This article puts forward a description and analysis of the reality of the battle of Oaxaca, between June and November 2006. The strike and occupation of the main square of Oaxaca, the creation of the popular assembly of the peoples of Oaxaca (PAPO), the activities of native women and native communities, the authoritarian strategy of the State, the battle of ideas within the movement: these are the issues addressed in the article.

In this exciting new study, Eugene Gogol interweaves three strands that form the intellectual bedrock for the concept of the Other in the Latin American context: Hegel's dialectic of negativity, Marx's humanism, and autochthonal emancipatory thought. From this foundation, the book explores the relation of liberatory philosophic thought to today's social and class movements. Gogol considers the logic of capitalism on Latin American soil, the ecological crisis in Latin America, and the concept and practice of self-liberation. Still one of the (...) most contested terrains of Latin American thought, the Other has been of central concern for many luminary thinkers including Leopoldo Zea, Octavio Paz, and José Carlos Mariátegui. While these writers may not garner much publicity in the world press, the highly public and ongoing struggles of the Zapatistas and Brazil's Landless Workers Movement demonstrate the continuing need to theorize the volatile nature of Latin American social reality. (shrink)