Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-7drxs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T10:41:43.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Indigenous and Feminist Movements at the Constituent Assembly in Bolivia: Locating the Representation of Indigenous Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Stéphanie Rousseau
Stéphanie Rousseau*
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article analyzes the recent constituent assembly in Bolivia as a political context in which the indigenous movement and the feminist movement presented different platforms to influence the content of the new constitution. The representation of indigenous women's gender-specific claims is examined through a study of their forms of organizing at the intersection of both social movements and content analysis of the movements' constitutional reform proposals. The success of both movements and the capacity of indigenous women to position themselves as a central actor in the process are explained through reference to the strength of the indigenous movement in national politics, the history of indigenous women's mobilization, and the collaboration between indigenous women and the feminist movement. Indigenous women's collective agency has benefited from this political context to develop new organizations and spaces to claim their rights and perspectives.

Resumen

Resumen

La reciente asamblea constituyente de Bolivia se analiza como un contexto político en el cual el movimiento indígena y el movimiento feminista presentaron diferentes plataformas para influir en el contenido de la nueva Constitución. La representación de las reivindicaciones de género de las mujeres indígenas es examinada tras el estudio de sus formas de organización en la intersección de ambos movimientos, y con un análisis de contenido de sus propuestas de reforma constitucional. El éxito de ambos y la capacidad de las mujeres indígenas para posicionarse como un actor central en el proceso se explican en relación a la fuerza del movimiento indígena en la política nacional, la historia de movilización de las mujeres indígenas, y la colaboración entre mujeres indígenas y las del movimiento feminista. La agencia colectiva de las mujeres indígenas se benefició de ese contexto político desarrollando nuevas organizaciones y espacios para reclamar derechos y afirmar sus propias perspectivas en este cambio político.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , 2011 , pp. 5 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

This article was presented in an earlier version at the Latin American Studies Association, Twenty-Eighth International Congress, June 11–14, 2009, in Rio de Janeiro. I thank Cecilia Salazar de la Torre, Ivonne Farah, and Christian Jetté for their collaboration during fieldwork in Bolivia, Itzel Adriana Sosa Sánchez for her research assistance, and the LARR anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments.

