that do not interfere with the market. I suggest the Zapatistas have responded to the limits of both using and refusing the state by “using-fusing-and-refusing.” This strategy entails calling for a redistributive and legally pluralistic nation-state that recognizes Indigenous autonomy while also practicing autonomy without state authorization and nurturing coalitions. Using-fusing-and-refusing is thereby one way by which the Zapatistas have disagreed with neoliberal multiculturalism by foregrounding an alternative to it and disrupting the consensus over who is a political subject and what counts as political. Furthermore, the using-fusing-and-refusing framework allows us to assay the Zapatistas’ surprising bid for an independent candidacy in 2018. Through this bid, Marichuy, the spokeswoman the Zapatistas elected to run for president, enacted a new form of disagreement that decentered the paradigmatic Rancièrean speaking subject by fusing a broader collective story of the pain and rage caused by “capitalist patriarchy” through listening. Lastly, I suggest that an Indigenous Nahua domestic worker named Candy practices using-fusing-and-refusing to raise her daughter while also teaching her the value of listening for collective repair.