Walking with the Below: Zapatistas, Palestinians, and Panthers—A Conversation with Linda Quiquivix

On today’s episode I talk with geographer, artist, photographer, and activist Linda Quiquivix about her new book: Palestine 1492: A Report Back. Combining her work learning and working alongside the Zapatistas and Palestinians, and incorporating anti-fascist politics from the Black Panthers, Quiquivix reaches back to the 15th century to see the beginnings of the Western project to carve the surface of the planet into spaces to be both shared and wrestled over by those Above.  Instead, Linda asks us to walk side by side with those Below. She writes, “what might it look like what might it feel like, to walk with the Below? To place yourself under fire with the Below, so that the need to shake off fascism becomes a shared necessity for you, too?  I do not know, but I hope we will find out together because there's no blueprint. From the Zapatistas I learn to ask questions as we walk.  From Aida Camp I learn sometimes we must ask questions as we jump. May we learn the answers together.”

Dr. Linda Quiquivix is a geographer, illustrator, and popular educator of Maya-Mam roots, raised by Palestinians, Zapatistas, Panthers, and jaguars. Her work centers on decolonial land struggles that  challenge us to share the world with all our difference, a world “where all worlds fit.” She is author of Palestine 1492: A Report Back (Wild Ox Books, 2024), a visual and literary exploration that weaves Palestine into global struggles across 500 years. Quiquivix is also a co-editor of “The Fourth World War: Zapatista Writings on Global Capital 1997-2023” (Paliacate Press, 2024). Learn more about her work at quiqui.org