SECULARIZATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN SOUTHEAST MEXICO

• Main Author: Héctor Gómez Peralta
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Center for Study of Religion and Religious Tolerance 2016-12-01
• Series: Politics and Religion
• Subjects: Zapotec people, secularization, Indian communities, direct democracy, government by custom
• Online Access: http://politicsandreligionjournal.com/index.php/prj/article/view/11

The paper explains the process of transition to democracy of a Zapotec community in the deep highlands of Oaxaca, in Southern México. That transition go hand to hand with profound religious changes. The paper shows how that political transition took place because a strong process of secularization and religious pluralism that modified all the socioeconomics structures of the Zapotec people. The paper shows the transition from a political regimen ruled by Shamans, a theocracy, to a gerontocracy, a regimen ruled by an Elder’s Council. And more lately, the transition from gerontocracy to the formation of a direct democracy, a regimen ruled by a People’s Assembly, integrated by all the citizens of the Zapotec community.