A theoretical debate between Gramsci and Foucault, counter-hegemony and agency via Discourse theory and Genealogy: the case of indigenous fights in the State of Chiapas

Abstract

The present article seeks to analyse some of the theoretical assumptions that gave birth to the fourth debate of International Relations (IR) between positivist and post-positivist trends. The specific focus will be put on two on the major onto-epistemological fields that are Post-Structuralism and Neo-Gramscian model via Critical Theory. In this sense, these two perspectives ? respectively represented by Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci ? have taken distance from dominant and empirical understanding of reality while shedding light on other features such as the construction of ideas and ideologies that gave rise to a specific and not universalized reality. To put it better, while positivists have tried to explain international reality via empirical analysis through the scientific method, these philosophers followed a different path in which one cannot assume the object in analysis as a natural object. Hence, the tradition called in question is the one that goes from Galilei and Descartes on and that both Neo-Realism and Neo-liberalism have tried to follow. Here the question is: is it possible, in a field such as IR, to live of objectivation? Is it possible, as per the scientific method, to find a response that is valid for everyone and universally reproducible by anyone? Or rather, is this really possible in the IR world where along with the phenomena live a huge variety of social elements?

Once this stated, we will move inside the post-positivist arena, focusing on the main concepts that fortified the theories of the two philosophers that are “counter-hegemony” and “agency”. In this respect, we will see how Gramscian “counter-hegemony” works in opposition to a “dominant hegemonic bloc” with the aim to show that if power wants to be opposed it is important to firstly understand where it resides. Indeed, following Gramsci’s theories and his concept of “war of position”, to fight and change a hegemonic bloc, one has to understand the assemblage of cultural beliefs and ideologies that allow his existence. To do that, in this article we will go deeply in these cultural beliefs via the post-structuralist theories of Michel Foucault who gave rise to concepts such as “networks”, “nodes” and “knowledges” that stand as key words in order to understand embedded discourses of power and in which “agency” can be found. The goal here is to go at the roots of the creation of an idea before creating alternative ones. Indeed, it will be clear how Foucault tries to understand the creation of particular actors and discourses that is once the relations that creates actors and discourses have been decoded (ergo the knowledges), the change ? or “agency” ? and the creation of alternative intelligences and alternative ideas can be made possible.

At this point, merging these two theoretical approaches will mean finding a methodology that will be able to account for aspects of the international realities. To do that, we will take two perspectives that can account for past and present such as “Discourse Theory” and “Genealogy”. The first, that has been created by Laclau and Mouffe following the Gramscian dichotomy hegemony-counter-hegemony and the second used by the same Foucault in his main writings such as Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1961) or The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). The aim will be that of working both in diachrony and in synchrony, that is through “Genealogy” we will evidence the main “knowledges” that created a reality around a specific discourse of power in specific periods of time; while through “Discourse Theory” we will assess the present fight between counter-hegemonic and hegemonic blocs via the main concepts stated by Laclau and Mouffe such as “antagonism”, “empty signifiers”, “nodal points” and “hegemony”. This is based on the fact that a present fight can be led only if we understand how a discourse of power has consolidated through time. All this following Foucault’s words as guidelines:

“What I wanted to show [with the Archaeology of Knowledge] is that men do things when they speak, in the same way that they do things when they create an object. The discourse can be created, once it is created it exists, once it exists, it subsists, once it subsists, it works and once it works it transforms, it has effects” (Foucault, 1969).

In this respect, the theoretical background will be structured around a specific case study: the indigenous right regime ? as it developed in the State of Chiapas (Mexico). Here, “the Genealogy” will allow us to better understand the concept of “the indigenous” following a line in three different historical period of Mexico: a) The Spanish Colonization that goes from the discovery of the New World in 1492 to the Mexican Revolution in 1910; b) The post-Revolutionary Period where it begins a sort of institutionalization of indigenous peoples thanks to the congress in Pátzcuaro of 1940 and the foundation of the Inter-American Indigenous Institute (INI); c) The neo-liberal period that lived along with the internationalization of indigenous’ identity and that began in 1982 with the official adoption of neoliberalism as the main policy of Mexico up to the birth of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in 1994.

Hence, once “Genealogy” is stated we will jump to the contemporary period during which Mexico implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with USA and Canada that revisited the article 27 of Mexican constitution for which indigenous landholdings had to be protected from sale and privatization. Here the analysis will be conducted on existing literature through a qualitative analysis of the data extrapolated via “Discourse Theory”. At this point, we will compare counter-hegemonic and hegemonic discourses of Subcomandante Marcos and President Salinas de Gortari. Hence, it will be clear how the two opponents, via the concepts of “democracy” and “modernization”, have tried to give a new meaning to the signifier “indigenous” and how the discursive fight of EZLN has tried to reach as main goal the rebuilding of the word “indigenous”, making it enter in the San Andrés Accords of 1996 as a term that had to include all those native subjects who had right to have rights.