Chican@ artists and Zapatistas walk together asking, listening, learning: the role of transnational informal learning networks in the creation of a better world

UnrestrictedIn an era of globalized capital, informal learning is particularly important to emancipatory struggles. This qualitative study examines the informal learning relationship between the Zapatistas and 9 Chican@ artists from Los Angeles, California. The Chican@ artists are inspired to learn with and from the insurgent Zapatistas' experiences and messages as they too attempt to liberate themselves from what they consider institutional oppression in the U.S. Much of the initial learning examined revolves around the Encuentro Chican@-Zapatista of August 1997.; The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of the role of transnational emancipatory informal network learning in an era of globalization. To explore the informal learning process it was important to ask the guiding questions: Why, how, and what did the Chican@ artists learn from their contact and interaction with the Zapatista rebels of Chiapas, Mexico and what impact did it have and is having on the Chican@ Movement?; The study shows that the 9 Chican@ artists were initially attracted to Zapatismo because of centrifugal negative experiences in the U.S. as they encounter institutional racism, social marginalization and exclusion from the social justice movements on the one hand, and positive centripetal identities and relationships that draw them towards Zapatismo, on the other. The Chican@ artists are critical of the traditional social justice organizations' strategic aims to either reform capitalism or to take state power. The study shows that the Chican@ artists related to the Zapatistas through a centripetal positive learning process that includes ethnic cultural, spiritual and political affinities. This research demonstrates that the informal learning relationship between Zapatistas and Chican@s is inter-subjective or horizontal because the learning style is between persons that value their differentness. While this study agrees with Peter Mayo's and Greg Foley's research on transformative learning, it is implicitly critical of Paulo Freire's approach given that the Freirean facilitator or change agent's role evokes a directive rather than a horizontal method. This research implies that the artists' echoing of the Zapatista message reinforced and enhanced the initial Zapatista call and has facilitated the initiation of a transformational paradigmatic shift within the Chican@ movement