networked activists in search of resistance: exploring an alternative media pilgrimage across the...

Communication, Culture & Critique ISSN 1753-9129

ORIGINAL ART ICLE

Networked Activists in Search of Resistance:Exploring an Alternative Media PilgrimageAcross the Boundaries and Borderlands ofGlobalization

Joshua Atkinson

School of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403

This essay builds on research concerning networked activism, utilizing Couldry’s theoryof media pilgrimage to examine an activist event coordinated by a new social movementnetwork, which was an ‘‘alternative media pilgrimage’’ to the Zapatista communities inChiapas, Mexico. Using ethnographic narrative excavation, qualitative content analysis,and fantasy theme analysis, I explored resistance in testimonial narratives presented inZapatista communities, as well as the rhetorical vision used by activists to make sense ofsuch resistance. The research showed that the activists used a rhetorical vision based onconceptual narratives about ethical consumerism, which acted as a discursive blindfoldhiding the resistance found in the Zapatistas communities and reinforced the resistancefound in the alternative media world of new social movement networks.

doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2009.01032.x

One of the most important developments in the study of communication relatingto new social movements has been the application of the network metaphor. Thenetwork concept was pioneered by Evans (1972) and has recently been used byBest (2005), Castells (1996), Pickard (2006a, 2006b), Russell (2005), and Stengrim(2005) to describe the role of the Internet and digital media production in newsocial movements. Through this metaphor, new social movements have come to beconceptualized as diffused power structures where activists pass information to oneanother through multiple channels of communication to coordinate temporarycommunities that seek to accomplish temporary goals; Best calls this processnetworked activism. Pickard (2006a, 2006b) and Stengrim offer the Indymedia networkas an example of a new social movement network. Indymedia.org provides a senseof loyalty and trust as activists are able to pass information framed within narratives

Corresponding author: Joshua Atkinson; e-mail: [email protected] version of this essay was presented for the Ethnography Division of the 2006 NationalCommunication Association Conference, San Antonio, Texas.

Communication, Culture & Critique 2 (2009) 137–159 �c 2009 International Communication Association 137

Networked Activists in Search of Resistance J. Atkinson

of ‘‘be the media’’ and ‘‘principles of unity’’ through listservs and discussion boards(Pickard, 2006a, 2006b). Rather than a hierarchical structure with definite goalsand leaders, activists who participate in the Indymedia network are able to identifywith the broad narratives passed through the network and come together to formtemporary communities that will resist a specific aspect of corporate globalizationthat seems to violate those narratives (Best, 2005; Stengrim, 2005).

While I was conducting research concerning new social movement networks,the coordinators of the organization Worldwide Outreach1 informed me thattheir website allows activists to circulate information about social justicemovements—movements that work to advocate for economically, socially, and/orpolitically marginalized communities (see Frey, Pearce, Pollock, Artz, & Murphy,1996)—that resist corporate globalization in Southern2 countries, much the sameway the Indymedia.org site is used by activists in the Indymedia network (i.e.,Pickard, 2006a, 2006b; Stengrim, 2005). In addition, the website is used to promoteand coordinate events called ‘‘Truth Excursions’’ that bring temporary communitiesof Northerners into contact with activists in Southern nations such as Venezuela,Cuba, or Mexico who engage in such resistance. The goal of these temporarycommunities is to explore the resistance to corporate globalization in Southerncommunities depicted in news circulated through the network. During the course ofmy research, I was offered the opportunity to take part in one of the Truth Excursionsto Chiapas, Mexico to contact the activists affiliated with the Zapatista movement.For readers who are unfamiliar, the Zapatista movement emerged on the same day theNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was enacted between the UnitedStates, Mexico, and Canada. What began as a violent insurgency transformed into apeaceful movement that sought to construct international bridges and educate theworld about the plight of the indigenous people of Mexico who lost lands and incomedue to NAFTA (e.g., Bob, 2005). Through the communiques of the mysteriousSubcomadante Insurgente Marcos circulated via the Internet and reprinted in avariety of alternative media texts, the Zapatistas explained to the world their rationalefor resistance: economic and racial oppression imposed on the indigenous people byNAFTA, multinational corporations, and the Mexican government (Marcos, 2001).

I utilized the concepts of media pilgrimage (Couldry, 2000, 2003), ethnographicnarrative excavation (Krizek, 2003), qualitative content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004;Mayring, 2000), and fantasy theme analysis (Bormann, 1972) to illustrate the eventin which a temporary community of networked activists was formed to exploreresistance in the Zapatista communities. Ultimately, the research illustrates how thenetworked activists constructed a rhetorical vision in their discussions following theTruth Excursion that acted as a discursive closure and hid from them importantaspects of the resistance in the Zapatista communities that they sought. Such findingsexpand on research concerning new social movement networks by illustrating:(a) potential limitations for networks and networked activists that engage in journeyslike the Truth Excursions, and (b) ethnographic narrative excavation as a legitimatemethod for the examination of events associated with new social movement networks

138 Communication, Culture & Critique 2 (2009) 137–159 �c 2009 International Communication Association

J. Atkinson Networked Activists in Search of Resistance

and alternative media. In the following pages, I provide a detailed explanation of thetheoretical concepts and methods utilized in my examination of the Truth Excursion,followed by an illustration of the results and implications.

Media pilgrimage

Couldry’s (2000, 2003) research concerning the media pilgrimage addressed distinc-tions between the ‘‘ordinary world’’ and the ‘‘media world.’’ The ordinary world isthe social space where ‘‘ordinary’’ people live and work, engaging in activities that aremundane. In contrast, the media world is the larger-than-life social space of mediaproduction that is much more intense, populated by people who are ‘‘special.’’ Thedistinction, as well as the hierarchy of the mundane versus special, is maintainedthrough various audience rituals that create a common-sense distance between thetwo social spaces. In particular, the media pilgrimage is a ritual that allows theaudience to momentarily cross the boundary between the two worlds and ‘‘play’’with those boundaries. Such ‘‘play’’ does not result in the collapse or breaking ofthose boundaries, but instead reinforces the distinction between ordinary and media.In his research, Couldry (2000) took particular interest in pilgrimages concerning aBritish soap opera called Coronation Street. In his interviews of audiences who touredthe set of the program, he found that such visits allowed audiences the opportunityto compare the mediated vision of Coronation Street with the actual set, and toexperience the ‘‘reality’’ of the program by touching the set and seeing the stars ofthe program. The pilgrimage allowed the audience to redraw the boundaries betweenboth worlds and ‘‘experience’’ the media world from the other side of the boundary,all the while legitimizing the notion that the worlds are separate and that the mediaworld is a ‘‘special’’ place.

