Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 59 No. 1 © The Author [2005]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org doi: 10.1093/pa/gsj001 Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 59 No. 1, 2006, 1–17 ‘Not in my Name’: Deleuze, Zapatismo and the Critique of Representation 1 BY SIMON TORMEY HIGH up in the mountains of the south east of Mexico an experiment is taking place that tests some of the most cherished notions political theorists have held and still hold about the nature of politics, of ration- ality, of order, of emancipation. 2 The experiment is being conducted by the Zapatistas, a group that insists that it is ‘exercising power’ not on behalf of the people of the Chiapas, the region it ‘liberated’ from the federal government in 1994, but with the people of the Chiapas. Whilst seeking to give voice to people they are not speaking for them, if they are ‘speaking’ at all (no official communiqués were issued between the end of 2001 and January 2003—the Zapatistas had announced that they were too busy ‘listening’ to people). The Zapatistas are seeking a way in which people living in the region can not merely find their own voice, but be heard by those who would otherwise remain deaf, which, predictably, includes those who would seek to ‘represent’ them: the offi- cial parties of the Mexican political establishment; various Marxist and revolutionary groups; and movements representing the poor or particular indigenous groups. But how are the Zapatistas different to the various groups before them who were unembarrassed to lead, to represent? What have they seen or thought about which makes them suspicious not merely of the actuality of political representation in Mexico, but its very logic? Why have they set their face against, what for occidental political thought, is politics? The stance and philosophy of the Zapatistas is, I would argue, remarkable in itself, but also symptomatic of a more general shift in the underpinnings of the political ‘field’, one that problematises and points beyond ‘representation’. This is a shift that first announced itself in relation to philosophy, ethics and literature some decades ago, in turn spreading to black studies, feminism, queer and lesbian studies, and latterly to post-colonial and subaltern studies. It can now be felt and heard in what is sometimes termed ‘the new activism’. The ‘not in my name’ sentiment that resounded in response to the war in Iraq speaks directly to this mood, and to a politics that sets its face against being represented by others, particularly governments. The rejection of what might be termed the pragmatics of representation (‘speaking for’) coincides with, reinforces and feeds off the much commented upon ‘crisis of gsj001.fm Page 1 Tuesday, July 19, 2005 9:40 PM