Anti-colonial Feminist Ramblings About Everything and Anything

Cano, Gabriela. “Unconcealable Realities of Desire: Amelio Robles's (Transgender) Masculinity in the Mexican Revolution”. In Jocelyn Olcott,; Mary K. Vaughan, Gabriela Cano (Eds.). Sex In Revolution. Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Cano analiza el caso del coronel Amelio Robles, nacido Amelia Robles y quien desde su adolescencia y al descubrir la "libertad del campo de batalla", vivió casi toda su vida como hombre, luchó en la Revolución Zapatista y se ganó el respeto y legitimidad de sus pares como modelo de hombría, valor y masculinidad zapatista. Gracias a que Amelio se ganó éste reconocimiento en el campo de batalla, su sexualidad era raramente cuestionada o rebatida en público, en un acuerdo tácito entre los que lo rodeaban de que era un tema del que no se hablaba. Amelio una vez mató a dos hombres de un grupo que lo atacó para verificar en forma violenta su genitalidad para resolver el misterio que de todas maneras...

Hurtig, Janise, Rosario Montoya, and Lessie Jo Frazier. "A Desalambrar: Unfencing Gender's Place in Research on Latin America.” Pp. 1-18. Nash, June. “Postscript: Gender in Place and Culture”. Pp. 289-296. In Gender's Place: Feminist Anthropologies of Latin America. R. Montoya, L.J. Frazier, and J. Hurtig, eds. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Both articles emphasize the notion of place in relation to gender, as a way to address the situatedness and specificity of historic and cultural contexts; and also point at gender as a useful to category to analyze broader social problems, making connections between gender, language and other power structures. Nation for instance, as a meaning constructed and negotiated in everyday's practices. Note the contradictory and paradoxical effects that economic reconfigurations have on gender relations and local power dynamics. The use of the metaphor of "unfencing" ( desalambrar ) responds to a desire to interrogate disci...

Franco, Jean. “Death camp confessions and resistance to violence in Latin America.” Socialism and Democracy, Volume 2, Issue 1 January 1988 , pages 5 – 17. Franco's argument is that there is a continuity in the use of violence in Latin America to bring on economic exploitative systems and label them as "modern", but there is a qualitative change in the effectiveness of the methods that the military regimes used in the 70's. As proof of the first, the building of commercial centers (malls) after the coup to proclaim a modern country in Chile and erase the past. As a proof of the latter, the new methods involved more systematic, calculated and regular practices of terror that combined bureaucracy and high-tech techniques with savagery. However, the excess of these practices cannot be explained by the economic factors alone, but we need to look at regimes of racism and misogyny and religious metaphors that enabled the specific practice of torture. For instance, torturers...

Nelson, Diane. “Introduction: Body Politics and Quincentennial Guatemala”. A Finger in the Wound. Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala. . Pp. 1-40. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. In her study of race relations between Mayans and "ladinos" in Guatemala, Nelson makes some very key observations that can be used to analyze the situation of Chileans dealing with political violence at the aftermath of Pinochet's dictatorship. For instance, the fact that racial differences are portraited by the state as dangerous for national unity. Also, that individual bodies are disciplined so as to produce the "body politic", because efforts to form a national "whole" require material proof on material bodies by racial, sexual and gender marking. In the attempt to "fix" conflictive racial relations, the state circulates the metaphor of the family and of conviviality at home: we all have to live in the same house. This metapho...

Matear, A. (2002) “”Desde la Protesta a la Propuesta”: The Institutionalization of the Women's Movement in Chile”. Development and Change 33(3). Pp. 439-466. Institute of Social Studies. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK and Malden, MA, USA. Oxford, 2002. Matear supports the idea that the strong base of the Chilean women's movement of the 80's was given by interclass solidarity and alliances between women in political parties with grassroots groups, and that this was key for the creation of state-level institution like SERNAM to deal with gender specific issues once democracy was achieved. But she also adds that these alliances broke down when grassroots and working-class women were excluded during the actual moment of institutionalization, and as professional women and women from political parties took positions of power. Thus, the women's and feminist movement of the 80's was altogether ineffective in articulating feminist demands. This is in part explained by the ...

Olea, Raquel (ed.) “Capítulo II: Vicisitudes del feminismo en la transición chilena”. Escrituras de la Diferencia Sexual. Pp. 43-64. Santiago: Colección Contraseña, LOM Ediciones/La Morada, 2000. En este capítulo las presentaciones de Norbert Lechner, Tomás Moulian, Raquel Olea y María Antonieta Saa en el seminario "Políticas e imaginarios de la diferencia sexual. Feminismo a fin de siglo" (organizado por la Morada al cumplir 15 años). Lechner le reconoce como aporte a las feministas chilenas incorporar más el mundo de los afectos al análisis de la política (!), pero les pide profundizarlo. Argumenta que la ciudadanía ha transitado desde un concepto universal y abstracto hacia una ciudadanía basada en las identidades particulares, por lo que un desafío para las feministas sería compatibilizar las diferencias que constituyen a las mujeres con un concepto más universal e inclusivo. (Pft!) Moulian reconoce que no ha pensado mucho el tema de las mujeres. Pero hace notar que la tr...

Munizaga, Giselle and Lilian Letelier. “Mujer y Régimen Militar”. Mundo de Mujer. Continuidad y Cambio. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones CEM, 1998. pp. 523-562. El artículo analiza los textos emanados desde las instituciones de la dictadura para examinar la "acción hegemonizante" de ésta hacia las mujeres, pero constatan que no se trata de un gran discurso coherente, sino que de una serie de retazos que se superponen y contienen fracturas y contradicciones. "El régimen militar no inventa nada; recupera y reorganiza los espacios de poder y de no poder existentes para utilizarlos en función de sus propias estrategias." (p.536) La dictadura sólo recupera arquetipos culturales largamente asentados sobre el rol maternal de las mujeres, su papel asistencial y como defensora de la tradición y el orden jerárquico "natural" de la familia y la nación. Capitalizando en las crisis subjetivas que experimentan las mujeres frente a las fuerzas modernizadoras que desestabiliz...