The ideas of media pilgrimage and the distinction between the media world andordinary world have contributed to debates and research concerning mainstreamaudiences’ interactions with mainstream media and performance (e.g., Couldry,2004; Sandvoss, 2005). Contemporary research concerning new social movementshas also begun to address issues of media/ordinary worlds through the explorationof alternative media—media content produced by noncommercial sources thatchallenge power structures and attempt to transform social roles (e.g., Atton, 2002,2004; Downing, 2003; Meikle, 2002). This includes content in sources such asAdbusters magazine, Democracy Now!, and Indymedia.org.3 Content from suchsources is often circulated through new social movement networks via e-mailand discussion boards. Like Indymedia, the news and information featured onthe Worldwide Outreach website constituted alternative media as defined in pastresearch (Atton, 2004; Meikle, 2002). Of particular interest, Atkinson and Dougherty(2006) examined how activist interactions with alternative media texts and alternativemedia producers constructed multiple worldviews or ‘‘theaters’’ where resistance tocorporate globalization was performed by activist communities. Such research helpsto illustrate a distinction between the ordinary world and the alternative media world



that is special, much like the media world, because of the mythic representationsof larger-than-life social justice issues and resistance to oppression in places such asChiapas, Mexico. However, Atkinson and Dougherty’s findings suggest an alternativemedia world that is different from the media world described by Couldry, in that thealternative media world is a place where the audience takes part in media productionas they create and circulate content (e.g., Atton, 2002; Caldwell, 2003), interact withproducers of alternative media (e.g., Atkinson & Dougherty, 2006; Atton, 2002), orthey pass information through networks via the Internet (e.g., Best, 2005). In otherwords, the interactivity of the audience with alternative media texts and networksplaces them within the boundaries of the alternative media world. The activists inthis research were a part of a production site as they interacted with producers andcoordinators of the Worldwide Outreach network through e-mails and face-to-facecontact, as well as downloaded information and materials from the WorldwideOutreach website that could be used in education projects. Therefore, the TruthExcursion was an alternative media pilgrimage, which was different from Couldry’smedia pilgrimages as the networked activists did not cross from the ordinary worldinto the special media world. Instead, the activists crossed from the alternative mediaworld of the Worldwide Outreach network where they circulated and worked withmythic representations of larger-than-life resistance and social justice in marginalizedcommunities, into the ordinary world of the Zapatista people who were the focus ofsuch representations within the alternative media circulated through their network.

Increasingly, new social movement networks are working to ‘‘cross boundaries’’and build relationships between activists and marginalized communities (e.g., Rod-dick, 2001), thus providing activists with opportunities to witness resistance andsocial justice outside of the alternative media world constructed within their net-works (e.g., Meikle, 2002). In response, communication scholars, such as Pezzullo(2003), have worked to draw attention to ‘‘tours’’ that provide activists with accessto marginalized communities. In her research concerning the toxic tours of ‘‘canceralley,’’ Pezzullo illustrated how bus tours sponsored by Sierra Club provided activists’with access to Louisiana communities ravaged by racist environmental policies. Oncewithin the communities, the bus driver and the members of the community toldstories and engaged in various cultural practices that depicted the environmentalcrimes of corporations that despoiled the region and marginalized the communitiesin ‘‘cancer alley.’’ The tour allowed for the emergence of a public memory about theregion shared by the activists and the community, which illustrated what was presentand what was absent in cancer alley. Such research has illustrated the emerging roleof tours and tourism in the process of boundary crossing in social activism. However,research has yet to examine temporary activist communities that cross boundariesbetween media constructed worlds woven through activist networks, into the ordi-nary world of marginalized communities. To explore such a phenomenon, I soughtto address the following research objectives: (a) reveal the categories of resistancepresented to networked activists on an alternative media pilgrimage into the ordi-nary world of the Zapatista communities and (b) illustrate the impact that activist



sense-making of such categories of resistance had on the boundaries between the‘‘ordinary world’’ and the ‘‘alternative media world.’’ I chose to examine categories ofresistance presented in the ordinary world of the indigenous communities because thetemporary goal of the networked activists was the exploration of resistance utilized bythe Zapatistas. I chose to examine activist sense-making by utilizing Mumby’s (1988)ideological approach to sense-making, which contends that discourse within groupsabout a topic frames that topic and makes it socially real for the members. In the caseof the networked activists, I was interested in the way that their discourse about theTruth Excursion framed categories of resistance that emerged from the alternativemedia world and the ordinary world, allowing them the opportunity to ‘‘redraw’’ theboundaries as described in Couldry’s (2000, 2003) research.

Worldwide outreach, truth excursions, and narrative excavations

Similar to the toxic tours of ‘‘cancer alley’’ described by Pezzullo (2003), the‘‘Truth Excursions’’ were promoted on the Worldwide Outreach website, promisingNorthern activists access to social justice movements in Southern communities thatlive in resistance along the porous boundaries and borderlands of the globalizedworld (see Conquergood, 1991). Many Northerners (myself included) are drawnto the Zapatista movement described in new social movement networks such asIndymedia or Worldwide Outreach by what Conquergood (1985) calls ‘‘EnthusiastInfatuation,’’ and travel to Chiapas to see first hand the resistance against corporateglobalization. The website utilized by Worldwide Outreach constituted a media siteof the alternative media world as activists were able to interact with producers andcirculate alternative media content through links such as ‘‘e-mail lists,’’ ‘‘fair tradecatalogues,’’ ‘‘download fliers,’’ ‘‘social justice news’’ by ‘‘region’’ (Asia, Chiapas, etc.),and ‘‘information about the Truth Excursions.’’ The website and its various linksprovided each of the activists access into the alternative media world that depictedZapatista resistance to corporate globalization. Russell (2005) has written extensivelyabout the various depictions, or ‘‘myths,’’ of the Zapatistas posted on Internetnetworks that reach broad audiences throughout Mexico and the Internationalcommunity. These myths entail nebulous descriptions of a ‘‘universal Marcos’’ andcommunities of ‘‘noble warriors’’ living in resistance to the ‘‘neoliberal beast’’ (seeRussell, 2005). Such broad themes found in the online postings are similar to findingsin past new social movement network research that illustrates how the passageof information framed by broad narratives of ‘‘be the media’’ and ‘‘principles ofunity’’ through the Indymedia network (Pickard, 2006a, 2006b) allow for the riseof networked activism (Best, 2005). In addition, the use of broad narratives aboutresistance fit Atkinson and Dougherty’s (2006) illustration of ‘‘speaking truth topower.’’ In their research concerning the construction of resistance through activistinteractions with alternative media texts, they found that some alternative mediacontent described celebrity figures such as Tim Robbins or Janeane Garofalo speakingout against corporate interests, showing the possibility for people to stand up to



corporate interests and create some kind of ‘‘change.’’ Such change was never clearlydefined as it was discussed in broad, nebulous terms. Therefore, past research byRussell concerning the myths of the Zapatistas circulated through activist networksillustrate a broad category of resistance called Mythic Resistance, which presents thepossibility for nebulous communities to resist corporate globalization by speakingtruth to power to create undefined changes.

