(Crossing Boundaries of Gender and Politics in the Global South) Stéphanie Rousseau, Anahi Morales Hudon (Auth.)-Indigenous Women’s Movements in Latin America_ Gender and Ethnicity in Peru, Mexico, An

CROSSING BOUNDARIES OF GENDER AND POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH
INDIGENOUS
WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS
IN LATIN AMERICA
Gender and Ethnicity in Peru,
Mexico, and Bolivia
Stéphanie Rousseau and

Anahi Morales Hudon
Crossing Boundaries of Gender and Politics
in the Global South
Series Editor
Christina Ewig
Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
As the field of gender and politics has grown, it has become more global,
more critical, and more interdisciplinary. The series Crossing Boundaries
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onstrating the significance of gender for full political analysis. The series
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• Cross traditional disciplinary boundaries to make innovative contri-

butions to the study of politics
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organizing, the politics of migration, or gender and global labor
regimes
• Integrate feminist or queer theory with studies of international rela-
tions or comparative politics.
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Stéphanie Rousseau • Anahi Morales Hudon
Indigenous Women’s
Movements in Latin
America
Gender and Ethnicity in Peru, Mexico, and Bolivia
Stéphanie Rousseau Anahi Morales Hudon
Departamento de Ciencias Sociales Faculty of Human Sciences
Pontificia Universidad Católica Saint-Paul University
del Perú Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Lima, Peru
Crossing Boundaries of Gender and Politics in the Global South

ISBN 978-1-349-95062-1 ISBN 978-1-349-95063-8 (eBook)
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Acknowledgments
Our acknowledgments need to be presented in different sections, as we

each worked on different cases and therefore met a lot of great people
separately. This book began being imagined in 2009 as a research project
led by Stéphanie and was originally going to cover only the cases of Peru
and Bolivia. Then we met while Anahi was starting her Ph.D. thesis at
McGill University on the Mexican indigenous women’s movement, and
we both happily decided to jointly work on a three-case comparison. Our
combined efforts made the work even more interesting, as it enriched the
comparative insights and help refined our theory-building. It also made
the long years during which the research and writing lasted more pleasant
than a single-author book project is, as we could exchange and discuss
together throughout this time rather than work all by ourselves.
Of course, the result is not just a reflection of the two of us work-
ing together, as many people have contributed actively in making it pos-
sible. In what follows, each of us will express their gratitude to those who
assisted in the different stages of this research and book production.
Stéphanie:
I would like to thank sincerely all the extraordinary indigenous women
leaders that accepted to take some of their time to share their experience
and thoughts with me, either though formal interviews or in conversa-
tions. They are numerous, so I won’t name them here. Many of them are
mentioned in different chapters. Besides the formidable amount of infor-
mation that they provided, many also shared difficult personal accounts of
their lives, many aspects of which have not been discussed in this book. I
also want to thank the numerous NGOs’ and international funders’ staff
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
who support indigenous organizations and who accepted to share their

thoughts on the indigenous women’s organizing trajectories.
Some people were key to lead me to these movement leaders, shar-
ing their contacts and providing good advice. In Peru, many thanks to
Adelaida Alayza, Marilyn Daza, David Florez, Angélica Ganiko, Diana
Miloslavich, Rosa Montalvo, Maria-Amalia Pesantes, Kathe Meentzen,
and Raquel Yrigoyen. And in Bolivia, to Martha Arévalo, Teresa Hosse,
and Olivia Román.
A number of academic allies helped in different ways by mostly com-
menting on the project’s design and outcomes: Xavier Albó, Pamela Calla,
Ricardo Cuenca, Ramón Pajuelo, Ivonne Farah, Manuel de la Fuente,
Narda Henríquez, Marie Léger, José-Antonio Lucero, María Ponce,
Nancy Postero, Maria-Esther Pozo, Sarah Radcliffe, Alejandra Ramirez,
Cecilia Salazar, Martin Scurrah, Nancy Thede, and Virginia Vargas.
Special thanks to my husband Guillermo Salas who shared with me, as
always, his joy, intellectual rigor, and good laughs, and accompanied me
during the different phases of the project.
Anahi:
I am greatly indebted to the women who generously agreed to share
their knowledge and experiences on their movement, organizations, and
individual trajectories of resistance in Mexico. I would like to express my
deep gratitude to the indigenous women leaders I interviewed for this
project as well as those with whom I had informal conversations in differ-
ent events during my research. I also wish to acknowledge the support of
the women from Gimptrap, Kinal Antzetik, and Comaletzin who agreed
to share with me their experiences of collaborative work with indigenous
women’s organizations as well as their contacts. I conducted these inter-
views during my Ph.D. If the book is mostly about the national dynamics,
my Ph.D. dissertation provides detailed accounts of the different regional
movements that were discussed during these interviews. I wish to extend
special thanks to Gisela Espinosa Damián, Aída Hernandez Castillo,
Xochitl Leyva Solano, Georgina Méndez, Dora Ávila, Paloma Bonfil, Lina
Rosa Berrio Palomo, and Marcos Ancelovici who offered their insights
and support in different steps of the project. Finally, all my gratitude goes
to Philippe Dufort who has been by my side unconditionally during this
research.
We both would like to acknowledge the work of the anonymous review-
ers who provided useful comments and constructive feedback. Financial
and/or logistical assistance from the Social Sciences and Humanities
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
Research Council, the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société

et la Culture, Laval University’s Faculty of Social Sciences, the Pontificia
Universidad Católica del Perú, the Centro de Estudios Superiores
Universitarios at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón (Bolivia), and the
Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social
(CIESAS) in Mexico made possible various of the crucial steps involved in
the making of this book: field work, research assistance, and participation
in academic conferences.
Palgrave staff Sara Doskow, Alexis Nelson, and Chris Robinson, and
Palgrave Series Editor Christina Ewig deserve our deepest gratitude for
being so enthusiastic about our book and so helpful in all the details
involved in its publication.
Contents
1 Indigenous Women’s Movements: An Intersectional

Approach to Studying Social Movements 1
Part I Bolivia 25
2 Indigenous Movements Merge into Party and

State Politics 27
3 Indigenous Women Transform the Politics of

Representing Women 55
Part II Mexico 83
4 Indigenous Self-Determination: From National

Dialogues to Local Autonomies 85
5 Indigenous Women’s Struggle for Autonomy 111
ix
x Contents
Part III Peru 139
6 The “Exceptional Case” No Longer So Exceptional 141
7 Indigenous Women Strengthen the Indigenous Movement 167
8 Conclusion 197
Index 211
CHAPTER 1
Indigenous Women’s Movements:

An Intersectional Approach to Studying
Social Movements
Studying indigenous women’s movements requires going beyond certain

common assumptions. Aren’t indigenous women involved in indigenous
movements that include men and women? Why would indigenous women
mobilize on their own if they generally advocate a strong defense of their
communities and peoples? Aren’t indigenous women’s own forms of
mobilization contrary to the goal of collective strength and unity within
indigenous organizing? Paradoxically, these questions echo basic themes
within feminist discussions of women’s empowerment and autonomy. Is
movement autonomy a better guarantee of women’s improved status, and
how shall we study the process of social movement organizing when ana-
lyzed through a gendered lens? This book proposes a comparative study of
indigenous women’s organizing in Latin America to understand some key
dimensions of indigenous movement dynamics and the complex politics of
representing women and indigenous peoples.
Indigenous movements are sustained collective action on behalf of
indigenous peoples. The emergence and diffusion of organized dis-
courses connecting particular sectors of the population with the category
of indigeneity is central to the formation of these movements (Greene,
2009). Contemporary forms of indigenous identification derive histori-
cally from the colonial period onward, since the European colonizers
actually created the category of “Indian” to describe the populations
they conquered in the Americas, as is very well known. On the basis of
this long history of oppression and differentiation, perpetuated in the
© The Author(s) 2017 1

S. Rousseau, A. Morales Hudon, Indigenous Women’s Movements in
Latin America, DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-95063-8_1
2 S. ROUSSEAU AND A. MORALES HUDON
context of independent nation-states through different laws and social

practices, the construction of contemporary indigenous movements relies
on several inter-related and historically specific processes. These include
the appropriation of and opposition to different categories created to
represent indigenousness and indigeneity, the contestation of the ideolo-
gies of mestizaje, and more recently the articulation of different ethnic
identities—Aymara, Zapotec, Mapuche, and so on—into a new collec-
tive identity as members of “Indigenous Peoples”. These processes are
to be understood not merely as discursive formations but rather as com-
plex combinations of material and symbolic struggles for recognition and
redistribution (Fraser & Honneth, 2003).
This book is a part of the efforts to understand the contemporary Latin
American indigenous movements involved in the transformation of citi-
zenship regimes. The pioneer work in this regard at least in the Anglo-
Saxon political sociology literature is probably Yashar (2005), but many
other authors have focused on citizenship, state–society relations, and state
formation, emphasizing different research questions in relation to indig-
enous movements (Canessa, 2005; Clark & Becker, 2007; De la Cadena,
2007). In this literature, the rise of indigenous movements is connected
to historical changes in citizenship regimes in the last decades of the twen-
tieth century. In this book, we argue that we need to study indigenous
movements as actors that are gendered. These movements challenge social
hierarchies on the basis of class and ethnicity, but have historically been
spaces of gender exclusion. As we will show, through various processes
indigenous women have managed to challenge these exclusions and trans-
form the collective identities of these movements. In order to situate our
study, it is useful to start by summarizing the main arguments brought
forward in the literature to explain the rise and contribution of indigenous
movements to Latin American politics.
1 Indigenous Movements in Latin America

