This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico from 2005-2007 and explores the experiences of Zapatista women during the period of autonomy. Despite the early attention paid by the Zapatista movement to gender inequality, a gap remains between discourse and lived experiences. I have identified women’s participation within this gap as a process I am calling gendered autonomy, a sociological concept through which we can understand women’s work in autonomy building.

Collective Behavior & Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association, the Development Sociology section of the American Sociological Association, the Human Rights section of the American Sociological Association, the RC02 (Economy and Society) of the International Sociological Association and the School of Social & Political Sciences of the University of Sydney.