Tojolabal counter-device: towards a vindicatión of otherness as resistance

Abstract

This paper analyzes the place alterity takes in the tojolabal subjectivation process. It is about the exegesis we can deliver from it and its possibilities as resistance against neoliberal power structures. Such resistance is realized through the constitution of a community-subject who understands herself/himself as a harmonic part of the world she/he belongs to. In order to do so, the concept of dispositif is used to illustrate the way neoliberal power structures constitutes subjects who conceive themselves as isolated and related to their environment through a maximizing rationality. The concept of dispositif is turned into “counter-dispositif” to understand the tojolabal practices as a means of opposition to the neoliberal scheme. It will be shown how the network of tojolabal counter-dispositifs constitutes the possibility of creating a community subject that works as a way of resistance, due to his/her connection to otherness.