Indigenous movements have become important political actors in the
wake of major structural and institutional transformations in the 1980s
and 1990s such as democratization and neoliberalism. These multi-
dimensional phenomena have opened up political associational space,
reduced corporatist institutions’ strength that paradoxically was associ-
ated with indigenous peoples’ relative autonomy, and led to increased
attacks on indigenous peoples’ livelihood and territories. These changes
INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS: AN INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH... 3
have also facilitated the formation of transcommunity networks that were

instrumental for indigenous peoples to use these new political opportuni-
ties and build movements of national resonance (Yashar, 2005). Yashar
(2005: 68) argues that class-based peasant movements turned into what
later became indigenous movements because the basic conditions for
indigenous communities to exist—control over land, territory, and their
resources—became increasingly threatened by these contemporary struc-
tural and institutional transformations.
Beyond the opening up of new space in the political sphere, democ-
ratization in a broader sense is also synonymous with access to education
for indigenous peoples. It became a generalized state policy only from
the 1950s onward. Even though limited and in a “second-class” school
system in many cases, this access has generated an indigenous intellectual
elite that produced analyses of racism against indigenous peoples and their
exclusion (Da Silva, 2012; García, 2005; Gutiérrez, 1999b). This indig-
enous intellectual production led to an important critique of the indig-
enista national projects that went hand in hand with assimilationist and
discriminatory policies toward indigenous peoples.1 Moreover, this new
intellectual elite pushed for the recognition of indigenous languages, cul-
ture, and territories.
New forms of organizing and mobilizing resources were also key to
indigenous movements’ growth. In particular, transnational networks of
support combined indigenous peoples’ rights with sustainable develop-
ment or conservationist platforms. These networks contributed to forming
a Pan-American indigenous movement with some consistency in demands,
and a new agenda of legalism inspired by human rights law. This is cen-
trally represented by the International Labour Organization Convention
169, adopted in 1989, which became a major tool to push for indigenous
peoples’ national rights and constitutional change. As a result, many Latin
American countries adopted a new Constitution in the 1990s whereby
various elements of what Van Cott calls the “multicultural model” were
introduced (Van Cott, 2000:265). This meant, for example, the official
recognition of indigenous customary law and the jurisdiction of indig-
enous authorities over internal community matters. In Nancy Postero’s
work on Guarani organizing in Santa Cruz, she argues that “the multicul-
tural reforms of the 1990s [in Bolivia] contributed to the p roduction of
indigenous subjects. (…) indigenous organizations and leaders (…) were
influenced by the discourse of multiculturalism and the political and fund-
ing opportunities it made possible” (Postero, 2007:218).
Indigenous movements have been shown to impact the reshaping of

citizenship regimes and the redistribution of power. Several authors have
emphasized different inter-related processes in that regard. Some have
raised its impact on the electoral sphere through analyzing why in certain
cases new political parties based on strong ethnic appeals have emerged,
while in others party politics is rejected by indigenous movements as a
corrupt, undemocratic, or culturally alien form of political participation
(Harvey, 1998; Van Cott, 2005). Others, still referring to the political
sphere, have argued that the strongest indigenous movements engendered
new forms of populist nationalism (Bolivia being the most obvious exam-
ple) that are not devoid of inter-ethnic clashes (Baud, 2007; Gotkowitz,
2011; Rousseau, 2010). Another facet of indigenous movements’ influ-
ence can be identified in the wave of constitutional reforms starting in the
1990s, as mentioned above. The new administrative and political arrange-
ments that include some recognition of indigenous customary law and
institutions (Sieder, 2002) play into conflicts over territory and natural
resources while questioning the sovereignty of national state authorities as
well as the frontiers of indigenous identity (Albro, 2010).
Creole-dominated, republican constitutions based on the presumption
of national cultural homogeneity have been largely superseded as a result
of critiques brought forward by indigenous movements (Van Cott, 2000).
Multiculturalism, plurinationalism, and legal pluralism have become central
keywords in political discourse and policy-making debates. Indigenous move-
ments seek to redefine the nation-state more or less explicitly as a plurinational
state, claiming the right to be both national and indigenous, for example,
Bolivian and Aymara (Becker, 2008, 2011; Lucero, 2008). This issue was
also raised in Mexico during the 1990s within the peace negotiations after the
uprising of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN).
Another important consequence of indigenous movements is the move,
in politics as well as in academic analysis, from an emphasis on class cleav-
ages to one on ethnic cleavages, among others. Largely under the impulse of
indigenous movements, class cleavages went through a process of ethniciza-
tion in some countries. Ethnicity became explicitly politicized, without eth-
nicity and class ever becoming conceived as a single structure. It should be
noted that when Yashar claims that “ethnic cleavages were weak for much of
the twentieth century” (2005: 21), we can interpret her as saying that class
was the predominant language for articulating conflicts until the 1980s.2
Social movements are not monolithic voices, and indigenous move-
ments are not devoid of internal tensions and divisions. Scholars of
indigenous movements are interested in the factors explaining the greater

capacity to form movement unity in some cases, whereas in others frag-
mentation is more predominant. This is associated with the process of why
certain voices consolidate and become representative of indigeneity, while
others get marginalized. For example, in his study of “the construction,
articulation and selection of indigenous political voice(s)”, Lucero (2008:
5) pays attention to the diversity of actors and voices that seek to build
indigenous “authenticity”. He identifies three variables that are key to
understanding the dynamic formation of a diversity of indigenous actors:
multiscalar identity construction, political opportunity structures, and
structured contingencies (state–society interactions have consequences,
and shape and transform institutions and power balances that in turn
shape new opportunities). He also emphasizes the transnational, global–
local articulations of voices through the funding and support provided by
international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or development
agencies (or the World Bank) to indigenous organizations.
Lucero compares the Ecuadorian and Bolivian cases, where he finds
that the greater national unity in the Ecuadorian indigenous movement
has been achieved in part because of the ability of the regional movements
to develop consensus around the notion of indigenous nationalities. This
common language gave way to institutionalized forms of building indige-
nous representation in state–society relations. In contrast, in Bolivia, there
are a variety of forms of representing indigenous identities: ayllus in some
of the highland regions, ethnic territories in the lowlands, peasant and
cocalero unions as national indigenous subjects. In Bolivia, the process of
unification in the 2000s through the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS)
victory is related to the strategy of various actors to invest in the party/
electoral sphere (Madrid, 2012). However, this tendency to invest in the
formal political sphere at the national level is less visible in other countries,
as is the case of Mexico, where indigenous peoples’ participation in poli-
tics is predominantly limited to the local level.
2 Indigenous Women and Gender Dynamics

in Indigenous Movements
Throughout this fascinating and abundant literature, gender dynamics

within indigenous movements has generally been a marginal issue of dis-
cussion. For example, Yashar (2005) mentions that a first generation of
indigenous movements developed modular repertoires, which assisted in
the creation of a second generation of movements that did not necessarily

have as a focus the defense of local autonomy. Yet she does not reflect
upon whether some of these second-generation movements were led also
by women, or if they carried a critique of gender relations in indigenous
communities. In Lucero (2008), the social construction of the indigenous
political subject is not discussed through a gendered frame. So how and if
indigenous women become political subjects along the same processes as
indigenous men, and within the same organizations, is not studied.
Nonetheless, in a more specific literature that covers several national
and local cases, some authors have focused on indigenous women’s mobi-
lization in Latin America. Together, these works show that indigenous
women are active participants and leaders of indigenous movements. Most
of these are single case studies of local or national organizing by indigenous
women, based on historical and anthropological perspectives that describe
the transformation of indigenous women’s lives and the impetus behind
their joining indigenous movement organizations (Hernández Castillo,
2008; Pequeño, 2009; Rivera, 2008; Speed, Hernández Castillo &
Stephen, 2006). Some authors also study the difficulties and exclusion
faced by indigenous women in indigenous organizations (Lavinas Picq,
2009; Oliart, 2008; Radcliffe, 2002). Still, others examine the tensed rela-
tion between indigenous women activists and feminist movements or other
sectors of the women’s movement, which does not preclude the possibility
of their collaboration in some circumstances (Hernández Castillo, 2001;
Richards, 2004; Rousseau, 2011b).
There is also, in the broader literature on indigenous politics, an interest
on how gender is produced and reproduced by indigenous organizations.
Some authors show that indigenous organizations often produce their
indigenous authenticity by relying on strong notions of gender differen-
tiation and specific critiques of Western patriarchal colonialism (Andolina,
Laurie, & Radcliffe, 2009). For example, Warren and Kay mention in the
introduction to their edited volume that “it would be a mistake to ignore
the ways in which the international community’s use of ‘culture’, ‘peoples’,
‘rights’, and ‘democracy’ has compelled indigenous groups to repackage
their concerns and identities for access to wider audiences and resources.
Gender issues are an arena where the tensions between international devel-
opment discourse and local expectations collide” (Warren & Jackson, 2002:
29). As shown in Speed’s work, specific forms of “collisions” can also be
framed as encounters between individual and collective rights, which are
especially important in the case of indigenous women (Speed, 2008).
Indigenous politics is indeed not devoid of traps and challenges for

indigenous women. In the context of contemporary Bolivian indige-
nous politics, Burman (2011) presents striking evidence of the tensions
unleashed in Bolivian society between different notions of gender rela-
tions as part of conflicting political programs. While some indigenous
movements’ discourses propose models of gender complementarity and
focus on colonialism as the source of all ills, some sectors of the women’s
movement—usually non-indigenous women—argue that these discourses
are antithetical to the notion of women’s rights to equality. One domain
where these tensions manifest themselves concretely in the lives of indig-
enous women is in the reforms and efforts to institutionalize indigenous
governance norms. This has been studied by a number of authors such
as Sieder, Sierra, and Picq, who show the process of indigenous women’s
involvement in the politics of implementing local indigenous customary
justice systems, particularly in Mexico and Guatemala but also in Ecuador.
What they reveal is how complex it is for women to combine a critique
of the patriarchal components of indigenous practices of customary jus-
tice, while not threatening indigenous communities’ autonomy to govern
themselves (Picq, 2012; Sieder & McNeish, 2013; Sierra, 2009).
Our study builds on these findings about indigenous women’s specific
challenges at the intersection of gender and ethnicity. It seeks to address
the question of how indigenous women mobilize to become recognized
autonomous political actors while maintaining their affiliation to indige-
nous movements. High constraints on women’s political participation and
leadership make the understanding of their political associational space
dependent upon analyzing gender dynamics as embedded in state–society
relations, and how that plays out in indigenous movements’ organiza-
tions. The predominant conceptualization of political associational space,
which only considers political opportunities in relation to state repres-
sion or political rights, or else to the virtual absence of the state, does
not consider the contextual and institutional conditions for indigenous
women’s mobilization. Gender relations are consequential for the relative
openness of political space for women. Looking only at the formal situa-
tion of freedom of association and political rights does not tell the whole
story about opportunities for women to politically organize. Indigenous
women’s hardship in electoral politics, particularly within indigenous par-
ties, has been analyzed in a few works (Bonfil Sánchez, Barrera Bassols, &
Aguirre Pérez, 2008; Van Cott, 2009), but not the specific patterns and
dynamics within indigenous movements that explain, from a c omparative
erspective, indigenous women’s strategies and obstacles to create

p
associational spaces of their own within these movements. In this book
we propose to analyze comparatively different trajectories of indigenous
women’s movements based on a political sociology perspective which con-
siders the variables of indigenous movement strength in national politics
and indigenous women’s organizing forms.
3 How We Study Indigenous Women’s