References

Anthias, Floya, and Yuval-Davis, Nira 1992 Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Arnold, Denise, and Spedding, Alison 2005 Mujeres en los movimientos sociales en Bolivia 2000–2003. La Paz: Centro de Información y Desarrollo de la Mujer and Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara.Google Scholar
Breines, Wini 2002 “What's Love Got to Do with It? White Women, Black Women, and Feminism in the Movement Years.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 27 (4): 1095–1133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers 2004 Ethnicity without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cadena, Marisol de la 1991 “‘Las mujeres son mas indias’: Etnicidad y género en una comunidad del Cusco.” Revista Andina 9 (1): 7–29.Google Scholar
Canessa, Andrew 2005 “The Indian within, the Indian without: Citizenship, Race, and Sex in a Bolivian Hamlet.” In Natives Making Nation: Gender, Indigeneity, and the State in the Andes, edited by Canessa, Andrew, 130–155. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Claure, Bernarda 2007 “Tiempo de descuento en debate sobre aborto en la Asamblea Constituyente,” June 10, Tinku: Información Alternativa (accessed June 10, 2007, at http://www.tmku.org/content/view/2010/4/).Google Scholar
Crossley, Nick 2003 “From Reproduction to Transformation: Social Movement Fields and the Radical Habitus.” Theory, Culture and Society 20 (6): 43–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denis, Ann 2008 “Intersectional Analysis: A Contribution of Feminism to Sociology.” International Sociology 23 (5): 677–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Federación Nacional de Trabajadoras del Hogar de Bolivia 2006 Propuestas hacia la Asamblea Constituyente. Unpublished report. La Paz: Federación Nacional de Trabajadoras del Hogar de Bolivia.Google Scholar
García Linera, Álvaro, León, Marxa Chávez, and Monje, Patricia Costas 2004 Sociología de los movimientos sociales en Bolivia: Estructuras de movilización, repertorios culturales y acción política. La Paz: Diakonia-Oxfam.Google Scholar
Hernández Castillo, R. Aída 2003 “El derecho positivo y la costumbre jurídica: Las mujeres indígenas de Chiapas y sus luchas por el acceso a la justicia.” In Violencia contra las mujeres en contextos urbanos y rurales, edited by Torres, Marta, 335–378. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, Programa Interdisciplinario de Estudios de la Mujer.Google Scholar
Hernández Castillo, R. Aída 2010 “The Emergence of Indigenous Feminism in Latin America.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 35 (3): 539–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández Castillo, R. Aída, and Elizondo, Héctor Ortiz 1996 “Las demandas de la mujer indígena en Chiapas.” Revista Nueva Antropología 15 (49): 31–39.Google Scholar
Kampwirth, Karen 2002 Women and Guerilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Kampwirth, Karen 2004 Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Lanza Monje, Teresa 2008 “Proyecto Mujeres y Asamblea Constituyente.” Cotidiano Mujer 44 (November): 48–54.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sydney, and Tilly, Charles 2001 Dynamics of Contention. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCall, Leslie 2005 “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” Signs 30 (3): 1771–1800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monasterios, Karin 2007 “Bolivian Women's Organizations in the MAS Era.” NACLA Report on the Americas 40 (2): 33–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mujeres Presentes en la Historia 2006 De la protesta al mandato: Una propuesta en construcción. La Paz: Proyecto Mujeres y Asamblea Constituyente.Google Scholar
Oliart, Patricia 2008 “Indigenous Women's Organizations and the Political Discourses of Indigenous Rights and Gender Equity in Peru.” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 3 (3): 291–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radcliffe, Sarah 2008 “Las mujeres indígenas ecuatorianas bajo la gobernabilidad multicultural y de género.” In Raza, etnicidad y sexualidades: Ciudadanía y multiculturalismo en América Latina, edited by Wade, Peter, Giraldo, Fernando Urrea, and Vigoya, Mara Viveros, 105–136. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.Google Scholar
Richards, Patricia 2004 Pobladoras, Indígenas, and the State: Conflicts over Women's Rights in Chile. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, Patricia 2005 “The Politics of Gender, Human Rights and Being Indigenous in Chile.” Gender and Society 19 (2): 199–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia 1996 Ser mujer indígena, chola o birlocha en la Bolivia postcolonial de los años 90. La Paz: Ministerio de Desarrollo Humano, Secretaría Nacional de Asuntos Étnicos, de Género y Generacionales.Google Scholar
Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia 2010 “The Notion of ‘Rights’ and the Paradoxes of Postcolonial Modernity: Indigenous Peoples and Women in Bolivia.” Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences 18 (2): 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riveros Pinto, María Angela 2003 “Reflexiones sobre género y etnicidad entre los aymaras: Una mirada desde adentro.” In Memoria del Seminario Nacional de Género y Etnicidad, 15–19. Cochabamba: n.p.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Stéphanie 2009 “Genre et ethnicité racialisée en Bolivie: Pour une étude intersectionnelle des mouvements sociaux.” Sociologie et Sociétés 41 (2): 135–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubin, Jeffrey 2004 “Meanings and Mobilizations: A Cultural Politics Approach to Social Movements and States.” Latin American Research Review 39 (3): 106–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salazar, Cecilia 1998 Movimiento de mujeres en Bolivia: La Federación de Mujeres Campesinas “Bartolina Sisa” y los clubes y centros de madres. La Paz: Servicio Holandés de Cooperación al Desarrollo.Google Scholar
Sanabria, Carmen E., Nostas, Mercedes, and Román, María Jenny 2006 “Nudos, tensiones y esperanzas.” Cotidiano Mujer 42 (March) (accessed February 27, 2011, at http://www.cotidianomujer.org.uy/2006/42p13.htm).Google Scholar
Sánchez Néstor, Martha 2005 “Construire notre autonomie: Le mouvement des femmes indiennes au Mexique.” Nouvelles Questions Féministes 24 (2): 50–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sierra, María Teresa 2001 “Human Rights, Gender and Ethnicity: Legal Claims and Anthropological Challenges in Mexico.” PoLAR 24 (2): 76–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sierra, María Teresa 2007 La renovación de la justicia indígena en tiempos de derechos: Etnicidad, género y diversidad (accessed February 17, 2011, at http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/vrp/sierra.pdf).Google Scholar
Speed, Shannon, Castillo, R. Aída Hernández, and Stephen, Lynn, eds. 2006 Dissident' Women: Gender and Cultural Politics in Chiapas. Austin: University of Texas Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephen, Lynn 2001 “Gender, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity.” Latin American Perspectives 28 (121): 54–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephenson, Marcia 1999 Gender and Modernity in Andean Bolivia. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Viceministerio de Género y Asuntos Generacionales and Alemana, Cooperación Técnica 2007 Mujeres constituyentes. La Paz: Gesellschaft für Technische ZusammenarbeitGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization 2001 Mainstreaming Gender Equity in Health: The Need to Move Forward—Madrid Statement. Madrid: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira 2006 “Intersectionality and Feminist Politics.” European Journal of Women's Studies 13 (3): 193–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar