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Political Leadership and Legal Change in Zinacantan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Jane F. Collier
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Abstract

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This paper analyzes the role of local political leaders in channeling the impact of national development programs on the processes of dispute handling in Zinacantan, a Maya Indian community in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Although the development programs have caused individual Zinacantecos to become more aware of the benefits they might obtain by appealing to remedy agents outside of the Indian community, few cases are taken to Mexican authorities because Indian leaders, who have a vested interest in handling the disputes of constituents, have sought to preserve the popularity of traditional conciliatory procedures by altering the types of settlements they suggest to disputants. As a result, traditional conciliatory procedures are flourishing, but the substance of the settlements reached through such procedures has begun to change toward conformity with codified state and national laws where those laws conflict with traditional Indian custom.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Fall 1976 , pp. 131 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

The field research was conducted during thirty-eight months between 1962 and 1970 and was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant No. 02100 and Predoctoral Research Fellowship l-Fi-MH-35, 444). The analysis of political dynamics presented in the paper, however, was developed during two years of postdoctoral study (1970-1972) supported by a National Science Foundation Fellowship. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 1971 meetings of the American Anthropological Association, and a revised version was presented at the Center for the Study of Law and Society, University of California, Berkeley, in 1973.

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