Since colonization, Indigenous women in Chiapas have occupied very disadvantaged social positions, characterized by ethnic, gender and class-based oppression. However, during the last thirty five years, important social dynamics have taken place which have driven women to perceive themselves as the main actors of social transformation, and to start participating in planning and development efforts at a household and community level.
Building on the ideas of Paulo Freire and Pierre Bourdieu, oppression is understood as a dynamic where the oppressed are also implicated by, among other things, the involuntary body adhesion to oppression, experienced as shame, fear and silence. Therefore, the main focus of this research is the processes by which women achieved to exercise the internal capability to speak out; as well as how this new ability has been critical in order to have transformative agency, by having a meaningful participation in planning, agency and decision-making in the different spheres of their private and public life.