Thomas Olesen

The Zapatista movement and its leader Subcomandante Marcos have attracted enormous attention ever since their uprising began in Chiapas, Mexico, in 1994. The movement not only struck a chord inside the country as Mexico was switching to neoliberal economics and attaching itself to the US in the North American Free Trade Agreement, but it rapidly evoked an extraordinary upwelling of political interest and solidarity in the Americas and worldwide. Thomas Olesen explores this phenomenon in the context of globalization and the networking and communications potential of the Internet. What is the infrastructure of the global Zapatista solidarity network? What activities has it engaged in? What enabled it to develop? What are the longer term implications for new kinds of political action and international solidarity? And what can social theory tell us about the new global patterns of social interaction that are emerging?