Each of the pilgrims4 learned about the Truth Excursion through the WorldwideOutreach website. Once everyone had paid the required fees, we were instructedvia e-mail to gather in San Cristobal de las Casas, a small town in the highlands ofChiapas.5 Two of the pilgrims came from the Netherlands. Pamela was a 27-year-old graphic design art student who was involved in fair trade advocacy groups inRotterdam. Her partner, Jasper, was a 29-year-old freelance illustrator and artist whopublished a magazine about alternative music and radical art. Both Pamela and Jasperbecame involved in the Worldwide Outreach network through Pamela’s fair tradeactivism; she passed information and materials downloaded from the network aboutsocial justice and fair trade in Latin America to other activists whom she workedwith in Rotterdam. Another pilgrim was a 22-year-old journalism major at NorthernState University and immigrant rights activist named Sandra. She claimed that she‘‘felt a need’’ to travel to Chiapas to see the ‘‘real’’ Zapatistas so that she would bemore attuned to their struggle, as well as the struggle of Mexican immigrants in theUnited States. Bernadette was a 26-year-old graduate student at Great Lakes Seminaryand worked with immigrant rights groups as well; she had become involved withthe network through missionaries who had worked with members of WorldwideOutreach in Guatemala. Samuel was a 41-year-old attorney from the San FranciscoBay area who had traveled to Mexico in an effort to learn more Spanish; he workedwith Worldwide Outreach on various fair trade projects in the bay area. In addition,Diane was a 26-year-old activist from Tennessee who worked as a guide and translatorfor Worldwide Outreach in Chiapas.

From San Cristobal, we crossed the boundary between the alternative media worldwe had experienced through new social movement networks, and into the ordinaryworld of the Zapatistas and their lives of resistance against corporate globalization.During the course of the pilgrimage, I collected narratives from the other pilgrimsand from authorities within the Zapatista communities using ethnographic narrativeexcavation. Such a form of ethnography was developed by Krizek (2003) for theexcavation and representation of narratives from participants of nonroutine publicevents. The excavation of narratives from people or groups at a nonroutine publicevent provides researchers with a way to ‘‘see the event more clearly as [participants]place [the event] within the context of their lives’’ (p. 143). Oftentimes, the nonroutinepublic events are those important social occasions, spectacles, and ceremonies thatare notable because of their connection with major social institutions (Dayan & Katz,1992; Krizek, 2003; Turner, 1981). Because of the magnitude of these social events,media elites often define the experiences of those events for the rest of society (Zelizer,1993). For Krizek, the excavation of narratives from participants at nonroutine public



events provides the opportunity to reconstruct and understand the event outsideof the authorship of media elites. In this case, the nonroutine public event wasthe 2-week contact between Northern activists and Zapatista communities duringthe Truth Excursion. Ultimately, two units of analysis emerged from the narrativeexcavation that addressed the guiding research objectives: testimonial narratives andconceptual narratives.

Testimonial narratives (testimonio)As our small group accessed the Zapatista communities we met the general assembly,the authoritative body of each community, and heard their testimonials aboutoppression and resistance within their communities. In each community, I asked thegeneral assembly if I could tape record their narrative and take notes.6 Testimonialnarratives—also called testimonio—are ‘‘told in the first person by a narrator who isalso the real protagonist or witness of the events he or she recounts, and whose unit ofnarration is usually a ‘life’ or a significant life experience’’ (Beverly, 1992, p. 92). Suchnarratives contain a sense of ‘‘urgency,’’ focus on life experiences characterized bymarginalization and resistance, and are told by the narrator to break the oppressivesilence that maintains their marginalization (Beverly, 1992, 2000; Tierney, 2000).

To address the first research objective concerning the categories of Zapatistaresistance presented in the Zapatista communities, I conducted qualitative contentanalysis of the Zapatista testimonial narratives. The purpose of qualitative contentanalysis is to uncover themes found in content to address latent meanings containedwithin texts (Krippendorff, 2004; Mayring, 2000). Such themes emerge throughthe development of categories, which the researcher constructs through a series oftentative steps that work within the framework of the research and the content underexamination (Mayring, 2000). In past research concerning new social movementsand alternative media, Atkinson (2005) used qualitative content analysis to search fordepictions of corporations within alternative media sources to develop categories thatillustrated different forms of corporate power portrayed in new social movements. Inaddition, Atkinson and Dougherty (2006) used qualitative content analysis to searchfor depictions of corporate accountability and corporate reform within alternativemedia sources circulated in social justice organizations in a large Midwestern U.S.community; the analysis illustrated different themes about corporations portrayedin alternative media used by the activists. In the case of the Zapatista testimonial nar-ratives, I transcribed the tapes and field notes to examine the categories of resistancepresented to the pilgrims in the ordinary world of the Zapatista communities. Byresistance, I was interested in depictions of both responses to physical oppression, aswell as responses to socially constructed contexts of oppression built through inter-actions (e.g., Clair, 1998; Kowal, 2000; Mumby, 1997; Pierce & Dougherty, 2002).As depictions of resistance were identified they were marked with multicoloredpost-it notes, which helped develop the depictions of resistance into categories thataddressed the research objectives.



Conceptual narrativesIn addition, I excavated narratives from each of the pilgrims in half hour one-on-one discussions upon our arrival in Chiapas, and through the 4-hour long groupdebriefing at the end of the Truth Excursion as a focus group. In the individualdiscussions, I asked each pilgrim to explain their role in activist networks, and howthey became involved in the Truth Excursion. The debriefing was led by Diane asshe liked to hold debriefings to find what people had learned. The questions duringthe debriefing focused on what the pilgrims had learned about Zapatista resistance tocorporate globalization and allowed for the pilgrims to weave conceptual narratives,which are anecdotes and stories told by social actors to make sense of how ‘‘peopleacross time and space live their lives’’ (Harter, Norander, & Quinlan, 2007, p. 107)and experience the world (Somers, 1994).

To address the second research objective concerning the networked activists’ (i.e.,pilgrims’) sense-making of resistance presented by the Zapatistas, I transcribed thetapes and the notes that I took during the debriefing. I explored the conceptualnarratives of the pilgrims using Bormann’s (1972) fantasy-theme analysis touncover the pilgrims’ ‘‘intersubjectively shared patterns of discursive and behavioralpractices’’ (Mumby, 1988, p. 10) used to make sense of the Zapatista resistance.The notions of fantasy theme and chaining are built on the concept of symbolicconvergence (see Bormann, 1972), which can demonstrate intersubjective sharing ofmeaning within groups. Essentially, people in groups weave fantasies about outsidesettings, characters, and/or actions to make sense of situations in the here-and-now.Convergence occurs as the group members begin to focus on similar, outside fantasiesto explain the issues facing the group, leading to a shared rhetorical vision of thesituation. The term fantasy is a reference to anecdotes, hypothetical situations, orconceptual narratives woven by a person to make sense of something. As I examinedthe transcriptions of the debriefing, I searched for conceptual narratives told bythe pilgrims to make sense of the categories of resistance presented in Zapatistatestimonial narratives.

