Central America

The Quiet Revolutionaries: Seeking Justice in Guatemala

Citation:

Afflitto, Frank M, and Paul Jesilow. 2007. The Quiet Revolutionaries: Seeking Justice in Guatemala. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Authors: Frank M. Afflitto, Paul Jesilow

Abstract:

The last three decades of the twentieth century brought relentless waves of death squads, political kidnappings, and other traumas to the people of Guatemala. Many people fled the country to escape the violence. Yet, at the same moment, a popular movement for justice brought together unlikely bands of behind-the-scenes heroes, blurring ethnic, geographic, and even class lines. The Quiet Revolutionaries is drawn from interviews conducted by Frank Afflitto in the early 1990s with more than eighty survivors of the state-sanctioned violence. Gathered under frequently life-threatening circumstances, the observations and recollections of these inspiring men and women form a unique perspective on collective efforts to produce change in politics, law, and public consciousness. Examined from a variety of perspectives, from sociological to historical, their stories form a rich ethnography. While it is still too soon to tell whether stable, long-term democracy will prevail in Guatemala, the successes of these fascinating individuals provide a unique understanding of revolutionary resistance. (WorldCat)

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Chapter one: Some Background 11

Chapter two: Access Was Not Easy 31

Chapter three: Chronic Ambiguity 54

Chapter four: Seeking Justice 76

Chapter five: The Social Movement to End Impunity 100

Chapter six: The Movement Is Fragmented by the Peace Accords 129

Chapter seven: Identity, Rule of Law, and Democracy 149

Appendix 159

Notes 167

References 181

Index 203

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Gender, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Guatemala

Year: 2007

States as Gender Equality Activists: The Evolution of Quota Laws in Latin America

Citation:

Piscopo, Jennifer M. 2015. “States as Gender Equality Activists: The Evolution of Quota Laws in Latin America.” Latin American Politics and Society 57 (3): 27–49. doi:10.1111/j.1548-2456.2015.00278.x.

Author: Jennifer M. Piscopo

Abstract:

This article examines two decades of strengthening, expansion, and diffusion of gender quota laws in Latin America. The analysis departs from studies of quotas’ adoption, numerical effectiveness, or policy impacts, instead focusing on states’ use of coercive power to integrate women into public and private institutions. Viewing these policies in light of feminist theories of the poststructuralist state reveals how state institutions act to restructure government and promote gender equality. In building this argument, the article presents an up-to-date empirical survey and conceptual understanding of quota evolution in Latin America, including recent developments in countries such as Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Uruguay.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Quotas Regions: Americas, Central America, North America, South America Countries: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uruguay

Year: 2015

Gender Gaps in Civic and Political Participation in Latin America

Citation:

Espinal, Rosario, and Shanyang Zhao. 2015. “Gender Gaps in Civic and Political Participation in Latin America.” Latin American Politics and Society 57 (1): 123–38. doi:10.1111/j.1548-2456.2015.00262.x.

Authors: Rosario Espinal, Shanyang Zhao

Abstract:

This article examines whether there is gender segmentation in civic participation in Latin America, and whether such segmentation is related to gender differences in political participation. Confirming the findings of other studies, this analysis indicates that there is gender segmentation in civic associational activities, and that men are more involved than women in political activities, except for voting. Among those involved in civic activities, however, women attend meetings more often than men or about equally in all types of activities under consideration, except for sports and recreational pursuits. This highlights the need to differentiate between type and intensity of civic participation and provides empirical evidence that Latin American women have strong community ties through a variety of organizations. The regression analysis shows that civic engagement has a positive effect on political participation but that the magnitude of that effect varies by gender depending on the activity.

Topics: Civil Society, Gender, Women, Men, Political Participation Regions: Americas, Central America, South America

Year: 2015

Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance in Honduras

Citation:

Brondo, Keri Vacanti. 2013. Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance in Honduras. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Author: Keri Vacanti Brondo

Annotation:

This is a rich ethnographic account of the relationship between identity politics, neoliberal development policy, and rights to resource management in native communities on the north coast of Honduras. It also answers the question: can freedom be achieved under the structures of neoliberalism?" (Summary from WorldCat)

Table of Contents:

1. Identity, Labor, and the Banana Economy

2. Development and Territorialization on the North Coast

3. Mestizo Irregularities, Garifuna Displacement, and the Emergence of a "Mixed" Garifuna Community

4. Gendered Rights and Responsibilities: Privatization and Women's Land Loss in Sambo Creek

5. Representing the Garifuna: Development, Territory, Indigeneity, and Gendered Activism 

6. Roots, Rights, and Belonging in Sambo Creek 

7. "Businessmen Disguised as Environmentalists": Neoliberal Conservation in Garifuna Territory

8. Research Voluntourism as Rights-Based Conservation: Could It Work?

9. Neoliberalism's Limit Points in Post-Coup Honduras 

Topics: Development, Environment, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Land Grabbing, Political Participation, Rights, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Honduras

Year: 2013

Selecting Women, Electing Women: Political Representation and Candidate Selection in Latin America

