Review of Mexico in Transition by Byron Crites

Book Reviews
Kovic, Christine (2005) Mayan Voices for Human Rights: Displaced Catholics in
Highland Chiapas , University of Texas (Austin), x + 238 pp. $50 hbk, $19.95 pbk.
This book presents a rich ethnographic and historical approach to the expulsion of
religious dissidents in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, and seeks to address the complex
issue of human rights in multicultural contexts. Supported by a solid description of the
historical processes related to the broader social, cultural, economic and political context
in Chiapas and San Juan Chamula, Kovic presents and scrutinises the narratives
of a particular group of indigenous exiles, thus putting the reader in direct contact with
the human side of the drama of expulsion.
Kovic shows that expulsion is not solely linked to conversion to Protestantism, as
scholars, journalists and government offi cials have tended to argue. Unveiling the
power struggles involved, she demonstrates the economic and political factors that
underlie the expulsion of more than 20,000 people from Chamula since the early
1970s. Indeed, ‘ expulsion cannot be viewed exclusively as a religious confl ict because
political and economic interests are embedded in religious symbols ’ (p. 85).
A key contribution of the book is that it shows the complexity of any assessment
of human rights in multicultural contexts, which ‘ demands an understanding of indigenous
people as subjects with human agency rather than as mere objects of abuses ’ (p.
39). Kovic underlines explicitly that indigenous people are not only victims, but also
perpetrators, showing that the divide in the struggle for rights and justice in Chiapas
cannot be drawn simplistically across ethnic or class affi liation. Human rights, she
argues, have been used both by government and indigenous actors to pursue their own
interests.
Kovic describes a Catholic Church that sought a dialogue with ‘ the other ’ , but that
constructed an abstract and romantic image of indigenous culture and thus to a large
extent ignored the heterogeneity within and between communities, and failed to address
‘ the question of who would defi ne culture and the ways tradition is linked to
power ’ (p. 58). In this way, she stresses once more the complexity of the study of human
rights in multicultural contexts.
The author points to a central dilemma faced by Church activists in the promotion
of indigenous subjectivity how far should they accompany indigenous people in the
political struggle for liberation? Her analysis begs further questions related to the process
of self-determination, particularly with respect to the defi nition of rights. Up to
what point was the notion of rights held by the indigenous people from Guadalupe
moulded by the pastoral workers ’ own perceptions?
Mayan Voices for Human Rights stresses the link between conceptions of human
rights and religious identity. The book depicts a progressive Catholic Church that
recognised indigenous peoples as ‘ subjects of their own history ’ and as counterparts in
a cultural dialogue. It also stresses the importance of the alliance for human rights
between indigenous people and the Catholic Church. In this respect, she argues that
‘ [d]istinct notions of human rights – including those from indigenous communities,
from Catholic doctrine, and from legal codes – are not treated as competing notions
but rather as coexisting defi nitions of rights ’ (p. 113). But the broad description and
analysis presented by the author throughout the book suggests that the concept of
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 26, No. 1 149