VerificationVerification of qualitative scholarship establishes the credibility of the findings(Huberman & Miles, 1998; Kvale, 1996). While I was conducting the qualitativecontent analysis and fantasy-theme analysis, I attempted to verify the findings bye-mailing the results to the other pilgrims for feedback (Huberman & Miles, 1998).Three of those pilgrims—Jasper, Pamela, and Sandra—each concurred with thefindings of the analysis, while the other pilgrims never responded to my e-mails.

Results: Categories of resistance in the ordinary world

During the Truth Excursion, we traveled to four communities tied to the Zapatistamovement: T., N. R., Pohlo, and Oventic.7 The community of Oventic was establishedby the Zapatistas after the beginning of the 1994 uprising. Activists, artists, and



scholars from around the world often visited the community, so there was amenagerie of different people and nationalities present. All the buildings in thecommunity were covered with elaborate murals depicting Che Guevara, Marcos, andother Zapatistas. While in the community, we saw first hand a Zapatista communityworking to produce food, clothing, and materials for the people. The communitypresented a unique opportunity as we visited at the same time that 7 of the 24commanders of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (Zapatista Army ofNational Liberation or EZLN) visited the community, each wearing black ski masksand dressed in military-like regalia.8 The seven commanders spoke to us about thestruggles of the Zapatista movement in a presentation that mirrored the MythicResistance showed in Russell’s (2005) research and found in the alternative mediaworld woven in new social movement networks. In addition to Oventic, we traveledto the communities of T., N. R., and Pohlo; the visits entailed walks through thecommunities, through the fields nearby, and sleeping in a barn or shed withinthe community. Our excursions into these communities also involved the publicpresentation of testimonial narratives by the general assemblies, which providedan account of the communities’ struggles and role in the Zapatista movement.Neither the general assemblies nor any of the residents of those communities donnedthe black ski masks or military-like regalia commonly depicted in the WorldwideOutreach network or observed in Oventic. The following pages detail the categoriesof resistance that emerged from the qualitative content analysis of those testimonialnarratives.

T.: Militant resistance as allianceThe first of the communities, T., was not a Zapatista autonomous community, norwere any members of the general assembly part of the EZLN. The community was infact a farming village comprised of a handful of makeshift buildings along a dirt road.However, each member of the general assembly, 11 men and 1 woman, consideredthemselves to be Zapatista. The narrative was presented to us in a small storagebuilding in the center of town. The building had bare dirt floors, a few benches, anda table for working and eating meals. During the presentation of the narrative, we saton the benches in the middle of the room while the general assembly sat on separatebenches along the walls. All the assembly members spoke, but followed no speakingorder as each member took up where the last had left off.

The general assembly’s narrative dealt with an ‘‘action’’ taken by the community.According to the general assembly, the community had formed a transportationcooperative to move people from the community to the fields and to the marketplace.According to the story, a wealthy bus company used its government ties to shut downthe cooperative and the community retaliated by detaining three of the company’sdrivers and buses. The general assembly had planned to hold the drivers and busesuntil the company and the government allowed the community to operate theirtransportation cooperative. Shortly after, a nighttime police ‘‘operative’’ was initiatedto liberate the drivers and arrest those involved in their detention. The general



assembly claimed that the operative entailed more than 1,000 troops and policearmed with rifles, tear gas, and grenades who burned homes and herded residentsinto a barn. One of the assembly men described the attack:

And so all of this was at 7:30 in the morning. And it was [the police’s] decisionthat it became violent like this. We were not violent. But when we saw all of thiswas happening we started defending ourselves with rocks. Like just picking rocksup off of the ground and throwing them. . . And when we started to throw outthe rocks and stuff, that was when they started backing up and called forreinforcements. And so when the reinforcement [arrived] it was about six orseven trucks.

As the story unfolded, many of the members of the general assembly displayedwounds they had incurred that night. One man had been shot across the nose leavinga scar, while the woman had been shot with a tear gas canister leaving a yellowishscar on her thigh.

The resistance depicted in T. fit Kowal’s (2000) description of militant resistance,which constitutes confrontational and aggressive actions that break societal rules andthreaten dominant groups. Such resistance can be problematic as the actions provideauthorities with evidence that the current domination structures are necessary (Clair,1998; Pierce & Dougherty, 2002). The defiant actions against the bus companyand the police created significant problems because many of the members of thecommunity were injured and/or arrested, and the trucks that they used for theirtransportation cooperative were confiscated. In the end, the community was moreisolated from the fields and the market than they had been before they detainedthe drivers. However, the wounds incurred from the militaristic backlash and latershown during the presentation of the narrative showed their commonality with theZapatistas who also struggled, while hiding the fact that T. was not a Zapatistaautonomous community and the general assembly were not EZLN soldiers. Themilitant resistance, the subsequent problems, and the showing of scars incurred fromthe resistance constructed a category I called Militant Resistance as Alliance, whichisolated the community while also showing a connection to the Zapatista movement.

N. R.: Adjustive resistance in the face of indignationThe community of N. R. was an interesting case because it was an actual townwith paved roads and infrastructure. The general assembly, which comprised of 18men, claimed that a majority of the people in the town had joined in the 1994Zapatista uprising, and the general assembly and many in the community consideredthemselves to be autonomous and separate from the Mexican government. However,because the community was in fact a town with infrastructure built through taxes andinteraction with the government, and because some people in the town apparentlydid not agree with the Zapatista uprising, the community existed in something of agray area. The general assembly did consider the community to be autonomous andclaimed to be in constant communication with other Zapatista communities and the



commanders of the EZLN. In fact, all the members of the general assembly statedthat they were soldiers in the EZLN. The testimonial narrative was told to us in ameeting hall consisting of several benches on a concrete floor, a large table which fivemembers of the assembly sat around, and a plain painting of Subcomandante Marcosdecorated one wall. As in T., we sat on benches in the middle of the room whilemany of the general assembly sat on chairs along the walls. In this case, one assemblymember seated at the table presented the narrative while the other members wouldperiodically whisper comments to him.