Mobilization
In what follows, we present our theoretical framework that combines
insights from social movement studies and feminist studies, more pre-
cisely intersectionality. This particular combination fits our objective to
understand indigenous women’s mobilization using the best tools of the
political sociology of social movements, while at the same time proposing
a relatively novel way of applying the intersectionality paradigm to com-
parative political analysis.
According to what was termed the political process model, collective
action is structured around a set of shared meanings and mutual recogni-
tion, at least minimal organizations, and sustained contentious interac-
tion with public authorities where claims for political inclusion are laid
out (McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001). The interaction between key elite
political actors or institutions and social movements, in some contexts,
provides favorable political opportunities for movement actors to pur-
sue their claims. In the past two decades at least, research on the role of
collective identity and culture in social movements pointed to important
limitations in this model, which had been dominant in research on social
movements in the 1980s and 1990s (McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1994). The
critiques to this model emphasize the construction of collective identities
and meanings as a complex social work that is fundamental to account
for social movement formation, success, and failure (Alvarez & Escobar,
1992; Armstrong & Bernstein, 2008; Goodwin & Jasper, 2004; Morris &
Mueller, 1992; Snow, 2004).
To understand a specific movement one must pay particular attention to
the articulation of both the structural and cultural dimensions in movement
dynamics leading to new discourses and organizations. This implies going
beyond the structural dimensions of the political process model and to think
of social movement’s internal dynamics as well. Moreover, this involves
conceiving political actors and opportunities in a broader perspective,
not necessarily defined by their direct relationship to the formal sphere of

politics but instead inserted in a web of social relations (Alvarez, Dagnino,
& Escobar, 1998; Armstrong & Bernstein, 2008; Levi & Murphy, 2006;
Pichardo, 1997; Snow, 2004; Staggenborg & Taylor, 2005).
Accordingly, we propose to integrate both internal and external fac-
tors into the study of indigenous social movements. Internal factors are
those related to the interaction between groups and individuals that make
up projects, shape discourses, and provide material resources to carry on
the activities and structure of collective action. External factors are those
related to the institutional, normative, and behavioral components of the
environment in which social movements evolve and adapt. These factors
are necessarily inter-related and should be studied together to allow for
a more complex portrait of the formative and transformative dynamics
explaining movements’ origins and evolution. In this book we are specifi-
cally interested in how indigenous women’s mobilization emerges from
previously existing movements and how these different factors influence
their trajectories.
3.1 An Intersectional Analysis of Social Movements

Following Rousseau (2009a), we argue that adopting an intersectional
analysis allows for a more illuminating understanding of social movements’
internal dynamics. It offers an interesting interpretative frame to explain
the emergence of new actors and collective identities such as indigenous
women’s social movement actors.
The paradigm of intersectionality emerged out of several strands of
feminist work, particularly from the work of Black feminists, Chicana fem-
inists, and postcolonial feminists.3 Briefly put, intersectionality “refutes
the compartmentalization and hierarchization of the great axes of social
differentiation through categories. […] The intersectional approach goes
beyond simple recognition of the multiplicity of the systems of oppression
functioning out of these categories and postulates their interplay in the
production and reproduction of social inequalities” (Bilge, 2010: 58).
Intersectionality is grounded in the critique of essentialist forms of
understanding social categories that marginalize the experience of many
groups within and across such categories. Instead, it considers that the
particular intersections of different social categories, in specific histori-
cal contexts, produce social positions and identities that are idiosyn-
cratic (Yuval-Davis, 2006). An interesting question coming out of this
erspective is the connection between multiple social positionings and the

p
formation of group identities as in social movements. Social categories are
based on a set of constructed attributes that define who is entitled to what
resources and how authority over these resources is distributed, creating
social hierarchies. Group identities like the ones created by social move-
ment actors are produced historically by various processes in which social
categories are interpreted and used to generate identification between
individuals, networks, and a variety of symbols (Brubaker, 2004).
An intersectional analysis of social movements distinguishes between
social positionings and group identities. Group identities can include, explic-
itly or not, different categories of social positionings (Rousseau, 2009a).
Thus, for example, the group identity of an Aymara organization includes
various class-based and gender-based social positionings, but the way the
organization expresses its public identity may reflect more or less this diver-
sity. What power dynamics are at play in that identification is an issue which
we deem central to the study of social movements (Brubaker, 2004).
Social movements tend to essentialize collective identities and the social
groups to which they relate for the sake of strategic legitimacy-building,
sometimes with contradictory effects (Stephen, 2001). The feminist litera-
ture in particular has exposed the marginalization of some groups within
feminist or women’s movements or the civil rights movement for example
(Roth, 2004). The work of Marx-Ferree and Roth (1998) can be seen as
one of the precursors in putting forward the theoretical justifications for
studying social movement interactions so as to illuminate why certain cat-
egories of issues/identities are excluded from the politics of some move-
ments that we would expect, as external observers, to see included. Some
works on social movements have adopted an intersectional framework
that considers how intersecting categories such as gender, class, race, and
ethnicity are represented in a social movement field.4 Roth (2004) studied
the dynamics leading to the formation of three distinct feminist move-
ments in the USA, based on race differentiation between Black, Chicana,
and White women. This book also builds on the work of Rousseau (2009a,
2009b, 2011a, 2011b), particularly on the model developed to explain the
construction and transformation of boundaries of identification in a spe-
cific context, the political interactions around the negotiations of the 2009
Constitution in Bolivia. Some studies have also illustrated very well the
conflicts and politics of representing differences among women in state–
society interactions, some of these paying attention to indigenous women.
Following these works we propose to pay attention to how social posi-
tionings created by the intersection of a set of categories are articulated
in the representation of group identities carried by indigenous movement

organizations. We focus on one specific intersection, that of gender and
race/ethnicity,5 as manifested by indigenous women as a social group.
Social movements emerge out of specific political opportunities but also
more fundamentally out of cultural processes of meaning construction
derived from social relations and material conditions (Rubin, 2004). Our
perspective is social constructivist as it considers the role of agency central
in shaping group identities and discourses. Social movement organizations
are led by individuals and based on a myriad of social interactions that can
lead these organizations to emphasize certain categories produced by the
power structure to different degrees and under different terms, if at all. In
this we follow Lois McNay’s notion of structures such as gender as “lived
relations” (McNay, 2000), and we study indigenous women’s emergence
as social movement actors based on their social experience of defining
themselves as indigenous women.
3.2 Explaining the Emergence of Indigenous Women’s

Movements
Using intersectionality as a framework to guide our analysis of move-
ments’ internal dynamics, we also draw from the political process literature
developed by Tilly et al. to understand the central processes shaping the
emergence of indigenous women’s movements and the particular shape of
their organizing and discourses. We focus on the mechanisms of opening/
closing of indigenous women’s space for autonomous discourse within
indigenous movements and boundary-making within gender-mixed
organizations. The role of ethnicity and gender in building movement
identity is also an important dimension of internal processes. Alongside
these largely internal factors, the external factors we bring in our analy-
sis are political opportunities derived from the interactions of indigenous
actors and the state, as well as the role of external non-state actors, net-
works, and resources that support indigenous women’s mobilization
(Rousseau & Morales Hudon, 2015).
3.2.1 pening/Closing of Social Movements to Indigenous Women’s

O
Discourse
Political opportunities are usually conceived as external factors to social
movements. In this perspective, the central factor that facilitates or constrains
collective action is a change in political regime (Tilly & Tarrow, 2008). This
conception assumes a direct relation between a social movement and the
State. The emergence of indigenous movements throughout the Americas

can be explained by the specific structural changes that took place dur-
ing the 1980s–1990s, as mentioned above (Sieder, 2002; Velasco Cruz,
2003; Yashar, 2005). But the emergence of indigenous women’s move-
ments cannot readily be explained looking at changes in the structure of
political opportunities or external dynamics. The internal dynamics of the
indigenous movements need to be brought in the analysis, as we know that
these preceded the rise of indigenous women leaders in the public sphere.
Why some indigenous women started to deploy an autonomous discourse
(or “discourse of their own”) and create new organizing spaces within the
indigenous movement can only be understood through paying attention to
the negotiations inside indigenous organizations, in relation with resources
and support provided from the outside.
While changes in the State and, notably, changes in the laws and insti-
tutions that affect indigenous peoples and women are central factors to
consider, we propose to add a close attention to the process of negotiation
of women’s demands and discourses about gender within the indigenous
movement. This refers to the reaction by movement leaders to internal
challenges to core demands and discourse. To a certain extent this process
is similar to the one characterizing broader political opportunity structures
as defined in the political process model. However, the process of open-
ing/closing proposed here refers rather to the internal dynamics of social
movements. The latter can hardly be isolated from external dynamics, but
we propose to focus on how internal challenges, that may or may not be
prompted by external changes, are responded to within the movement.
What we mean by opening/closing processes is the type of social
movement’s reactions (here the indigenous movement) to new claims and
demands that emerge from within its ranks. When the balance of power
allows them to negotiate for recognition of their claims, the insider chal-
lenger can prompt the movement to redefine its discourse to incorporate
them (opening). The opposite scenario occurs when the challengers are
not strong enough to persuade or force the movement leaders to acknowl-
edge their demands (closing). Of course, a lot can happen in between
these two responses, but in the absence of what they deem a satisfactory
transformation of the movement, there can be an increase or decrease of
the perceived need for boundary transgression by the challengers (here,
indigenous women).
These processes explain why some women continue to mobilize within
the indigenous movement’s organizations and occupy an important role
in integrating women’s interests in the movement’s agenda and discourse,

while others create new spaces for mobilization in order to pursue their
own. The resistance within indigenous movements to include indige-
nous women’s specific demands constituted an important factor in some
indigenous women’s decision to create autonomous organizing spaces
(Gutierrez & Palomo, 2000; Rivera, 2008; Sánchez Néstor, 2005).
3.2.2 Boundary-Making Within Gender-Mixed Organizations

