Cultural capital and innovative pedagogy: a case study among indigenous communities in Mexico and Honduras

Abstract

This article introduces case studies of innovative approaches to pedagogy among indigenous Mayan communities in Chiapas (Mexico) and Lencan communities in Intibucá (Honduras). Innovative approaches to researching alternative theories and practices of pedagogy are used by the author to develop an epistemology of critical pedagogy and its potential contribution to the creation of a dignified society. From the humanistic point of view these experiments in pedagogy are invaluable practices of cultural capital that resonate in a broader social and political environment. Cultural capital represents the power for social integration and cohesion beyond capitalism, produces new social relations, and contributes to the creation of an egalitarian society with greater social welfare. Pedagogy plays a fundamental role in this social production because it leads to social change. The author indicates the possibilities of an education that runs counter to the currently prevailing model of education in wealthy states as well as opening new reflections and challenges for contemporary pedagogy.

Keywords:

• cultural capital
• critical pedagogy of self‐defining communities
• pedagogy of horizontal conjunctures
• indigenous communities
• social change

Notes

1. The theoretical distinction between potencia or power‐to and potestas or power‐over is discussed in Holloway (2002), Colectivo situaciones (2003), and Gregorčič (2005).

2. Caracol or shell is a political entity that was established in August 2003 to replace the co‐operation of Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Zapatista’s society. For this reason five new shells were created that consist of three main institutions: Council of Good Government, Commission for Communication, and Supervisory Commission.

3. See http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/especiales/2/ (accessed 11 December 2007).

4. Neoliberalism is the ‘grow‐or‐die’ dynamics of the global market economy system.

5. The education promoters are the community teachers. Zapatistas do not distinguish between pupils and teachers – all of them present themselves as ‘participants in the educational process’.

6. Honduras is the only country in Central America without a revolution in the twentieth century. In the 1980s, after a long period of being a banana republic, Honduras was forced to play also a geostrategic role by the US, a role of military training ground in order to ensure ‘the correct’ ending of the Cold War (which was determined through the victory of anti‐revolutionary forces in Guatemala and in El Salvador).