The narrative focused on characters who threatened the community: The Mexicangovernment and paramilitary troops referred to as ‘‘disciplined men.’’9 Since the1970s, the general assembly had debated the government’s claims to the surroundinglands. According to the general assembly, the government offered the people legalrights to the lands if they renounced their status as indigenous; a proposition theassembly found to be ‘‘insulting and degrading.’’ The man behind the table statedthat at first nearly all of the people in the community were unified in resistanceagainst the government’s claims on the land, but as time passed ‘‘the government’spolicies began to divide the people and change their ideas. People had to change,not be indigenous anymore and change their ways.’’ As people in the communitybegan to consider the government’s offer, 23 ‘‘disciplined men’’ came to live inthe community. The assemblyman claimed that these men worked to further thedivisions by speaking out against the assembly, as well as threatening members ofthe community with guns. To maintain peace and stability, the assembly worked toreach accords with the disciplined men and establish a code of conduct within townlimits, but the disciplined men broke such accords through acts of ‘‘disobedience.’’To address the growing problems in the community, the general assembly said thatthey turned to an oppositional political party and began to play ‘‘the political game.’’As the assemblyman behind the table stated, ‘‘At one time, we used the political gameand ran a candidate that was promoted by the general assembly, and then ran as acandidate for [the oppositional party].’’ However, this proved unsuccessful as theoppositional party did not aid the community with the problematic land claims andarmed men:

No more! We do not want to take part in the federal elections because [theoppositional party] just used the community for votes. The problems thatneeded to be resolved, like the land issue and the disciplined men, were pushedto the side and never resolved.

After the ‘‘political game’’ was abandoned, the community came under attack bythe federal government as troops surrounded the town and ‘‘dropped gas fromplanes.’’ Warrants were issued for the arrest of the assembly, who quickly fled to thesurrounding countryside and went into hiding. Only a few weeks before we arrivedin N. R. were the arrest warrants rescinded.

The stone-faced members of the assembly all claimed to be soldiers in the EZLNand proud of their indigenous heritage. The conditions proposed by the federal



government to renounce their status as indigenous was nothing short of an outrageto each member of the assembly, which ultimately fueled their resistance against thefederal government and the disciplined men. The resistance depicted by the generalassembly of N. R. fit Kowal’s (2000) concept of adjustive resistance, which are actionsthat do not violate laws and are deemed to be socially acceptable by average people.‘‘Orderly public speeches, parades, picketing, and other nonviolent actions’’ (Kowal,2000, p. 241) all constitute examples of adjustive resistance. In the case of N. R.,negotiating accords with the disciplined men, as well as playing ‘‘the political game’’with an oppositional party constructed a category that I called Adjustive Resistancein the Face of Indignation. Unfortunately, the lawful adjustive resistance met withsimilar militaristic backlash and isolation as described in T.

Pohlo: Resistance through coping and survivalPohlo, the last community that we visited, was an autonomous community likeOventic, but flooded with refugees rather than activists from several nations; therefugees had reportedly been forced from their homes by paramilitary attacks.According to the general assembly of Pohlo, the autonomous community was largeenough to sustain roughly 4,000 people, but due to the stream of refugees there wereover 8,000. We met with the general assembly, which consisted of more than a dozenmen, in a barn on the edge of the community. One man in particular called ‘‘TheConseco’’10 spoke to us on behalf of the assembly with occasional interjections fromother members.

The testimonial narrative carefully detailed atrocities committed by militaryand/or paramilitary forces against Pohlo. According to the Conseco, 45 members ofthe community were massacred by troops in 1997:

People [who were attacked] were displaced by paramilitary groups associatedwith the army. When the massacre happened, innocent people were praying in achurch. The paramilitaries took control of the lands and possessions in thehouses after [the people] had been displaced.

Members of the community had been forced off of their lands by a paramilitarygroup, only to be slaughtered later. Whether the massacre was committed by federaltroops or paramilitary troops was not made clear, but the Conseco believed thatthe government was aware of the massacre and did nothing to either stop it fromhappening or punish the perpetrators. The narrative also detailed a list of crises facedby the people in Pohlo.

But we want you to know more about this autonomous [community]. Who’s atfault [for our predicament]? The government and paramilitaries. Right now weare here as displaced people, eight thousand in this community. Fifty-threehundred are displaced people. There are seven hundred twenty-five families, alldisplaced people.

Topping the list of problems facing Pohlo was the lack of food. At the time, the com-munity was receiving 28 tons of food each month from the Red Cross, which could



only feed half of the population. Even worse, the Red Cross had announced they woulddiscontinue food donations to Pohlo in December of 2003, and often the Consecowould ask us for some form of aid. Usually, he requested that we take their narrativeout of Chiapas to the United States or Europe and find agencies or people willing topurchase coffee or donate food or medical supplies. Such is often the case, as marginal-ized communities often seek out opportunities to present testimonial narratives tooutsiders, such as researchers, to make their struggles known (Beverly, 1992, 2000;Tierney, 2000). For instance, on the matter of food in the community the Consecosaid, ‘‘Take down this information because you are people who can take this informa-tion.’’ On the matter of a coffee cooperative in Pohlo he said, ‘‘If you know anyone,we would like there to be an investigation of how to find a fair market [for coffee].’’

The general assembly of Pohlo presented a narrative that was both horrific andtragic; a narrative that illustrated oppressive forces laying siege to their community.Interestingly, resistance was not found within the narrative, as much as thepresentation of the narrative itself constituted a form of resistance on the partof the general assembly. According to Aptheker (1989) and Clair (1998), resistanceshould not be conceptualized merely as ‘‘masculine’’ attempts to shift a balance ofpower. Mechanisms of coping and survival, such as telling collective stories andnetworking, may also constitute resistance as the oppressed engage in those activitiesto maintain a sense of hope and/or dignity while ‘‘under siege’’ (Aptheker, 1989).For instance, Aptheker described the daily activities of Jewish women in the Nazicontrolled ghettos (e.g., hiding sickness of children, maintaining ‘‘webs’’ of Jewishculture) as a form of resistance, which when ‘‘made visible under siege, was thebedrock that gave meaning to life and served as the underpinning that made all elsepossible’’ (p. 190). The act of pointing to and describing oppressors, illuminating to agroup of outsiders the plight of the people living under such oppression, and workingto build networks through requests for aid and markets constructed a category thatI called Resistance Through Coping and Survival. Such resistance did not so muchchallenge the balance of power in the region, so much as it was an activity that couldfunction as a source of hope and dignity for a community that existed under siege.

Ultimately, all of the testimonial narratives were unique in their own way aseach revolved around different settings and situations of oppression. But wouldthe temporary community seeking Zapatista resistance on an alternative mediapilgrimage into the ordinary world see those categories that emerged through myqualitative content analysis of the testimonial narratives, or would the process ofsense-making construct something different?