To understand the emergence of indigenous women’s organizations we
also look at the mechanism of boundary-making, which refers to the
creation of an oppositional relationship between political actors (Tilly &
Tarrow, 2008). Generally, in social movement theory, boundary-making
is analyzed in terms of a social movement challenging dominant groups,
which are conceived as external to the movement. However, boundary-
making also takes place within social movements where “political iden-
tity formation [is] the constant and contingent negotiation of difference
within organizations” (Stephen, 2001: 55). For example, when women
decide to create autonomous spaces they create new boundaries that may
be more or less oppositional in relation to the broader gender-mixed orga-
nizations (Taylor & Whittier, 1992).
The creation of new spaces of organization by indigenous women can
be a reaction to the non-recognition of their gender demands within the
core demands of the indigenous movement. This, in turn, points to the
problem of internal differences and the way they are framed. To under-
stand why indigenous women use this strategy of boundary-making, and
subsequently position themselves as new political actors, one must under-
stand how and why they construct a collective identity on the basis of
ethnic and gender identities. The creation of gender boundaries in social
movement organizations may also reflect not an oppositional dynamic
but rather a gender-segregated view of organizing, which may even be
imposed to some extent by male leaders. However, different forms of
action can derive from such a situation and women can also become more
autonomous actors through these forms of consensual boundaries geared
to reproduce either gender hierarchies or different notions of gender
difference.
3.2.3 Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Movement Identity

Alongside these mechanisms that refer directly to movements’ internal
dynamics, we also study the specific discourses that indigenous women
develop about themselves as collective actors. In the way they position

themselves as critiques of gender-blind or ethnocentric discourses,
indigenous women effectively present a complex point of view in rela-
tion to indigenous male-dominated organizations and feminist/women’s
movements.
This articulation of gender and ethnicity is embedded in the way their
discourses are conceptualized. Indigenous women’s organizations refer
to different concepts such as women’ rights, equality, complementarity,
dignity, gender, and several notions anchored in specific cultural under-
standings of social reality. In many cases indigenous women refer to the
concept of women’s rights instead of gender, as is the case with Mapuche
women in Chile (Richards, 2005: 202). While some indigenous women
use the concept of gender, they usually define it so as to try to respond to
negative views on the latter, generally prevalent among certain sectors of
the indigenous movement.
In creating new spaces to organize and produce new discourses, indig-
enous women navigate through the internal dynamics of the indigenous
and the feminist/women’s movements (Hernández Castillo, 2001). As
such, the production of new collective identities combining ethnicity, class,
and gender is associated with the emergence of new movement boundar-
ies. This experience of negotiating indigenous women’s specific demands
through different collective identities and movements also receives support
from external actors that constitute important resources for indigenous
women. Key actors have indeed accompanied the organizing processes
of indigenous women and these experiences provide important support
(workshops and networks among others), allowing indigenous women
to advocate for the incorporation of women’s concerns and perspectives
within indigenous movements.
3.2.4 Role of External Actors

The role of external actors is indeed crucial to social movement organiza-
tion as they provide resources and opportunities for indigenous women,
and their organizing processes. In the case of the indigenous women’s
movement, external actors such as the progressive churches, women’s
groups, and different national or international NGOs played an impor-
tant role in supporting women’s mobilization and organization around
different issues (Hernández Castillo, 2002; Oliart, 2008; Rousseau,
2011b). The progressive Catholic Church, through the creation of
Base Ecclesial Communities, opened organizational spaces for women
to participate in productive projects and discussion spaces. Women’s

groups and international NGOs also promoted this type of projects, from
consciousness-raising of rural and indigenous women to supporting and
counseling to indigenous women’s groups and developing indigenous
women’s leaderships. It is from different NGOs, agencies, and institutions
that these processes are supported, with potential clashes between their
objectives and methods.
The relations between indigenous women’s organizations and these
external actors are complex and have been characterized by important
collaborations, but also by tensions, emerging, for example, through
the phenomenon of NGOization in Latin America that creates a strong
competition between groups, or from the conflicting interests of these
groups that often impose their agendas. This has led in some cases to
exclusionary practices that contribute to reinforce social boundaries
between women. The power imbalance existing between middle-class
mestizo women and indigenous women is more often reinforced than
questioned. These tensions have been sufficiently important so as to
explain in part why some indigenous women’s organizations do not
identify to the feminist/women’s movement or to their organizations
(Hernández Castillo, 2001).
The processes exposed here are certainly not the only ones at play in
the emergence of indigenous women movements, or what we will call
the emergence of indigenous women’s own spaces within the indigenous
movement. However, we argue these contribute significantly to under-
standing the dynamics behind the formation of new organizations, new
organizing spaces, and new discourses within the indigenous movement
in different contexts.
4 Our Case Comparison

On the basis of this framework we have developed a comparative study
involving three Latin American cases that contrast on a number of
dimensions. Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia represent a variety of temporal,
national, and regional dynamics in the pattern of indigenous mobiliza-
tion. Mexico is marked by the federal nature of its political system, some
historically strong indigenous regional movements, and a relatively low
level of national unity and political gains for the indigenous movement as
a whole. The latter is probably the most well-known worldwide because
of the important breakthrough introduced by the Zapatista uprising from
the mid-1990s onward. However, the Zapatistas have retreated to the

local level, and indigenous movements organize principally at the local
and regional levels.
Peru’s and Bolivia’s indigenous movements are divided geographically
and ethnically, but strong cross-regional organizations have consolidated
in the highlands of Bolivia and Amazon or lowland regions of both coun-
tries. Peru has a unitary state system and is the most centralized polity of
our three cases. It has long been considered an exceptional case or devia-
tion from the Latin American pattern of indigenous mobilization because
its indigenous movement has been notably very weak in the highland
region, and relatively weak overall, with few gains at the national level.
However, recent developments around the issue of the right of indigenous
peoples to prior consultation on “development” projects have unleashed a
new dynamics of indigenous mobilization.
Bolivia also has a unitary political system, but with strong regional cen-
ters. Its indigenous movement is the strongest of our cases and arguably
the strongest in Latin America. Its gains at the national level are impres-
sive. It is the case of greater “success” of indigenous movement influence
on the State, with the election of Evo Morales as first indigenous presi-
dent of the country and the adoption of a radically new Constitution in
2009 providing for many rights and reforms demanded by the indigenous
movements.
Our three cases can be placed on a continuum of lower to higher level
of success in influencing or accessing the State and bringing about politi-
cal and institutional reforms to address indigenous movements’ demands:
Peru (low), Mexico (intermediary), Bolivia (high). Within these contrast-
ing scenarios we find a diversity of processes when it comes to studying
indigenous women’s mobilization and the construction of spaces for their
own voices. While the lack of previous theorization on the topic impeded
us to build on existing foundations, we started with the hypothesis that
the stronger an indigenous movement would be in the context of national
politics, the more favorable it would be for indigenous women’s capac-
ity to advance their own spaces of collective action and become recog-
nized as political actors. Indigenous women’s organizational forms and
their capacity to influence the State directly to generate public policies
and/or institutional representation were two issues which were open to
investigate empirically. Indeed, the particular nature of indigenous wom-
en’s struggle, embedded in the collective agency of their communities
and peoples, shapes the meaning of autonomy. The organizational forms
that they p ursue cannot simply or only be the creation of autonomous

(independent) organizations. What we hypothesized was that indigenous
women wanted to remain within the indigenous movement and had to
advance very carefully in their quest for recognition and equality in order
to maintain their political legitimacy. As stated earlier, the puzzle we
wanted to explore is how indigenous women could form a distinct collec-
tive actor in the public sphere while maintaining their primary allegiance
to the indigenous movement. Therefore, our study focuses on the differ-
ent types of organizations or organizational spaces created by women and
the processes that explain their formation.
Our data gathering has privileged semi-open interviews held princi-
pally with indigenous women leaders of the organizations under study.
Other categories of interviewees included NGO staff, feminist activists,
international agencies’ staff, and academic experts. On average, 30 inter-
views were made in each case under study. Field research was done in Peru
in 2009, 2010, and 2012; in Bolivia in 2011 and 2013; and in Mexico
in 2010 and 2011. Besides secondary sources such as the vast literature
existing on indigenous social movements in these countries—with much
less produced on Peru—we also consulted documents published by indig-
enous organizations and/or NGOs working with them. The lack of exist-
ing archives in the majority of these organizations was a strong challenge
to our willingness to reconstruct the dynamics leading to the creation of
organizational spaces for indigenous women. Yet through the interviews
and with the help of secondary sources we managed to produce a general
pattern of mobilization inserted in the history of each of the different
indigenous movements’ organizations we studied.
One issue which we have had to decide upon from the start was which
collective actors we would be studying. Who counts as “indigenous”? In
many instances and circumstances, state and non-indigenous elites try to
deny authenticity to indigenous actors, and this is part of the “game”
in which indigenous movement actors have to construct their discourse
and strategies (García & Lucero, 2011). In order to build our analysis on
solid grounds, we chose to focus on self-defined indigenous organizations,
those that present themselves in the public sphere as being indigenous.
By focusing on self-identified indigenous organizations, we recognize the
complexity of indigenous identity formation and limit the scope of our
research to those collective actors whose main political struggle is to rep-
resent indigenous peoples and their agendas. We recognize that states’
attempts to deny indigenous authenticity prompt these collective actors to
produce their authenticity constantly and that, therefore, indigeneity does

