Chapter 1: Indigenous women’s movements: An intersectional approach to studying social movements
1. Indigenous movements in Latin America
2. Indigenous women and gender dynamics in indigenous movements
3. How we study indigenous women’s mobilization
4. Our case comparison
SECTION 1: BOLIVIA
Chapter 2: Indigenous movements merge into party and state politics
1. Race/ethnicity in 20th century Bolivia
2. An indigenous party in power
3. The indigenous movement
4. Conclusion
Chapter 3: Indigenous women transform the politics of representing women
1. Women’s organizing through different processes and collective identities
2. The agency of organized indigenous women
3. Conclusion
SECTION 2: MEXICO
Chapter 4: Indigenous self-determination: from national dialogues to local autonomies
1. Race/ethnicity in 20th century Mexico
2. The contemporary indigenous movement
3. Conclusion
Chapter 5: Indigenous women’s struggle for autonomy
1. Organizational forms and processes
2. The agency of organized indigenous women
3. Conclusion
SECTION 3: PERU
Chapter 6: The “exceptional case” no longer so exceptional
1. Race/ethnicity in 20th century Peru
2. The Peruvian indigenous movement
3. Coordinating political action
4. Conclusion
Chapter 7: Indigenous women strengthen the indigenous movement
1. Organizational forms and processes
2. The political agency of organized indigenous women
3. Conclusion
Chapter 8: Conclusion
1. Indigenous women’s mobilizing paths
2. Boundary making and collective identity
3. Political context and outcomes
Stéphanie Rousseau is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She is the author of Women’s Citizenship in Peru and also published several articles and book chapters on indigenous politics and women’s movements in Bolivia and Peru. She previously worked as Associate Professor at Université Laval, Canada.
Anahi Morales Hudon is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Human Sciences, Saint Paul University, Canada. She has published articles on indigenous women’s movements in Mexico—Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero—in the Journal of Latin American Studies, Sociologie et Sociétés, and Recherches Féministes.
This book presents a comparative analysis of the organizing trajectories of indigenous women’s movements in Peru, Mexico, and Bolivia. The authors’ innovative research reveals how the articulation of gender and ethnicity is central to shape indigenous women’s discourses. It explores the political contexts and internal dynamics of indigenous movements, to show that they created different opportunities for women to organize and voice specific demands. This, in turn, led to various forms of organizational autonomy for women involved in indigenous movements. The trajectories vary from the creation of autonomous spaces within mixed-gender organizations to the creation of independent organizations. Another pattern is that of women’s organizations maintaining an affiliation to a male-dominated mixed-gender organization, or what the authors call “gender parallelism”. This book illustrates how, in the last two decades, indigenous women have challenged various forms of exclusion through different strategies, transforming indigenous movements’ organizations and collective identities.