Here's What It's Like To Live With The Zapatistas, 20 Years After Their Attempted Revolution In Mexico

Twenty years ago, in direct protest against the then-recently signed North American Free Trade Agreement, a makeshift uprising of Mayan farmers seized a collection of cities and towns in Chiapas, in Mexico's remote southeastern corner. They were demanding rights for Mexico's indigenous people, who they thought had long been treated unfairly and would suffer even more under the landmark economic deal.

Naming themselves the Zapatistas after Emiliano Zapata, a principal leader of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, they emerged as a populist left-wing movement that openly called for a new revolution in Mexico, one that would replace a government which they argued was completely out of touch with the needs of its people.

While taht revolution never came to pass, the Zapatistas and their ideologies have remained a presence in Chiapas and in Mexico. They continue to vocally oppose and resist the government, and have broadened their rhetoric to include larger issues of globalization and social justice. To this day, they live by their doctrine of upholding, at all costs, the importance of "work, land, shelter, food, health, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace."

In January, photographer Giles Clarke was invited to travel to Chiapas and immerse himself in the culture of the Zapatistas, staying with a family high in the mountains.

"I was honored to live off-the-grid with my appointed family and witness just a glimpse of this dignified, self-governed collective," Clarke says.

That glimpse was both at times illuminating and strange, heartening and conflicting.

(Captions by Giles Clarke and Christian Storm)