not have an essence. We borrow from De la Cadena and Starn (2007: 4)
who see indigeneity as emerging “only within larger social fields of differ-
ence and sameness [and acquiring] its ‘positive’ meaning not from some
essential properties of its own, but through its relation to what it is not, to
what it exceeds or lacks”.
One of the notions that our study is working with is that of movement
autonomy—in this case the autonomy of indigenous women as a social
and political actor. We decided to leave this notion open to interpreta-
tion by indigenous women themselves, but also consider that the extent
to which collective actors claiming to represent indigenous women bring
forward discourses and claims that differ from those of the rest of indig-
enous movement organizations, is an indicator of these actors’ autonomy.
In other words, particular claims made by indigenous women on their
behalf (as a social group) are indicative of their autonomy. As mentioned
just above, the characteristics of indigenous women’s organizing spaces
are also key, but need to be understood through the processual approach
to social movement transformation that we propose. For example, the
extent to which mixed-gender indigenous organizations explicitly address
issues related to gender inequality is considered an indicator of indigenous
women’s influence inside these organizations.
The comparison consists in the reconstruction of the interaction dynam-
ics within different sectors of the indigenous movement in the three cases,
to understand the circumstances under which different types of indige-
nous women’s organizations or spaces have been created. The explana-
tions given by the actors themselves form the core elements considered
in accounting for different patterns in terms of the emergence, negation,
or recognition of indigenous women’s autonomous voice and claims. The
role of external factors such as the relationship with the State and national
political institutions, as well as with non-state actors such as NGOs, politi-
cal parties, and unions, is an important dimension of these interactions.
Globally speaking, our understanding of the opportunities and obstacles
faced by indigenous women is based on a careful attention to how indige-
nous women themselves understand their social positioning and the politi-
cal circumstances they are faced with as social movement actors.
The following chapters present the different cases through a similar
logic: first chapter analyzing the formation of contemporary indigenous
movements and how they relate to the national political context in the
past decades; second chapter is on the specific trajectory of indigenous

women organizing, which can only be fully understood once the general
national context of indigenous politics is established. Stéphanie Rousseau
wrote the chapters on Peru and Bolivia, and Anahi Morales Hudon wrote
the chapters on Mexico. We both co-wrote this first introductory chapter
as well as the conclusion where we draw the comparative insights and
bring back our theoretical framework more explicitly to show what our
study can teach on Latin American indigenous movements and intersec-
tional social movement analysis in general.
Notes
1. Indigenismo was an intellectual and political movement that started
in early twentieth century in some Latin American countries. While
it varied from one country to another, and had several dimensions
(artistic, anthropological, state policy, etc.), its central motivation
was to promote a positive image of indigenous cultures as part of the
nation. However, it reproduced stereotypical and romantic ideas
about indigenous people, and left social hierarchies largely unchal-
lenged. See, among others, Ramos (1998).
2. For an analysis of the relation between indigenous and peasant
movements and its impact on the shift from an emphasis on class to
an emphasis on ethnicity, see Velasco Cruz (2003).
3. For good overviews see Bilge (2010), Denis (2008), and McCall
(2005).
4. Crossley defines a social movement field as: “a field in which
different agents, networks and groups variously align, compete and
conflict in pursuit of their goals; a field which generates its own
exigencies, dynamics and rules, becoming a relatively autonomous
‘game’, but which is always only ever relatively autonomous”
(2003: 62).
5. We follow Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992) in their understanding of
racism as “a discourse and practice of inferiorizing ethnic groups”
(12) based on racialization as a historical process, and ethnicity as
“partaking of the social conditions of a group, which is positioned
in a particular way in terms of the social allocation of resources,
within a context of difference to other groups, as well as common-
alities and differences within [the group]”(9).
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PART I
Bolivia
CHAPTER 2
Indigenous Movements Merge into

Party and State Politics
Bolivian politics have been marked by a radical change in the first decade
of the twenty-first century. For the first time since independence, an indig-
enous leader, Evo Morales Ayma, won a democratic election and became
president of the country. His electoral victory not only represented a great
individual achievement by a strong social leader, but also was the victory
of a new party, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), formed in the 1990s
by a group of social organizations mostly from the countryside and indig-
enous. This watershed transformation of the political sphere allowed the
organization of a Constituent Assembly that produced a new Constitution
approved in 2009. The latter officialized and institutionalized a whole
new agenda of legal, administrative, and political reforms, in which indig-
enous organizations weighted heavily. The MAS project of “decolonizing
the State and society” became the official political discourse and brought
numerous issues to the public agenda.
Estamos recordando nuestra historia, esa historia negra, esa historia permanente
de humillación, esa ofensiva, esas mentiras. De todo nos han dicho, verdad que
duele, pero tampoco estamos para seguir llorando por los 500 años. Ya no estamos
en esa época, estamos en época de triunfo, de alegría, de fiesta. Por eso creo que es
importante cambiar nuestra historia, cambiar nuestra Bolivia, cambiar nuestra
Latinoamérica.
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president (2006–). Discourse on the day of his
inauguration, National Congress of Bolivia, January 22, 2006

This political era can be understood as a new phase in the construction

of the citizenship of the majority of Bolivians, first empowered through
the so-called 1952 Revolution that established universal suffrage and a
successful agrarian reform. Following this earlier major transformation
of the Bolivian citizenship regime, the majority of peasants and miners
organized themselves along corporatist schemes where their autonomy
was restricted. These schemes eventually collapsed during the dictator-
ships of the 1960s and 1970s, and led the way to independent union-
ism accompanied by an ethnic revival process, the Katarista movement.
New organizations led the way to produce a new agenda of demands,
notably expressed in the Tiwanaku Manifesto issued in 1973. From that
moment onward, the popular struggle against dictatorships or democratic
governments governed by mestizo elites had as strong normative founda-
tions a discourse of Quechua and Aymara cultural empowerment based on
indigenous-peasant community self-governance.
In the 1990s, the mobilization of indigenous peoples from the low-
lands, who had not participated in the Katarista ethnic revival movement,
attracted national attention to the situation of the ethnic minorities who
had not been considered during the 1952 Revolution and therefore experi-
enced great vulnerability in their territories as they were increasingly facing
new extractive development or agribusiness projects. The combination of
lowland indigenous peoples’ demands for territorial rights and autonomy,
expressed through numerous marches, and the formation of a new political
party (MAS) by highland indigenous-peasant organizations, eventually led
to the victory of Evo Morales. In this rapid mobilization, indigenous women
were key actors, as will be explained in detail in the following chapter.
Even though the new government formed in 2006 obtained an unprec-
edented level of popular support, tensions and fragmentation within pop-
ular/indigenous sectors reemerged in force after the adoption of the new
Constitution. Bolivia is in this sense quite a unique case for the study of
indigenous movement politics, as the access to power of a party made up
of a coalition of social movements—among which indigenous actors are
key—has allowed direct channels of representation for indigenous organi-
zations within the state and political institutions. However, their access to
power and that of the populations they represent is unequal and has led
to new forms of ethnic domination, as will be explained below. In parallel,
the economic elites who had opposed the MAS project were then severely
weakened politically as a result of misguided strategies and the lack of
unity among its ranks. Most of its sectors managed to negotiate sufficient
INDIGENOUS MOVEMENTS MERGE INTO PARTY AND STATE POLITICS 29
guarantees to pursue their economic activities and were content with the
macro-economic stability pursued by the government of Evo Morales.
1 Race/Ethnicity in Twentieth-Century Bolivia

As most cases in Latin America, postcolonial Bolivian society was built on
the remnants of the colonial social structure, in that it maintained the divi-
sion between Indians (“Indios”) and creoles (“Criollos”), a division orga-
nized along several institutional lines. The main institution was of course
the large estate (“hacienda”), which perpetuated servile labor relations
through agricultural work and personal service by Indians for the benefit
of the creole landlords. Being deprived of political citizenship, excluded
from access to education, and economically marginalized, the majority of
Bolivians lived as a minority in their own country. Similar to the experi-
ence of other Andean countries, highland indigenous populations were
integrated in the colonial and later in Bolivian republican society through
servile agricultural labor and tribute, while those from the lowlands did
not develop extensive links with the creole state or economy until the
twentieth century. From the nineteenth-century republican order to late
into the twentieth century, the law did not recognize women or indig-
enous peoples who worked on haciendas as citizens, leaving them depen-
dent on the paternalistic and violent power of creole husbands, fathers,
and “masters” (Barragán, 2005).
Morales’ “Revolución democrática” echoes Bolivia’s main twentieth-
century political transformation, the 1952 “National Revolution” led by
the Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (MNR) under the impetus of
reformist middle-class professionals, workers, miners, and rural leaders.
This revolution led to the expansion of citizenship rights to include the
majority of (indigenous) citizens in Bolivia, through the adoption of uni-
versal suffrage and an agrarian reform that meant the end of the servile
social relations between indios as dependent laborers and the owners of
large estates (Grindle & Domingo, 2003). Gotkowitz (2007) showed
that prior to the revolution, peasants from highland indigenous commu-
nities had been mobilizing for decades. Waves of encroachments by big
landlords on their territories, which in many cases led to their expulsion,
produced the first indigenous leaders seeking protection by the state and
invoking the law to battle for the restitution of their collective rights.
A national network of indigenous community leaders (the “caciques”)
was formed in the decades prior to the First Indigenous Congress held in
La Paz in May 1945. They protested against illegal seizing of their lands
by elite landlords and against oppressive labor conditions in these elites’
big estates. Other important political events to be mentioned were the
First and Second “Congreso de Indigenas de Habla Quechua” (Quechua
Speaking Indigenous Congress) held in Sucre in 1942 and 1943, respec-
tively (Gotkowitz, 2007; Rivera Cusicanqui, 1987). The First Indigenous
Congress in particular, where around 1000 indigenous delegates par-
ticipated, was described as a key moment in the development of a new
openness within the State to recognize indigenous demands as legitimate.
Left-wing politicians and union leaders supported the movement led by
indigenous leaders, to the point that some of the latter joined union fed-
erations as “Secretaries of Indigenous Issues”. President Villarroel, who
hosted the Indigenous Congress, was even termed “Tata” (father) by
peasants (Rivera Cusicanqui, 1987).
The concrete results of the Congress were few: the abolition of
“pongueaje” (non-remunerated obligatory personal labor carried out by
peasants for the benefit of a landlord) was the main gain. But a key step
had been taken in showing the State’s willingness to recognize Indian
leaders as legitimate interlocutors. The years between this Congress and
the 1952 Revolution were very agitated. President Villarroel was hung
by a group of urban citizens who were opposed to his pro-Indian atti-
tude. This dramatic event led to a cycle of rebellions under varied leader-
ships throughout the country, and then to a civil war (Rivera Cusicanqui,
1987). When the correlation of forces finally allowed it in 1952, the MNR
took over the State to carry out a radical program. Pushed by peasants’
spontaneous invasions of large estates, the MNR government adopted
an agrarian reform that transformed estate peasants to small landowners.
Universal suffrage was adopted, the mining sector was nationalized, and
educational reforms created rural schools aimed to integrate the majority
of indigenous citizens in the dominant national Hispanic culture (Hylton,
Thomson, & Gilly, 2007).
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui argues that as early as in 1947, the MNR
assumed the task of “transforming the Indian movement into a peas-
ant movement” (“campesinizar al movimiento indio”) through new
organizing structures under union control. These, according to Rivera,
temporarily killed the initiative that Indians had showed for decades in
representing themselves and defining the political battle under their terms
(Rivera Cusicanqui, 1984: 109). Moreover, it also meant the adoption of
the language of social class under the label of the “peasantry” to describe
and articulate the struggles of indigenous sectors. The collective identity