Citation:

Hinojosa, Magda. 2012. Selecting Women, Electing Women: Political Representation and Candidate Selection in Latin America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Author: Magda Hinojosa

Annotation:

Offers an analytic framework to show how the process of candidate selection often limits the participation of women in various Latin American countries (Summary from WorldCat)

Table of Contents

1. Electing women: female political representation in Latin America

2. Why selection matters: explaining women's representation in politics

3. How selection matters: a theoretical framework

4. The paradox of primaries: inclusive-decentralized selection

5. Inclusive-centralized and exclusive-decentralized selection

5. "Less democratic, but more effective": exclusive-centralized selection

6. Selecting candidates closer to home: widows, wives, and daughters

7. Altering candidate selection: the adoption and implementation of gender quotas

8. Candidate selection and women's representation in Latin American politics

Appendix one: Latin American women's representation by party

Appendix two: interviews.

Topics: Gender, Women, Governance, Quotas, Elections, Political Participation Regions: Americas, Central America, South America Countries: Chile, Mexico

Year: 2012

Ending Violence against Women in Latin America: Feminist Norm Setting in a Multilevel Context

Citation:

Roggeband, Conny. 2016. “Ending Violence against Women in Latin America: Feminist Norm Setting in a Multilevel Context.” Politics & Gender 12 (1): 143–67. 

Author: Conny Roggeband

Annotation:

Summary: 
“Much of the literature that deals with international norm development depicts norm diffusion as a rather mechanical process. The central concern is how norms emerge on the international level and how these norms then become adopted and implemented at the national level. More recently, a number of authors argue that we need to develop more complex approaches to transnational norms diffusion processes (Krook and True 2012; Montoya 2013; Zwingel 2012). In this article I attempt to contribute to a more adequate theoretical understanding of norm diffusion building on the case of feminist norm setting on violence against women under conditions of multilevel governance in Latin America. I argue that, in particular, three central assumptions prevalent in the global norm diffusion literature are problematic to understand these complex multilevel processes of norm institutionalization” (Roggeband 2016, 144). 

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Governance, International Law, Post-Conflict, Women's Rights, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America, South America

Year: 2016

Women and Gender Equity in Development Theory and Practice: Institutions, Resources, and Mobilization

Citation:

Jaquette, Jane, and Gale Summerfield, eds. 2006. Women and Gender Equity in Development Theory and Practice: Institutions, Resources, and Mobilization. Duke University Press.

Authors: Jane Jaquette, Gale Summerfield

Annotation:

Summary:
Seeking to catalyze innovative thinking and practice within the field of women and gender in development, editors Jane S. Jaquette and Gale Summerfield have brought together scholars, policymakers, and development workers to reflect on where the field is today and where it is headed. The contributors draw from their experiences and research in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to illuminate the connections between women’s well-being and globalization, environmental conservation, land rights, access to information technology, employment, and poverty alleviation. Highlighting key institutional issues, contributors analyze the two approaches that dominate the field: women in development (WID) and gender and development (GAD). They assess the results of gender mainstreaming, the difficulties that development agencies have translating gender rhetoric into equity in practice, and the conflicts between gender and the reassertion of indigenous cultural identities. Focusing on resource allocation, contributors explore the gendered effects of land privatization, the need to challenge cultural traditions that impede women’s ability to assert their legal rights, and women’s access to bureaucratic levers of power. Several essays consider women’s mobilizations, including a project to provide Internet access and communications strategies to African NGOs run by women. In the final essay, Irene Tinker, one of the field’s founders, reflects on the interactions between policy innovation and women’s organizing over the three decades since women became a focus of development work. Together the contributors bridge theory and practice to point toward productive new strategies for women and gender in development. (Summary from Duke University Press)
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments vii

Introduction - Jane S. Jaquette and Gale Summerfield

Part I Institutional Opportunities and Barriers pg. 15

Women, Gender, and Development - Jane S. Jaquette and Kathleen Staudt pg. 17

Mainstreaming Gender in International Organizations - Elisabeth Prugl and Audrey Lustgarten pg. 53

From “Home Economics” to “Microfianace: Gender Rhetoric and the Bureaucratic Resistance - David Hirschmann pg. 71

Contributions of a Gender Perspective to the Analysis of Poverty - Sylvia Chant pg. 87

What is Justice? Indigenous Women in Andean Development Projects - Maruja Barrig pg. 107

Part II. Livelihood and Control of Resouces pg. 135

Gender Equity and Rural Land Reform In China - Gale Summerfield pg. 137

Unequal Rights: Women and Property - Diana Lee-Smith and Catalina Hinchey Trujillo pg. 159

On Loan from Home: Women’s Participation in Formulating Human Settlements Policies - Faranak Miraftab pg. 173

In Theory and in Practice: Women Creating Better Accounts of the World - Louise Fortmann pg. 191

Women’s Work: The Kitchen Kills More than the Sword - Kirk R. Smith pg. 202

Part III. Women’s Mobilization and Power pg. 217

Women’s Movements in the Globalizing World: The Case of Thailand - Amara Pongsapich pg. 219

