Central America

Citation:

Weber, Sanne. 2021. “From Gender-Blind to Gender-Transformative Reintegration: Women’s Experiences with Social Reintegration in Guatemala.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23 (3): 396–417.

Author: Sanne Weber

Abstract:

Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) processes have become a standard component of international peace and security programming. Yet, in spite of increasing attention to the need for gender-sensitive DDR in policy and academic debates, the stereotypical ways in which female ex-combatants have traditionally been addressed have led to inadequate gendered reintegration policies. This article describes the effects of a gender-blind reintegration process on female ex-combatants’ experiences of long-term social reintegration in Guatemala. Social reintegration is a profoundly gendered process, which involves the rebuilding of civilian identities, social relationships, and trust between social groups. Based on in-depth interviews with female ex-combatants, this article describes how the absence of gender-sensitive reintegration strategies produced various problems for women. They faced difficulties in their emotional and family relationships, leading to mental health struggles and even violence, as well as persistent stigma which produced anxiety and challenges in the labor market. The article concludes with suggestions for making reintegration a gender-transformative process, by crossing the private–public divide, increasing collective strategies, and better aligning with transitional justice processes.

Keywords: female ex-combatants, DDR, social reintegration, gender equality, Guatemala

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Guatemala

Year: 2021

Citation:

Hallum-Montes, Rachel. 2012. “‘Para El Bien Común’ Indigenous Women’s Environmental Activism and Community Care Work in Guatemala.” Race, Gender & Class 19 (1/2): 104–30.

Author: Rachel Hallum-Montes

Abstract:

This article adopts an "eco-intersectional" perspective to examine the motivations and strategies that guide indigenous women's environmental activism in Guatemala. A total of 33 indigenous Kaqchikel women who work with a transnational environmental organization were interviewed in 2006 and 2009. The interviews reveal that gender, race, and class figured prominently in women's decisions to become environmental activists. Women mobilized around their identities as mothers and caregivers, and viewed their environmental activism as a way of caring for both their families and the indigenous community. Women also linked their local activism to larger social movements—including the indigenous, women's, and environmental movements. The article concludes by discussing recommendations for academic, activist, and policy work.

Keywords: gender, indigenous, environment, Guatemala, ecofeminism

Topics: Economies, Care Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Race Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Guatemala

Year: 2012

Citation:

Mollett, Sharlene. 2018. “The Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve: A Postcolonial Feminist Political Ecological Reading of Violence and Territorial Struggles in Honduras.” In Land Rights, Biodiversity Conservation and Justice. Routledge.

Author: Sharlene Mollett

Abstract:

This chapter aims to rethink the relationship between “parks and people” by making visible mundane and spectacular forms of violence inside the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve. In spite of landmark territorial legislation awarded to Miskito Territorial Councils beginning in 2013, the Miskito peoples continue to face impending colono land invasions inside ancestral customary territories. Drawing from ongoing research in Honduras, this chapter blends ethnographic data collection with news media, archival documents, development reports and secondary literatures to examine the violent challenges to Miskito territorial autonomy. Such violence extends beyond the Reserve and is emplaced on the bodies of land and territorial defenders mobilized against a growing extractivist Honduran state. With a focus on a coloniality of power and postcolonial intersectional thinking, this chapter maintains that biodiversity conservation and extractive development are linked, imbued with past logics of race and gender employed in the dehumanization of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in the present. Thus, in Honduras, I argue, contemporary Indigenous struggles over land and territory are simultaneously historical contests that work to disrupt state and elite practices of Indigenous peoples’ dehumanization, in the name of modernity and development.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Conflict, Resource Conflict, Development, Environment, Extractive Industries, Gender, Indigenous, Intersectionality, Land Tenure, Race, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Honduras

Year: 2018

Citation:

Deonandan, Kalowatie, Rebecca Tatham, and Brennan Field. 2017. “Indigenous Women’s Anti-Mining Activism: A Gendered Analysis of the El Estor Struggle in Guatemala.” Gender & Development 25 (3): 405–19. 

Authors: Kalowatie Deonandan, Rebecca Tatham, Brennan Field

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
Focusing on the struggle against the Fenix mine in El Estor Guatemala, this article argues that women are disproportionately affected by resource development; and that women’s activism against mining is also gendered, in the sense that they are often distinct from men’s strategies and are rooted in women’s experiences as women, and as indigenous women within a particular socioeconomic and historical context. We draw on original data gathered from interviews with indigenous women activists in the El Estor communities in Guatemala.

