Abstract:Resumen Las dinámicas de conflictividad entre el movimiento campesino indígena y el Estado en Bolivia son examinadas a la luz de la trayectoria política y las disputas que han conformado los periodos de vida de la Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias ‘Bartolina Sisa’ (1978-2018) y son interpretadas en clave de autonomía. Emergieron aprovechando una fisura en el movimiento campesino indígena, impulsaron un proyecto de representación no mediada o autorrepresentación política que der… Show more
“…The Bartolinas' commitment to chachawarmi also served to distinguish them from urban feminists, whom they identified as white, middle-class, and a product of capitalism, even when they were in the same political party (Montes 2011, 28;Arce Cuadros 2022). Tensions between Bartolinas and feminists were exacerbated by the hundreds of years of indigenous women's servitude to lighter-skinned women, who often viewed them as clients of their nongovernmental projects rather than as political partners (Arce Cuadros 2022, 163;Rousseau and Ewig 2017, 426).…”
A key element in the historically unprecedented advances in indigenous women’s political representation under Bolivia’s Evo Morales’s administration (2006–2019) was the influence that women coca growers played in the rural women’s indigenous organization known as the Bartolinas. Driven in no small measure by their resistance to the US-financed War on Drugs in the Chapare region, the cocaleras became both Bolivia’s strongest indigenous women’s organization and its most dedicated advocates for indigenous women’s rights. This article contends that intersectionality—of gender, class, and indigenous identities—is at the heart of understanding indigenous women’s transformation from “helpers” of a male-dominated peasant union to government ministers in the space of ten years. Not only did they effectively deploy chachawarmi, the Andean concept of gender complementarity, to advance their rights in a way consistent with their cultural identity and political loyalties, but they also benefited from the gains of a predominantly urban middle-class feminist movement even though they formally rejected the feminist movement’s composition and perceived orientation.
“…The Bartolinas' commitment to chachawarmi also served to distinguish them from urban feminists, whom they identified as white, middle-class, and a product of capitalism, even when they were in the same political party (Montes 2011, 28;Arce Cuadros 2022). Tensions between Bartolinas and feminists were exacerbated by the hundreds of years of indigenous women's servitude to lighter-skinned women, who often viewed them as clients of their nongovernmental projects rather than as political partners (Arce Cuadros 2022, 163;Rousseau and Ewig 2017, 426).…”
A key element in the historically unprecedented advances in indigenous women’s political representation under Bolivia’s Evo Morales’s administration (2006–2019) was the influence that women coca growers played in the rural women’s indigenous organization known as the Bartolinas. Driven in no small measure by their resistance to the US-financed War on Drugs in the Chapare region, the cocaleras became both Bolivia’s strongest indigenous women’s organization and its most dedicated advocates for indigenous women’s rights. This article contends that intersectionality—of gender, class, and indigenous identities—is at the heart of understanding indigenous women’s transformation from “helpers” of a male-dominated peasant union to government ministers in the space of ten years. Not only did they effectively deploy chachawarmi, the Andean concept of gender complementarity, to advance their rights in a way consistent with their cultural identity and political loyalties, but they also benefited from the gains of a predominantly urban middle-class feminist movement even though they formally rejected the feminist movement’s composition and perceived orientation.
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