T-Shirts to Web Links: Women Connect! Communications Capacity-Building with Women’s NGOs - Doe Mayer, Barbara Pillsbury, and Muadi Mukenge pg. 240

Empowerment Just Happened: The Unexpected Expansion of Women’s Organizations - Irene Tinker pg. 268

Acronyms pg. 303

Bibliography pg. 306

Contributors pg. 352

Index pg. 357

Topics: Civil Society, Development, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Gender, Women, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Indigenous, Justice, Land Grabbing, NGOs, Rights Regions: Africa, Americas, Central America, South America, Asia

Year: 2006

Service Is Not Servitude: Links Between Capitalism and Feminist Liberal Conceptions of Pleasure - Case Studies from Nicaragua

Citation:

Portocarrero Lacayo, Ana Victoria. 2014. “Service Is Not Servitude: Links Between Capitalism and Feminist Liberal Conceptions of Pleasure — Case Studies from Nicaragua.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 27 (2): 221–39. doi:10.1007/s10767-013-9158-3.

Author: Lacayo Portocarrero

Abstract:

This paper describes how the way in which women learn to serve others (children, the elderly, partners) influences their possibilities of accessing material and symbolic resources, which have been instrumental for the deployment of neoliberal capitalism in Nicaragua. Through the exploration of the work of two feminist organisations, La Corriente and Grupo Venancia, and of the interviews with the women they work with, I trace the direct and more subtle links between sex and neoliberal capitalism, identifiable in the discourse on sexual pleasure that these organisations use when working with women. Building on the work of scholars coming from disciplines as varied as political economy, sociology, feminist economics, gender and sexuality and postcolonial studies, I argue that while this discourse on sexual pleasure does challenge certain elements of the neoliberal capitalist system and brings positive changes to women, it also contains several risks due to its modern and individualistic imperatives, which can actually reinforce capitalist relations and inequalities. These include the risk of validating and universalising certain sexual knowledge, the risk of diminishing and depoliticising the value of service, and that of building the freedom of some women at the expense of others. The paper advocates for a review of the discourse on pleasure and the reclaiming of the concept of ‘service’ as a political stance against neoliberal capitalism

Keywords: service, pleasure, capitalism, feminism, Nicaragua

Topics: Civil Society, Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Political Economies, Sexuality Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Nicaragua

Year: 2014

Reproductive Governance in Latin America

Citation:

Morgan, Lynn M., and Elizabeth F.S. Roberts. 2012. “Reproductive Governance in Latin America.” Anthropology & Medicine 19 (2): 241–54. doi:10.1080/13648470.2012.675046.

Authors: Lynn M. Morgan, Elizabeth F.S. Roberts

Abstract:

This paper develops the concept of reproductive governance as an analytic tool for tracing the shifting political rationalities of population and reproduction. As advanced here, the concept of reproductive governance refers to the mechanisms through which different historical configurations of actors – such as state, religious, and international financial institutions, NGOs, and social movements – use legislative controls, economic inducements, moral injunctions, direct coercion, and ethical incitements to produce, monitor, and control reproductive behaviours and population practices. Examples are drawn from Latin America, where reproductive governance is undergoing a dramatic transformation as public policy conversations are coalescing around new moral regimes and rights-based actors through debates about abortion, emergency contraception, sterilisation, migration, and assisted reproductive technologies. Reproductive discourses are increasingly framed through morality and contestations over ‘rights’, where rights-bearing citizens are pitted against each other in claiming reproductive, sexual, indigenous, and natural rights, as well as the ‘right to life’ of the unborn. The concept of reproductive governance can be applied to other settings in order to understand shifting political rationalities within the domain of reproduction.

Keywords: reproduction, governance, human rights, neoliberalism, Latin America

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Health, Reproductive Health, Indigenous, NGOs, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexuality Regions: Americas, Central America, South America

Year: 2012

Securing Social Difference: Militarization and Sexual Violence in an Afro-Nicaraguan Community

Citation:

Goett, Jennifer. 2015. “Securing Social Difference: Militarization and Sexual Violence in an Afro-Nicaraguan Community.” American Ethnologist 42 (3): 475–89. doi:10.1111/amet.12142.

Author: Jennifer Goett

Abstract:

Renewed violence in Nicaragua in the aftermath of the 1980s Contra War is tied to the drug trade, drug war militarization, and the rise of the postwar security state. State sexual violence in an Afro-Nicaraguan community under counternarcotics military occupation vividly demonstrates this linkage. I argue that state sexual violence in this case has served as a mechanism for asserting mestizo state sovereignty in a minoritized security zone. The forms of racial and patriarchal power that enabled the violence permeate the social body and structure political life in Nicaragua, and their diffuse nature has made it difficult for local people to find political redress for the abuses of state power that occurred in their community. Politically engaged feminist ethnography can illuminate the relationship between state security projects, preexisting social hierarchies, and endemic forms of insecurity and violence that remain difficult to politicize in postwar Central America.

Topics: Economies, Gender, Militarized Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Nicaragua

Year: 2015

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