Results: Making sense of the categories of resistance

After the pilgrimage to the Zapatista communities, we returned to the hotel in SanCristobal where we had originally gathered to close the Truth Excursion. At thispoint, Diane led a ‘‘debriefing’’ that was a typical routine of the Truth Excursionsthat she guided. Through such debriefings, Diane sought to find out what people



had learned from the Truth Excursion. As the debriefing covered the same issuesthat I had planned to cover through exit interviews, I requested Diane and the otherpilgrims to use the debriefing as a tape recorded focus group to excavate narrativesconcerning the sense-making of the Zapatista testimonial narratives; everyone agreedto my request. The debriefing took place in Sandra and Bernadette’s hotel roomwith all of the pilgrims sitting in a circle on the floor. Diane provided a frameworkto the process by asking the pilgrims to speak about what they had learned fromthe Zapatista narratives, and what they had learned about the Zapatista’s resistanceagainst corporate globalization. Throughout the process, Diane worked to makesure everyone had an opportunity to fully address the issues at hand. Within thatframework, everyone took turns speaking about what they had learned, includingmyself and Diane.11 As each pilgrim would speak about what they had learned, otherswould interject with their own observations and commentary to add to the narrativeof the first. Such commentary and chaining constituted the conceptual narrativesthat I later examined using fantasy theme analysis.

After I returned home from the Truth Excursion, I transcribed the tape recordeddebriefing and found that as the discussion began, all of the pilgrims (includingmyself) seemed to be at a loss for words. Jasper, Pamela, Sandra, and Bernadettediscussed feelings of guilt about voyeurism, but little else; Diane tried to fill in thesilence with her own thoughts about the Zapatistas. Finally, the debriefing turned tothe Zapatista communities and resistance, but not the militant resistance, adjustiveresistance, or coping and survival that emerged from the qualitative content analysisof the testimonial narratives. Instead, the fantasy theme analysis that I conductedrevealed a rhetorical vision that converged from the chaining of three conceptualnarratives: (a) production of goods in the Zapatista communities, (b) the ethicalconsumer, and (c) the lack of consumer goods in the Zapatista communities. Thefirst conceptual narrative concerning production of goods in Zapatista communitieswas initially generated by Pamela as she reflected on Zapatista women she had seenmaking clothes in Oventic, which led her to discuss possibilities for production ofsustainable clothing in the North:

The thing in Oventic I found very interesting, that their [clothing] co-opsweren’t working really well. Or especially that the women didn’t have a marketfor their clothing. . . A dream [of mine] is to create a fair trade clothing label.And there is already one in the Netherlands, and I know it’s a huge project. But Iknow fashion designers. I know fashion is something which goes really fast, andtherefore is very difficult to create something everybody would like andnot—how do you say. . . the pressure of the environment or find a way that thefast. . . it goes so fast. People buy new trends so quickly. I mean you throw awayso many. . . It’s like a sustainable clothing. It would be really nice to findclothing that could be fashionable, but sustainable as well.

What was interesting was that the community was ignored while the product,clothing, became central. ‘‘But I mean [sustainable clothing] would be interesting to



study as well. Sustainable fashion. You know what I mean? Everyone wears jeans.Some things are just basic.’’ Such a discussion about the women in Oventic led otherpilgrims to cite more examples of production of goods in indigenous communitiesin Mexico. For instance, Samuel told a story about communal production of food hehad once seen while visiting communities in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, which heclaimed created a sense of unity and equality for everyone involved. Essentially, thefirst conceptual narrative that emerged during the debriefing focused on indigenouspeoples’ production of goods and how such production was socially just, unlikeproduction and consumption in the North.

The chaining of the narrative about socially just production of goods led toa second conceptual narrative concerning the ethical consumer. In particular, thisnarrative focused on consumption of environmentally friendly and socially just goodsas a form of activism ‘‘back home.’’ For instance, Samuel discussed the importanceof being a ‘‘good consumer’’:

One of the things that everyone can do is be a good consumer. . . And even thatrange is huge. If people would just buy organic food or fair trade products,which is very difficult to do at home. In the Bay area there are fair tradestores. . . It’s not easy to do, to be a good consumer. It is very difficult. But it canbe done. You don’t have to drink Coke. Unless there’s a physical addiction.Maybe there is. . . Okay. I like Coke, too. But you can ramp it up. The secondbiggest decision everyone makes is to buy a car and to use it everywhere you go.And of course the biggest decision or purchase you make that affectsglobalization is to buy a house in the suburbs, way far away from the city. Buy ahouse in the suburbs, buy a bunch of cars.

The discussion prompted other pilgrims to cite examples of such ethical consumerismin action. For instance, Jasper recounted a story about a Dutch company thatattempted to respond to the Chiquita Corporation’s poor treatment of workersby offering fair trade bananas: ‘‘If only people would become aware [of the poortreatment] they would want to buy [the fair trade bananas] and then the shops wouldhave to sell it. Because if they’re in demand, there’s going to have to be a supplier.’’Ultimately, the second conceptual narrative explored ethical consumerism as a formof activism that can aid social justice causes like the Zapatista movement.

After exploring examples of ethical consumerism that promote social justice,attention was turned back to the Zapatista communities. This time, discussionfocused on needs that existed in those communities, which wove a third conceptualnarrative about the Zapatistas’ lack of consumer goods. The pilgrims who spoke beganto reflect on the conditions that had existed in the communities, and potentialremedies for any problems. For instance, Sandra talked about all of the ‘‘need’’ thatshe had seen around her while carrying an expensive camera: ‘‘Why don’t I justgive them my camera? Why don’t I give them all the clothes that I brought withme?’’ Of course, Sandra realized that giving the Zapatistas an expensive camera and



some clothes would accomplish little. So instead, she pondered giving money to theZapatista children:

I was walking and I was like, I might as well just get rid of my money because I’mleaving Mexico. Why don’t I just give it to these kids? I don’t know. I feel like,maybe not everyone needs it, but it’s some kind of constructive way to deal withthat.

But she realized that giving all of her money away to children would do littleto solve the Zapatistas’ problems, and asked Diane whether it would be possibleto make donations to the individual communities through Worldwide Outreach.Pamela consoled Sandra and reinforced the conceptual narrative about the lack ofconsumer goods by stating, ‘‘Yeah. But I was really happy that [Diane] told us notto give anything to anybody. Because otherwise I would have just bought clothesand given it to them.’’ Bernadette then declared that she was going to look intomaking food donations for the children in Pohlo, Jasper said that he wanted tosend sterilization materials for water, and both Jasper and Samuel felt future TruthExcursions should work with the communities to replace damaged roofs and repairbuildings in T., Oventic, and Pohlo. Through this third conceptual narrative, thegroup focused on the need for goods and resources as central components in theZapatista communities.

The settings, characters, and action themes that emerged from the fantasy themeanalysis of the debriefing constructed a rhetorical vision that allowed the group tomake sense of the categories of Zapatista resistance. Towards the end of the debriefing,Samuel mused, ‘‘I know that I thought the trip put a face on the Zapatistas beneaththe masks. The whole organization is a lot more demystified, and that was nice.’’But had the boundaries between the alternative media world and the ordinary worldbeen dissolved and the Zapatista movement really demystified, as Samuel implied?The process of sense-making began with the conceptual narrative that emerged aboutthe Zapatista women in Oventic and other indigenous people producing goods. Theconceptual narratives about products and consumption followed and converged intoa rhetorical vision through which the group could relate and use to make senseof the complex categories of resistance in the Zapatista communities. However,this rhetorical vision obscured the categories of resistance in the ordinary worldencountered in T., N. R., and Pohlo, similar to the silence and marginalizationproduced by discursive closures described by Deetz (1992) and Clair (1998).According to Clair, ‘‘certain forms of discourse act to distort power relations, disguiseinequity, sequester resistant discourses, and ultimately close emancipatory forms ofcommunication’’ (p. 38) through communicative practices such as naturalization,neutralization, topical avoidance, subjectification of experience, meaning denialand plausible deniability, legitimation, and pacification (see Deetz, 1992). In thisparticular case, the categories about militant resistance, adjustive resistance, andcoping/survival were disguised by a rhetorical vision about material needs in theZapatista communities that emerged from conceptual narratives that focused on



sustainable clothing, communal cooking of food, and ethical consumption byNorthern activists. Essentially, the fantasy theme analysis that I conducted showedhow the group made sense of the Zapatista resistance through a rhetorical vision thatI call the Blindfold of the Noble Consumer. The discursive blindfold hid the resistanceto socially constructed and physical oppression in the communities by emphasizingthe socially just production of goods and the need for materials that were observedduring the Truth Excursion.

With the blindfold firmly in place, Jasper joined Samuel’s musings about seeing‘‘beneath the masks’’ of the Zapatistas and the ‘‘demystified’’ movement:

Jasper: The [EZLN commanders]—maybe it was idealistic rhetoric, of course,but there was also a lot of sincerity in it about certain issues. And I think alsowhen they are talking about democratic and democracy, it’s different from[President] Bush as a democracy.Samuel: I was struck by that. I mean, when I say we’ve heard the languagebefore, we have. But we haven’t heard it with such passion.

Samuel and Jasper’s exchange focused not on the militant resistance in T. orresistance through coping and survival in Pohlo, but exhibited a strong appreciation,even infatuation, with the ‘‘idealism,’’ ‘‘sincerity,’’ and ‘‘passion’’ that the EZLNcommanders displayed in Oventic as they portrayed Russell’s (2005) MythicResistance, which had emerged from Russell’s (2005) research. Essentially, thetwo pilgrims discussed resistance in the broad terms of speaking truth to power,which was associated with the Mythic Resistance circulated through the alternativemedia world. Bernadette agreed with Samuel and Jasper’s assessment of the‘‘demystified’’ movement:

To actually meet the people who are in resistance, who are struggling for theirlands and their rights and their culture. And we heard the same rhetoricrepeatedly, but it felt so good. . . I mean it just seems like on the surface theword has kind of gotten spread around to these communities and they all havethe same idea about what they’re trying to accomplish. Whereas in a lot of otherorganizations you get kind of fragmentary groups that are trying to dosomething slightly different from what the main organization is trying to do.

The interesting point in this excerpt was how Bernadette conflated all of the ‘‘rhetoric’’that had ‘‘gotten spread around’’ the communities so that ‘‘they all have the sameidea.’’ On the contrary, the qualitative content analysis reveals that the ordinary worldcommunities had very different ideas about the oppressive practices around themand the subsequent needs for resistance. However, the group’s vision of resistancein the Zapatista communities now seemed to be quite limited as discussions about‘‘speaking truth to power’’ about transnational corporations and free trade—whichwas portrayed in the alternative media world—dominated the debriefing. Framed inbroad narratives about ‘‘democracy and justice’’ and circulated through new socialmovement networks such as Worldwide Outreach, resistance as speaking truth to



power had drawn the temporary community of networked activists together intothe alternative media pilgrimage in the first place, and was ultimately the resistancethat emerged from the debriefing. As Samuel finally proclaimed at the close of thedebriefing, ‘‘We need more democracy. We need more justice. We need all of thesethings the Zapatistas are for.’’

In Couldry’s (2000) research concerning Coronation Street, the media pilgrimageprovided audiences an opportunity to cross the boundaries between the ordinaryworld and the media world so they could compare the mediated set with the actualset, thus making a site of media production more ‘‘real.’’ Ultimately, this ritual helpedreinforce the boundary between the two worlds, and reinforced the perception thatone world was more special than the other. But was this the case for the activistswho engaged in their own pilgrimage into the alternative media world? Lookingback, the further we traveled on the alternative media pilgrimage the more we saw ofthe Zapatistas. The ‘‘idealism’’ associated with nebulous portrayals of the ‘‘universalMarcos’’ and the ‘‘noble warriors of Chiapas’’ associated with Mythic Resistanceconstituted the alternative media world observed through the Worldwide Outreachnetwork. Ultimately, the nebulous narrative of resistance portrayed in this alternativemedia world tapped into the ‘‘Enthusiast Infatuation’’ that Conquergood (1985)warned about as the enigmatic and masked nature of such representations allowedmany people to identify with the Zapatistas and their struggle for social justice. Oncein Chiapas, the boundaries between the alternative media world and the ordinaryworld began to shift and collapse. The nebulous rhetoric of resistance associated withspeaking truth to power peeled away to reveal the ordinary world of the Zapatistas:militant resistance and alliance, indignation and adjustive resistance, and resistancethrough coping and survival.

However, as the boundaries collapsed, the group reached down and built themup anew. The pilgrimage reinforced the boundaries that had existed between thealternative media world and the ordinary world of the Zapatista people, but notin the way that the boundaries were reinforced through Couldry’s (2000) study ofCoronation Street. The group began to view the categories of Zapatista resistancethat emerged throughout the pilgrimage from the vantage point of the blindfold-like rhetorical vision built from conceptual narratives about consumerism andproducts, which hid the resistance performed by ‘‘ordinary’’ lives in the world of theZapatistas. Mythic Resistance—the image that was encountered through WorldwideOutreach and other new social movement networks, and reinforced through a briefencounter with EZLN commanders in Oventic—remained intact and distinct. I donot want to imply that the experiences with the Zapatistas were lost on the group.However, when confronted with resistance in the ordinary world of the Zapatistasthat did not fit with the depictions of resistance in the alternative media world thepilgrims began to draw on familiar conceptual narratives of consumer resistancein Northern activist communities. This process of sense-making hid the militant,adjustive, and coping/survival in the ordinary world of T., N. R., and Pohlo; noneof those categories ever emerged in the conceptual narratives woven during the



debriefing. Any resistance to physical oppression and socially constructed oppressionthat emerged in the debriefing was the nebulous resistance of speaking truth topower often found in the alternative media world and encountered in Oventic, thusreinforcing the distinction between the two worlds.