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
Centrándose en la lucha contra la mina Fénix en El Estor, Guatemala, el presente artículo sostiene que las mujeres son afectadas de manera desproporcionada por la explotación de recursos naturales. Asimismo, en el activismo de las mujeres contra las mineras pueden identificarse elementos vinculados al género en el sentido de que muchas veces las actividades que promueven se diferencian de las estrategias impulsadas por los hombres y se encuentran arraigadas en las vivencias de las mujeres en tanto mujeres y en tanto mujeres indígenas en un contexto socioeconómico e histórico particular. Las autoras del artículo basan sus conclusiones en datos de primera mano recabados de entrevistas realizadas con mujeres indígenas activistas habitantes de comunidades de El Estor en Guatemala.

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
Cet article porte sur la lutte contre la mine Fenix à El Estor, au Guatemala, et soutient que les femmes sont touchées de manière disproportionnée par le développement de l’exploitation des ressources et que l’activisme des femmes contre l’exploitation minière est aussi sexo-spécifique, dans la mesure où il est souvent distinct des stratégies des hommes et ancré dans les expériences des femmes en tant que femmes, mais aussi en tant que femmes autochtones dans un contexte socio-économique et historique particulier. Nous nous basons sur des données originales recueillies dans le cadre d’entretiens menés avec des femmes activistes autochtones dans les communautés d’El Estor au Guatemala.

Keywords: women, gender, mining, effects, activism, Guatemala

Topics: Conflict, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Indigenous Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Guatemala

Year: 2017

Citation:

Isla, Ana. 2005. “Conservation as Enclosure: An Ecofeminist Perspective on Sustainable Development and Biopiracy in Costa Rica.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 16 (3): 49–61.

Author: Ana Isla

Annotation:

Topics: Development, Environment, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Indigenous, Rights, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Costa Rica

Year: 2005

Citation:

Grabe, Shelly, Rose Grace Grose, and Anjali Dutt. 2015. “Women’s Land Ownership and Relationship Power: A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Structural Inequities and Violence against Women.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 39 (1): 7–19.

Authors: Shelly Grabe, Rose Grace Grose, Anjali Dutt

Abstract:

Violence against women is a widespread societal problem substantiated and perpetuated through inequities that operate within numerous levels of the society. Challenging and ending gender-based violence therefore requires addressing social structures that perpetuate gendered hierarchies and maintain women’s susceptibility to experiencing violence worldwide. The present study examines novel approaches taken by women in two different countries in the Global South, one in Nicaragua and another in Tanzania, to examine macro-level processes involved in land ownership in regions where owning land is a marker of dominance. Using data from 492 women, results from structural equation models and qualitative thematic analyses demonstrate significant links among women’s ownership of land, relationship power, and receipt of physical and psychological violence in both the countries. Collectively, the findings suggest that when women own land, they gain power within their relationships and are less likely to experience violence. Implications for theoretical conceptualizations of eradicating violence against women and practical interventions are discussed.

Keywords: Intimate partner violence, power, relationship quality, human rights, sexism, ownership, cross-cultural differences

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Rights, Human Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Americas, Central America Countries: Nicaragua, Tanzania

Year: 2015

Citation:

Casolo, Jennifer. 2009. “Gender Levees: Rethinking Women’s Land Rights in Northeastern Honduras.” Journal of Agrarian Change 9 (3): 392–420. 

Author: Jennifer Casolo

Abstract:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, one woman’s impassioned speech linking women’s exclusion from land rights with the failings of Honduras’ state-led agrarian reform and counter-reform gathered gale force, simultaneously weakening particular levees of gender-bias while constructing others. Post-Hurricane Mitch organizational practices and reconstruction policies in Northeastern Honduras afforded women access to joint property titles and participation.Yet the practices and processes through which women gained new rights reproduced certain exclusionary gender structures and created new barriers to women’s participation. These contradictory consequences speak to recent feminist assessments of women’s land rights under neo-liberal land titling programmes and a resurgence of policies addressing agrarian reform, and reveal the broader stakes of struggles for women’s land rights. In so doing, they underline the importance of attending to spatial connections and historical articulations between the present and the past, and thus the past and the future.

Keywords: gender, land rights, agrarian reform, disaster, Honduras

Topics: Agriculture, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Gender Analysis, Women, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Honduras

Year: 2009

Citation:

Gutierrez-Montes, Isabel, Maureen Arguedas, Felicia Ramirez-Aguero, Leida Mercado, and Jorge Sellare. 2017. "Contributing to the Construction of a Framework for Improved Gender Integration into Climate-Smart Agriculture Projects Monitoring and Evaluation: MAP-Norway Experience." Climatic Change 158: 93-106.