of miners, majority of whom were indigenous, also projected itself politi-
cally through class vocabulary and demands. As can easily be imagined,
this was not favorable to the inclusion of women’s specific plight, as the
latter were mostly working on family farms or as housewives. Yet women
from some mining zones organized themselves in “Comités de Amas de
Casa” (Housewives’ Committees) to participate actively in miners’ strikes
and political protests. This was a very important process of collective
action that allowed women to establish themselves as a political actor in
the public sphere (Lagos, 2006).
Until the late 1960s, peasants and miners were active members of corpo-
ratist organizations created by the State to support what turned out to be
reformist rather than revolutionary policies—as manifest in the fluid diplo-
matic and economic relations between Bolivia and the USA. Yet as early as
the late 1950s, the regime and its unionized bases started to fragment, and
under the influence of the US government, a military dictatorship took over
the state in 1964. President General Barrientos then established what has
been called the “military–peasant pact” to contain radical mining unions
and divide rural and urban popular sectors. After his death and a brief rule
by a Popular Assembly, General Hugo Banzer took power and established a
military dictatorship from 1971 to 1978. The military–peasant pact ended
in the context of Banzer’s application of International Monetary Fund-
inspired economic reforms. In the 1970s, the Housewives’ Committees
were still mobilizing, even under the adverse conditions imposed by this
Right-wing dictatorship. They organized a hunger strike that was key in the
power balance building against Banzer’s regime, and were recognized by
Bolivian popular sectors as heroes in this struggle (Lavaud, 1999).
Even before Banzer’s rule, new peasant movements had emerged that
gradually built the foundations of an autonomous peasant movement.
The movements started in the La Paz region among Aymaras. An eth-
nic cultural revival movement also articulated material and political claims
based on a historical analysis of the exclusion and oppression experienced
by the indigenous majority. The movement was formed along two ten-
dencies that would later remain within the contemporary indigenous
movement. The Indianist tendency was more radically centered on the
reconstitution of precolonial Indian society and institutions, seeing the
exclusion of the criollos or whites as a necessary part of that reconstruc-
tion. The Katarista tendency focused on class and ethnic issues and pro-
posed a multiethnic society and polity (Van Cott, 2005: 53). Katarista
leader Jenaro Flores launched the Tiwanaku Manifesto in 1973, which

became a very important ideological and programmatic reference for gen-
erations of indigenous-peasant activists to come. It notably called for the
creation of peasants’ “Political Instrument”, described as necessary to end
the cycle of political parties’ cooptation or instrumentalization of peas-
ants’ votes. It also affirmed the following: “We are strangers in our own
country. Our virtues, our own vision of the world, of life, have never been
respected. Formal education, party politics, and technical training have
not managed to produce significant changes in the countryside. Peasant
participation [in national life] has not materialized because peasant culture
and mentality have not been respected”.1
The end of the 1970s and the 1980s was marked by a renewed autonomy
of peasant organizing. A few organizations joined forces under the initia-
tive of the Central Obrera Boliviana (Bolivian Workers’ Central Union-
COB) through the formation of the Confederación sindical única de
trabajadores del campo de Bolivia (Rural Workers’ United Confederation
of Bolivia-CSUTCB) in 1979. The CSUTCB was the first national peas-
ant organization to gather all major peasant organizations under a polit-
ical project of autonomy from the state since the 1952 Revolution. It
merged some sectors of the peasant movement that were influenced by the
Katarista cultural project of ethnic revival. The CSUTCB soon imposed
itself on the political scene and participated in the transition to democracy
that was relatively chaotic for most of the 1980s. Unions organized hun-
dreds of protests, and hyperinflation skyrocketed.
Women participated in the CSUTCB, but were limited in their access
to positions in the organization because of the land property customs that
generally worked against women’s individual rights. Nonetheless, as early
as 1980, the recognition of women’s important participation in peasant
politics took the form of the creation of a new women’s-only organization,
the Federación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas de Bolivia “Bartolina
Sisa” (FNMCB“BS”), popularly called the Bartolinas. The Federación ini-
tially served to coordinate women’s mobilization from above, rather than
being a representative and participatory organization. As will be explained
in greater detail in the following chapter, this was not exempt of tensions.
Male peasant leaders’ willingness to maintain control over women clashed
with some women leaders’ desire to form a stronger and more autono-
mous organization. Only a decade and a half later did the Federación win
the right to create a pyramidal structure to recruit from the local level
upward.
As of 1985, different waves of neoliberal reforms were adopted, s tarting

with structural adjustment to face hyperinflation and debt. In the first
wave, the reforms included the privatization of state mines, which had
a major impact on a key social actor, the COB, whose core constituency
was made up of miners. It also put an end to import-substitution poli-
cies. As reported by Kohl (2006: 311), 20,000 miners lost their job as
a result of the privatizations, and 35,000 lost their jobs in the private
manufacturing sector. As of 1993, the government of Gonzalo Sánchez de
Lozada adopted several reforms, which included the privatization of state
enterprises and further liberalization of the economy to attract foreign
investment, among others. Popular sectors protested job losses, and social
unrest led to state repression.
One of the unintended consequences of the neoliberal reforms was the
increased growth of the coca-producing sector through a sustained migra-
tion from the mining zones toward the Yungas and Chapare valleys of
Cochabamba. Many of the new coca producers were former miners who
had a long experience of union organizing. They joined the federations
of coca leaf producers, which became politically very active from then
onward. As a result, by the late 1980s, coca growers’ unions became the
predominant sector within the CSUTCB, which would be crucial for the
political orientations adopted by the confederation during the 1990s.
The politics of race/ethnicity took a noticeable turn in the early 1990s
following the first national protest led by indigenous peoples from the
lowlands of Bolivia who marched to La Paz in 1990. The government
adopted decrees to recognize the first indigenous territories and ratified
the International Labour Organization Convention 169 on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples in 1991. A second march was organized in 1995 by the
CSUTCB and the lowland indigenous peoples’ organization Confederación
de Pueblos Indigenas de Bolivia (CIDOB) to push for agrarian reform
and indigenous territory rights. In response, the government adopted the
INRA Law (Instituto nacional de reforma agraria) that, among other issues,
created the Tierras comunitarias de origen (Native Community Lands-
TCOs). The TCOs were designed as exceptions to the general pattern of
individual land titling, and meant to recognize indigenous collective claims
on territorial units. However, as mentioned by Gustafson (2002: 282), the
TCOs were not always made of contiguous territory but rather scattered
pieces of land, which complicated the governance of these new collective
entities. The INRA Law also meant the reinitiating of land redistribution
and titling efforts, mostly based on individual property schemes.
In addition to land and territory issues, a series of constitutional and

political reforms led by the government of President Sánchez de Lozada
opened up the political space for indigenous and other popular organiza-
tions to enter into the formal governance scheme newly created as a proj-
ect of modernizing the state. A Ministry of Ethnic and Indigenous Affairs
was created. The 1994 reform of the Constitution recognized that Bolivia
was a “multi-ethnic and pluricultural country”. It also instituted the
framework to create rural municipal governments and decentralize state
governance. An educational reform inserted bilingual intercultural educa-
tion into the curricula for culturally diverse regions (Gustafson, 2002).
The Law on popular participation (1994) and the Law on administrative
decentralization (1995) regulated the newly created municipal govern-
ments and put forward new democratic mechanisms for popular participa-
tion. The vast program of decentralization adopted by the government
bypassed the country’s departments and established direct links between
the central state and the local level. By establishing municipal govern-
ments elected through universal suffrage, the reforms democratized local
power relations according to liberal democratic standards and ensured a
stronger institutional presence of the state through decentralized resource
management (Van Cott, 2000).
The political reforms also included electoral gender quotas as of 1999,
with parties forced for the first time to include 30 % of women in their
electoral lists. This was followed by a quota of 50 % for all elected positions
as of 2004. These gains were important for Bolivian women who had been
largely excluded legally or in practice from the political electoral sphere
until then (Arnold & Spedding, 2005). While this seemed at first to be
the kind of reform that promoted professional women’s access to political
power, the parallel growth of the indigenous movement in Bolivian poli-
tics, combined with the former, allowed the entry of indigenous women
to electoral politics.
The popular participation component of the decentralization was car-
ried out notably through the compulsory formation of citizens’ oversight
committees in each municipality. These were meant to be a space for lead-
ers of new organizations created by the law—grassroots territorial orga-
nizations (organizaciones territoriales de base-OTBs) to control the use
of central-government funds channeled to municipal governments for
social services. As reported by Van Cott, a survey carried out in 1996
showed that more than half (55.3 %) of the oversight committees’ presi-
dents spoke a language other than Spanish, a relatively reliable indicator
of indigenous identity (Van Cott, 2000: 184). While numerous problems