As more activists and scholars make similar alternative media pilgrimages andcross boundaries, it is important to understand such rhetorical visions through whichwe in Northern countries inevitably use to rebuild boundaries as the pilgrimages peelaway the nebulous resistance portrayed in the alternative media world. The findingsconcerning the Blindfold of the Noble Consumer can help to better understand whatDiamond (2005) calls ‘‘irrational behaviors’’ behind many disastrous social decisions.In his book Collapse, Diamond examines the success or failures of past civilizations inan attempt to understand human society as it exists in the early 21st century. Diamondclaims that many civilizations, like the Greenland Norse, failed to perceive problemsthat they faced because of irrational behaviors. ‘‘Such irrational behaviors often arisewhen each of us individually is torn by clashes of values: We may ignore a bad statusquo because it is favored by some deeply held value to which we cling’’ (p. 432). In thecase of the Greenland Norse, the conservative values and tightly communal societyprevented them from adopting Inuit knowledge that would have better acclimatedthe Norse to Arctic conditions and prolonged their civilization. Ultimately, this ledDiamond to speculate about the values of consumerism in contemporary society;would irrational behaviors associated with consumerism herald our own collapse?The findings show how the value of consumerism can hide and distort importantglobal problems and entire communities, much like a discursive blindfold. Activistsand scholars like Diane cannot ask people to overcome or radically change theconceptual narratives and rhetorical visions that they use to make sense of theboundary crossing and the pilgrimage; they must make those rhetorical visions workfor change, while avoiding Diamond’s irrational behaviors.

Implications

Through this research, I have demonstrated how a temporary community ofnetworked activists on an alternative media pilgrimage constructed a rhetoricalvision that reinforced the boundaries between the ordinary world and the alternativemedia world by acting as a discursive closure. Such findings hold two importantimplications for communication research.

(a) The findings build on past research concerning new social movement networks(e.g., Best, 2005) and activist tours (e.g., Pezzullo, 2003) by illustrating how atemporary community seeking to cross boundaries can be hindered by their ownsense-making process and the structure of broad narratives associated with newsocial movements. In particular, the findings build on Pickard’s (2006b) researchconcerning three discursive tyrannies that limit democracy in new social movementnetworks. In his research, Pickard found that the ideologies of activists, activistelites shrouded in structuralessness, and the anxieties that transpire from ambiguous



editorial policies can all hinder the capacity for democratic engagement within anetwork. This research demonstrates how the discursive blindfold built throughconceptual narratives of production, ethical consumerism, and the lack of goodslimited networked activists as they sought to engage with communities outside oftheir network. Future research should explore which sources are used by networkedactivists and alternative media pilgrims to piece together a richer vision of thealternative media world. More information about the sources used by the pilgrimswould have provided a better understanding about differing visions of MythicResistance that drew each pilgrim into the Truth Excursion.

(b) The findings also established Krizek’s (2003) ethnographic narrativeexcavation as an appropriate method for investigation of nonroutine public eventsthat are not tied to Northern institutions or typically controlled by mainstreamAmerican media. For Krizek, the nonroutine public event included ceremonies andspectacles such as ‘‘a papal mass, the passing of the Olympic torch, the closingof a venerable old sport stadium, the funeral of an ex-president, or the 50thanniversary of the Normandy landing’’ (p. 143). Such events are closely examinedby the mainstream news media elites and become a part of the dominant narrativesin the globalized North. However, the ceremonies and spectacles associated with theZapatista communities lie far outside of the gaze of the mainstream media. Suchevents are not a part of the dominant narratives in the globalized North, and arelargely unknown to Northerners who experience those places. As few news storiesappear about the Zapatistas or their struggles, the events become the domain ofthe alternative news media circulated through new social movement networks; suchmedia are much more fragmented and decentralized often requiring the audienceto piece together stories for themselves (Atton, 2002; Meikle, 2002). In this study,Krizek’s method proved useful for exploration of a nonroutine public event that wasconstructed in part through such new social movement networks and alternativemedia. In future research, ethnographic narrative excavation would prove useful forthe examination of similar nonroutine public events constructed from fragmentedmedia and networks.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Dr Sandra Faulkner (Bowling Green State University)for her editorial assistance, and Dr Bernadette Calafell (University of Denver) for herinsight about the enthusiast infatuation.

Notes

1 The names of organizations and individuals have been changed to ensure anonymity.Worldwide Outreach was an activist group based in the San Francisco Bay area.

2 ‘‘Southern countries’’ is used in place of the term ‘‘developing countries.’’ Social justiceadvocates use the term ‘‘southern countries’’ in their discussions about globalizationand inequality (see Mander, 1996).



3 Adbusters is a magazine published bimonthly that focuses on the impact of advertisingand consumption on the ‘‘mental environment.’’ Democracy Now! is an independentradio program hosted by Amy Goodman and Gonzalez that reflects on governmentpolicy and war. Indymedia.org is a website used by a network of activist journalists toupload news stories, photographs, and video.

4 From this point on, I will refer to the participants in the research as ‘‘pilgrims,’’ as theywere actively taking part in a pilgrimage to Chiapas to explore resistance againstcorporate globalization.

5 The fees paid to Worldwide Outreach paid for the services of the guide andtranslator, Diane.

6 As my grasp on the Spanish language is minimal, Diane translated all of the interactionsbetween the general assemblies and myself. I worked with Diane to explain to theassembly members of the different communities that their oral histories would be usedin research concerning new social movement networks, their participation wasvoluntary, that they could refuse to be a part of the research, and the author’sinstitutional affiliation. I was able to verify the translations through the other pilgrims(Jasper, Bernadette, and Sandra) who were fluent in Spanish; each corroborated Diane’stranslations.

7 T. and N. R. are communities that are outside of the ‘zone of conflict’ between theZapatistas and Mexican government, and are not considered ‘autonomous’communities. For these reasons, I have chosen to maintain their anonymity through theuse of initials. Conversely, Pohlo and Oventic are communities that have publiclydeclared their autonomy and opposition to the Mexican government.

8 When I asked the commanders whether I could tape record the discussion they declined,and told me that I could not use any quotation from the encounter for my research.

9 According to Diane, ‘‘hombres disciplinados’’ or ‘‘disciplined men’’ was the term thatthe community used to describe the paramilitary group that came to live in N. R.

10 Diane told us that there was no translation for the term ‘‘Conseco,’’ and that she was notaware of what the name meant.

11 My own participation in the debriefing was minimal. My response to Diane’s questionsinvolved myself wondering aloud how I, as a teacher, could get U.S. students to ‘‘careabout this stuff.’’

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