Saturday, September 01, 2012
Standing in the Way
In this film about geomilitary mapping in Mexico, we learn about the
academic/non-profit front of the U.S. Army project to militarize
indigenous territories as a means of privatizing communally owned land.
As a process of gathering cultural intelligence to be used by the
neoliberal axis in taking these lands, mapping as a form of spying feeds
into the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office program for
supporting the U.S.-Mexico Merida Initiative, a military/market strategy
for eliminating indigenous autonomy.
As we see in reports from Oaxaca, mapping culture is a way of mapping resistance by those Wall Street and the Pentagon see as standing in the way: the indigenous peoples of Mexico. While mapping by indigenous communities for their own purposes can be an important part of cultural survival and revitalization, in the hands of their enemies, this knowledge is a devastating weapon.
As we see in reports from Oaxaca, mapping culture is a way of mapping resistance by those Wall Street and the Pentagon see as standing in the way: the indigenous peoples of Mexico. While mapping by indigenous communities for their own purposes can be an important part of cultural survival and revitalization, in the hands of their enemies, this knowledge is a devastating weapon.