Authors: Isabel Gutierrez-Montes, Maureen Arguedas, Felicia Ramirez-Aguero , Leida Mercado, Jorge Sellare

Abstract:

The Mesoamerican Agroenvironmental Program (MAP-Norway) is a multi-dimensional rural development program implemented in Central America since 2009, working with smallholder families, producer organizations, governmental organizations, and regional governance platforms. To monitor, assess, and evaluate the effects of the program on its beneficiaries, MAP-Norway uses a series of indicators that allow project managers and donors to adapt and follow-up on the interventions. Because gender is a cross-cutting theme in the program, gender indicators are used at all levels: families, producer organizations, and governmental organizations and governance platforms. In this document, we use the experience of MAP-Norway to critically assess these indicators, considering their potential usability in the monitoring and evaluation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) initiatives. Furthermore, we propose a series of other indicators that capture various dimensions of gender relations. These indicators can be used to assess the effect of CSA practices, services, and technologies on equity in decision-making, women’s empowerment (including economic empowerment), intra-household food security, and equity in ownership over productive resources, among others, thus providing evidence that can help better design and target CSA interventions.

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, Security, Food Security Regions: Americas, Central America

Year: 2017

Citation:

Volo, Lorraine Bayard de. 2012. “A Revolution in the Binary? Gender and the Oxymoron of Revolutionary War in Cuba and Nicaragua.” Signs 37 (2): 413-39.

Author: Lorraine Bayard de Volo

Annotation:

The urgency posed by the U.S. “War on Terror” prompted a renewed surge in feminist analyses of war and security, with far-reaching implications for gendered approaches to political violence. The primary focus has been on the United States and its allies. Considerably less attention has been given to smaller nations of the global South, including revolutionary states that resist U.S. neoimperialism. Through the cases of Cuba and Nicaragua, this essay addresses this gap in the literature by training a gender lens on the ways in which the revolutions in smaller nations—first as guerrilla armies, then as revolutionary states—hailed a revolutionary public and discursively engaged with other states by means of certain gendered logics. Gendered analysis of such revolutionary logic is a relatively unexamined means to understand a fuller range of wars and security events. In turn, a focus on armed insurrection and security events of revolution also generates insight into gender relations and efforts at gender equality.

Topics: Gender, Gender Analysis, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups, Security Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries, Central America Countries: Cuba, Nicaragua

Year: 2012

Citation:

Zurbano-Berenguer, Belén, María del Mar García-Gordillo, y Alba Zurbano-Berenguer. 2019. "Las violencias contra las mujeres en los textos jurídicos de América Latina y el Caribe." Estudos Feministas 27 (3): 1-13.

Authors: Belén Zurbano-Berenguer, María del Mar García-Gordillo, Alba Zurbano-Berenguer

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:

Este trabajo estudia las diferencias y similitudes que existen en los diferentes textos legales sobre violencias contra las mujeres en el contexto de América Latina y del Caribe. El objetivo de la investigación es contribuir a los análisis jurídicos de las diferentes legislaciones para expandir el conocimiento jurídico y poder realizar apuestas legislativas de calidad. Los resultados de los análisis, que se basan en las terminologías y conceptualizaciones de las violencias por razón de género, muestran una gran heterogeneidad, reflejo de la falta de consenso social sobre este problema. 

PORTUGUESE ABSTRACT:

Este trabalho estuda as diferenças e semelhanças que existem nos diferentes textos legais sobre as violências contra as mulheres no contexto da América Latina e do Caribe. O objetivo da pesquisa é contribuir para a análise jurídica das diferentes legislações para ampliar o conhecimento jurídico e fazer apostas legislativas de qualidade. Os resultados das análises, baseados em terminologias e conceituações de violência de gênero, mostram grande heterogeneidade, reflexo da falta de consenso social sobre esta questão. 

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

This paper studies the differences and similarities that exist in the different legal texts on violence against women in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean. The objective of the research is to contribute to the legal analysis of the different legislations to expand the legal knowledge and to make quality legislative bets. The results of the analysis, which are based on the terminologies and conceptualizations of gender-based violence, show a great heterogeneity that reflects the lack of social consensus on this problem.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Rights, Women's Rights, Violence Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries, Central America, South America

Year: 2019