were reported that impaired the functioning of the OTBs, it nonetheless
represented a new opportunity for popular sectors—the majority being
indigenous—to participate directly in the management of municipal gov-
ernments. However, when Hugo Banzer was elected as president in 1998,
he weakened the popular participation mechanisms and instead redirected
some of the decentralization resources to the departments, where his party
Acción Democrática Nacional (National Democratic Action) had more
power.
Toward the end of the 1990s, Bolivian politics was marked by the
emergence of a new party, which first took the name of Assembly for
Peoples’ Sovereignty (Asamblea por la Soberanía de los Pueblos-ASP).
Based on the Tiwanaku Manifesto’s central idea of the necessity for peas-
ants to build their own vehicles for political self-representation, the project
of creating a “Political Instrument” was discussed at the CSUTCB’s first
Congress in 1988. The reasoning was to replace the “traditional parties”
led by urban mestizo elites as the only options available to get access to
formal political power. Even though peasant leaders from Katarista and
Indianist movements had formed parties in the 1970s, their weakness
meant that they had to ally with traditional mestizo-led parties, or they
simply did not manage to obtain sufficient votes to remain from one elec-
tion to the other (Van Cott, 2005). In contrast, the ASP was the result of
a broad-based mass decision and firm resolve on the part of various orga-
nizations, including some of women’s-only organizations also. During the
numerous indigenous mobilizations held around the 500th anniversary
of Columbus’ arrival to the Americas, a meeting called “Asamblea de
Pueblos Originarios” was held on October 12, 1992, to bring together
various peasant and indigenous organizations from different regions. On
this occasion, the project of building a “Political Instrument” was also
discussed. Later the project grew in strength within the federation of coca
growers, and was officially adopted by the CSUTCB at its 1994 Congress
(Stefanoni, 2006).
Institutional reforms had opened the municipal space to indigenous-
peasant leaders and made it politically attractive to form a new party. In
addition, a reform of the electoral code favored smaller parties who could
win in geographically concentrated zones of support (Van Cott, 2005).
As a result, the ASP party launched itself at the 1995 municipal elections,
and at the 1997 national elections, with Alejo Véliz as presidential candi-
date. Coca growers managed to obtain numerous majorities in the areas
where they were concentrated, which meant they won ten mayorships,
54 municipal councilors, and six departmental councilors. At the 1997
national elections, the ASP won four national deputies. Tensions between
different leaders led to a division of the ASP and the formation of another
party, the Political Instrument for Peoples’ Sovereignty (Instrumento
Político para la Soberanía de los Pueblos-IPSP), under the leadership
of Evo Morales. In the 1999 municipal elections, the IPSP ran under
the banner of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) due to electoral
requirements that did not allow it to register under its name and rather
forced it to use the name of a defunct but registered party. The two par-
ties, ASP and IPSP/MAS, won 14 mayors and 102 municipal councilors
(Van Cott, 2005: 86).
Besides its progress on the electoral front, the MAS also built its cred-
ibility through a sustained street protest strategy. Indeed, its social bases
were key actors, along with numerous other social organizations, in two
major social mobilizations that contributed to delegitimizing the “tradi-
tional” party system fatally. The first mobilization, named the “Guerra del
Agua” (Water War) in 2000 in Cochabamba, sought to protest against
the privatization of water provision in the area of Cochabamba. Its trans-
national support network and the multiple actors that participated locally
transformed this protest in one of the key moments of public mobilization
against the political system in the early 2000s. The second mobilization,
the 2003 “Guerra del Gas” (Gas War) principally held in El Alto, is even
more directly connected to the end of the party system that had ruled
Bolivia since the transition to democracy in the 1980s. In that context, the
protests focused on the decision by the government of Sánchez de Lozada
to orient the natural gas national policy on exporting it abroad and offer-
ing very low tax rates to foreign corporations who would carry out the
extractive and export processes. Protesters favored the nationalization of
gas extractive activities and priority was given to the domestic market and
industrial development (Spronk & Webber, 2007).
In the two “Wars”, women played a key role in mobilizing grassroots
masses. Sector-based or neighborhood-based organizations were very
often led by women, who acted as the springboard of the protests. In
the Water War, women from different social classes united in what was
an unusual joint struggle to defend a fundamental human right. In the
Gas War, El Alto’s strong tradition of popular mobilization based on the
memory of mining unionism involved women at the forefront of pro-
tests and riots. The confrontations with the armed forces led to 60 people
being killed and hundreds of them being injured, while the president fled
in exile. In their testimony, several women leaders complained about the
lack of recognition of their protagonist role, and the ability of their male
comrades to obtain positions of power after the hard work of the protests
(Hylton, Choque, & Britto, 2005).
From the 2002 national elections onward the IPSP/MAS managed
to eliminate its rival and became the sole representative of the “Political
Instrument”. It got approximately 21 % of national votes, which meant
eight senators and 27 national deputies. This also meant the MAS became
the second largest party at Congress, and Evo Morales the head of the
opposition. At the 2004 municipal elections, it became the first national
party, with 28 % of all councilors. In the space of a decade, the “Political
Instrument” had managed to impose itself and become the main alter-
native to “traditional parties”. Evo Morales became the first indigenous
president of Bolivia in the 2005 national elections, being the most voted
presidential candidate in Bolivia’s democratic history.
2 An Indigenous Party in Power
The rise to power of the MAS led to a profound transformation of the

constitutional and institutional structure of the state, under the impulse of
the indigenous movement, and ceding some terrain to the non-indigenous
elite sectors that struggled to have their share of the new architecture of
power. In order to explain the dynamics that led to this radical change, it
is necessary to study in more details the indigenous movement’s dynam-
ics, its main actors, demands, and strategies. Before that, however, we will
sketch the major components of the new order defined by Evo Morales and
his MAS supporters as the “democratic revolution for the re-foundation
of the state”.
Evo Morales entered government with a clear mandate to put for-
ward a Constituent Assembly that would redefine the state’s political and
administrative structure as well as state–society relations. A key aspect
of the changes that were sought by the social actors that supported the
MAS dealt with broadening the mechanisms for self-government at vari-
ous levels, including different ways of defining indigenous governance
territorially. Another dimension had to do with the representation of

indigenous peoples in the central political institutions of the state. The
dominant view of democracy among MAS bases and its indigenous allies
combined representative with participatory and community forms. Just as
well, the State was envisioned by these social actors as a necessary actor
in the redistribution of resources through the provision of social rights
(Garcés, 2010). In opposition to these projects, the economic and political
elites of the eastern lowlands departments sought to redefine the division
of powers in a way that would concentrate them at the departmental level.
A key contentious issue in these discussions had to do with the control
over key natural resources such as gas and petroleum. Bolivia’s neoliberal
policies in the 1990s had fostered a wave of foreign investment in that sec-
tor, which allowed the discovery of important natural gas and petroleum
reserves in the eastern part of the country (lowlands). Much of the political
disputes during the 2000s had to do with the setting up of the regime in
order to exploit these reserves. State control versus foreign private control,
and central governance versus departmental or territorial governance were
the main alternatives hotly debated. Therefore, the discussions within the
Constituent Assembly were not “simply” oriented by different visions of
political sovereignty, but also shaped by the expectations that different
actors had in relation to the best political regime and its consequences for
strategic natural resource management.
The clash between the MAS and the political forces led by elites in
the eastern departments of the “media luna” (half moon, an expression
that described the shape of the four departments of the eastern low-
lands) opposed a project of indigenous self-determination combined with
a strong central state, against one of departmental “autonomy”—a new
modality of decentralization with enhanced jurisdictions. The demand for
autonomy carried forward by eastern elites has a long history but came
back in force in early 2000s in response to the growing strength of the
MAS and its social bases. The strength of the opposition led the MAS
government to accept holding a referendum on departmental autonomy
at the same time as the Constituent Assembly election. While the “No” to
departmental autonomies won a majority at the national level, the “Yes”
won in the four departments of the media luna. As a result, and during the
debates of the Constituent Assembly, the option of creating new depart-
mental governments was included (Zegada, 2010).
To summarize in very broad terms, the new Constitution was adopted
in 2009 by Congress after a conflict-ridden Constituent Assembly p rocess.
The Constitution states in its article 1 that “Bolivia se constituye en un
Estado Unitario Social de Derecho Plurinacional Comunitario, libre,
independiente, soberano, democrático, intercultural, descentralizado
y con autonomías”.2 Thus, Bolivia went from being multiethnic and
luricultural (1994) to being plurinational and community-centered while

p
remaining a unitary state. The new Constitution also created new political-
administrative units: municipal governments, departmental governments,
indigenous territories, and indigenous municipalities; all as “autono-
mous”, thus transforming significantly the decentralization regime of the
1990s. Article 2 recognizes the right of indigenous peoples to political
self-determination through autonomy, self-government, cultural rights,
and the consolidation of their territories. Furthermore, article 3 defines
the Bolivian nation as being made up of all Bolivians (in a gender-inclusive
language), of “naciones y pueblos indígena originario campesinos” (indig-
enous–native–peasant nations and peoples), and of intercultural and
Afro-Bolivian communities. What is interesting from the point of view of
indigenous movement politics is that the Constitution created a new jurid-
ical subject, the “indigenous, native and peasant peoples and nations”,
thus lumping together three different labels used by different sectors of
the population to refer to their indigeneity (Albro, 2010). These labels
broadly refer to three sectors of the organized indigenous movement, as
will be explained below. The Constitution thus recognizes collective rights
attached to a territorial basis defined as indigenous: the municipal level
when it is officially declared indigenous, and the territorial level when an
indigenous territory is recognized.
In another work we have analyzed the political process whereby the
women’s movement has interacted with the indigenous movement dur-
ing the Constituent Assembly process, and how that collaboration con-
tributed positively to inserting a gender perspective in the Constitution,
starting with the fact that it was written in a gender-inclusive language
(Rousseau, 2011b). Some indigenous women’s organizations, especially
the Bartolinas, collaborated with the non-indigenous women’s coalition,
but with a prudent distance. We will come back to this issue in the following
chapter. What is important to emphasize here is that the new Constitution
provided a political and institutional framework where indigenous peoples’
communities won the right to govern themselves at the local level and be
recognized as central actors in the national political process. However,
the Constitution and its implementation also reflect major divisions and
unequal power relations between the actors that p romoted it, that is, the
MAS and the indigenous movement. We now turn to examining the latter
in greater detail in order to understand the diversity of actors and politi-
cal projects that it contains, as well as the mobilizing dynamics that led to
such a watershed transformation of the Bolivian institutional order.
3 The Indigenous Movement

As mentioned above, indigenous peoples in Bolivia are very diverse and
have had different histories of interaction with colonial and postcolonial
society. As a consequence both of different relations with the state and of
strategies to differentiate among themselves within the large category of
indigeneity, three labels or terms have developed in the contemporary era
to characterize different sectors of the indigenous population. The term
“indígenas” (that translates as “indigenous”) is used mainly by and to
refer to lowland indigenous peoples, who are officially recognized as form-
ing 34 different ethnic groups. The term “campesinos” (“peasants”) is
mainly used by Quechua and Aymara peoples living in rural communities.
A sector of the same population that could be identified as peasants calls
itself and is being recognized as “originarios” (that can be translated as
“native”). The reason being that in certain highland areas, the precolonial
form of social organization, the ayllu, has remained to some extent and/or
has been reinvented based on a project of political self-determination. The
ayllu is a territorial and political unit usually based on the complementarity
of various ecological niches and encompassing several communities his-
torically related through kinship. The ayllu itself is part of a group of ayllus
named “marka” (Albó, 2002). The members of ayllus claim to represent a
more authentic form of indigenous social organization and for that reason
are usually referred to as “originarios”.
The emergence of the contemporary indigenous movement is the
key force behind all the events mentioned above, including the series
of marches that were organized in the 1990s mainly by lowland indig-
enous organizations. The main organization behind these marches was
the Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia (Confederation of
Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia-CIDOB), which represents 34 of the 36
indigenous peoples of Bolivia (all but Aymaras and Quechuas). CIDOB
was created in 1982 originally by four indigenous peoples: the Chiquitanos,
Ayoreos, Guarayos, and Guaranis. Its founding name was Confederación
Indígena del Oriente de Bolivia (Indigenous Confederation of Eastern
Bolivia). It represents lowland indigenous peoples who are minorities and
who have historically been in contact with the dominant Hispanic society
several centuries later than the Aymaras and Quechuas. From that perspec-
tive, the period starting in the 1950s has brought increasing waves of inva-
sion to the lowlands by different groups: Quechua and Aymara migrants
from the highlands, Mennonite migrants from abroad, and mestizo or
foreign investors seeking to exploit natural resources or develop large

agribusiness. The 1970s in particular saw new state efforts at encouraging
the “development” of the lowlands (Postero, 2007).
Thus in order to defend themselves and their territories, indigenous
peoples started to organize themselves at a supra-local level with the help
of NGOs. CIDOB joined forces with an organization from the Beni
department to organize the 1990 March for Territory and Dignity. This
represented the first protest of national dimension whereby indigenous
peoples from the lowlands made their demands visible to the nation and
presented their claims directly to the central state in La Paz. Highland
indigenous organizations such as the CSUTCB joined in the March that
started from Trinidad and ended at La Paz. This protest introduced the
issue of lowland indigenous territorial claims in national politics, and quite
rapidly gave way to the adoption of decrees creating some indigenous
territorial collective titles and then the INRA Law, as explained above.
As mentioned by Postero (2007: 49), “Territorio became an icon of
indigenous-state relations”.
CIDOB gradually expanded to include all indigenous ethnic groups
from the lowlands, each organized in regional affiliates. Since the first
march held in 1990, it organized a total of nine marches, each involving
hundreds of families walking from a city in the lowlands all the way up to
the capital La Paz. Women’s role as key articulator of family’s material and
emotional well-being was therefore central in the marches, but it took a
decade and a half before they were recognized as important political actors
by the movement (Rousseau, 2011a).
Each march marked a particular moment in the history of the indig-
enous movement but, in general, had as a key focus the establishment,
consolidation, and expansion of a territorial rights regime allowing for
indigenous peoples’ self-determination on the lands they recognize
as historically theirs. The second march in 1996 led to the adoption of
the INRA Law and the recognition of 33 territorial claims presented by
indigenous peoples to the state. The third march held in 2000 sought to
push the government to implement the INRA Law in a more efficient and
transparent fashion. In response, the government adopted some modifica-
tions to the Law and recognized lowland indigenous peoples’ languages
as official languages. At the fourth march in 2002, the CIDOB asked for
a Constituent Assembly, an issue that has been part of lowland indigenous
peoples’ claims since 1990, and had to wait for Evo Morales to become
president in 2006 in order for it to materialize (Ochoa, 2012).
Other key actors of the indigenous movement have been heavily

involved in the political process leading to the election of Evo Morales. In
order to reconstruct these dynamics, it is necessary to pay attention to the
role of the CSUTCB, and in particular the Coca Producers’ Federations,
its most active affiliates. The Confederación Sindical de Comunidades
Interculturales de Bolivia (the Confederation of Intercultural Communities
of Bolivia-CSCIB) and the Consejo nacional de ayllus y markas del
Qullasuyu (the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of the Qullasuyu-
CONAMAQ) are also central actors. These have been among the main
forces behind the strong opposition to the state that eventually led to the
collapse of the party system and the flight of President Gonzalo Sánchez
de Lozada in exile in 2003.
As explained in the previous section, the decision of the CSUTCB
to form a “Political Instrument” in the mid-1990s created a dual logic
of collective action: on the electoral scene, in the local governments
and Congress where MAS representatives got elected, and in the streets
protesting different government’s initiatives, especially in the early
2000s. The Coca Producers’ Federations, which were affiliated with the
CSUTCB or with the CSCIB, were particularly active in setting the orga-
nizational frame and leadership for the IPSP/MAS to gain terrain from
the department of Cochabamba outward in an expansive curve. This
party work evolved at the same time that the coca producers were strug-
gling against the militarized efforts by the state to eradicate coca produc-
tion. This violent confrontation with the state allowed the coca producers
to acquire a reputation of courageous collective resistance. Their identity
was shaped by the connection they established between coca leaf and
traditional Andean identity, as well as their anti-imperialist opposition
to Bolivia’s collaboration with the US coca eradication foreign policy
(Spedding, 2005).
Besides the CSUTCB and the Bartolinas, the “peasant” component of
the indigenous movement was also structured around the Confederación
Sindical de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia (CSCIB), which rep-
resents peasants and producers who have formed communities of migrants
mostly in the lowlands and also in the subtropical valleys. The original
name of this organization, formed in 1971, was the Confederación Sindical
de Colonizadores de Bolivia. Quechua and Aymara peasants started to
migrate to or “colonize” the lowlands from 1960s onward as a result of
the lack of available land in the highlands and the government’s willing-
ness to slow down rural-to-urban migration. Often living in very difficult
circumstances and in a tensed relation with lowland indigenous peoples,

the “colonizers” organized themselves in what are today 24 regional and
departmental federations. The organization claims to represent over one
million peasants living in seven departments.3 As part of the social organi-
zations that launched the IPSP/MAS, the organization eventually changed
its name to get rid of the label “colonizers” and instead reinvented itself as
“intercultural communities” in reference to the fact that their presence in
territories occupied by other ethnic groups generates a multicultural real-
ity. The CSUTCB and the CSCIB have been coordinating most of their
actions at the national level and have been the central forces behind the
IPSP/MAS. Since the election of the MAS in 2005, the CSCIB has been
growing in strength since the Morales government has given clear signals
that it supports migrant communities in their efforts to consolidate their
economic and political presence in the lowlands. Also, in 2011, a women’s
organization was created under the name of Confederación Sindical de
Mujeres de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia, purportedly to imi-
tate the structure of the CSUTCB/Bartolinas. This allowed for greater
harmony within the ranks of the MAS, and in particular for the represen-
tation of coca leaf producers, as some federations were affiliated with the
CSUTCB and others with the CSCIB.
The last important actor that should be mentioned to account
for the main contrasting dynamics of the indigenous movement is the
CONAMAQ, formed in 1997. The CONAMAQ represents highland
communities that have decided to reconstruct or consolidate existing
“ayllu” social organizations. The ayllu is described in classical anthropo-
logical studies as the basic pre-Columbian Andean kinship and territorial
unit (Isbell, 1978; Platt, 1999). Before the launching of the CONAMAQ,
the ayllu revival movement started in Oruro and Potosi in the 1980s, as
a result of divergent views within the peasant union organization. Ayllus
have survived various colonial and postcolonial attempts to abolish them.
The populations claiming to organize through the ayllu form sometimes
combined it with union-led organizing, or sometimes competed with a
union structure operating on the same territory. Although in many regions
the ayllu form has disappeared, it managed to remain in certain areas,
and thus the project that started in the 1980s was to revitalize it and/or
recreate it where it was dead. It represents a clear critique of the peasant
union experience, which ayllu promoters describe as a perverted, Western
imposition. Relations between CSUTCB/CSCIB and CONAMAQ have
therefore often been tensed.
The support brought by international funders such as the European

Economic Community was key for the ayllu movement to start. Yet in the
late 1990s, when the federation of ayllus was created (CONAMAQ), the
main support came from the NGO Oxfam America and from an initiative
of Aymara historians, the Taller de Historia Oral Andina (Andean Oral
History Workshop-THOA) (Lucero, 2008: 165–166).4 In the follow-
ing years, financial and political support provided by Oxfam and another
NGO based in the Netherlands, IBIS, was very important for CONAMAQ
to develop itself institutionally and to go from a local-based project to a
national organization dealing with high-level authorities. From the per-
spective of this book, the CONAMAQ is a unique kind of organization,
as it is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Andean notion of
gender complementarity whereby all positions in the organization must
be filled by a married heterosexual couple rather than by an individual. As
will be explored in the following chapter, this is not devoid of several chal-
lenges, and the role of external actors has been key to support indigenous
women leaders inside the organization.
Beyond the “competition” in the highlands between the union and
ayllu forms of organizing, the indigenous movement in Bolivia has also
been divided between lowland and highland organizations, even if on sev-
eral occasions they managed to unite behind joint actions that had a strong
impact. The CSUTCB and CIDOB have frequently had highly conflictual
relations. In 1996, for example, while marching together to ask for a new
land reform, CIDOB negotiated on its own with the government and
obtained several gains on lowland territorial rights. It then called off its
participation to the march. It justified its action by arguing that highland
indigenous peoples had benefited from the earlier land reform (1950s)
while lowlanders had always been ignored; in addition, it claimed that
lowlanders were right in seeking a solution that fitted their needs, since
they had different forms of governance that called for specific land rights
measures (Lucero, 2008: 94).
The 2000 “March for land, territory and natural resources” was one
of the initiatives led by CIDOB to pursue the interests of lowland indig-
enous peoples: to pressure the State for the implementation of the new
territorial rights regime won in 1996, as well as the official recognition of
lowland indigenous peoples’ languages. The government of Hugo Banzer
modified the INRA Law as a result of the March, and issued a decree to
recognize these languages. A subsequent march in 2002, titled “Marcha
por la soberania popular, el territorio y los recursos naturales” (March
for popular sovereignty, territory and natural resources), had a more

“national” projection since it raised the issue of constitutional reform and
proposed the holding of a Constituent Assembly, based on an old demand
by CIDOB. It also pushed the government to agree publicly not to cede to
private investors seeking to bypass indigenous peoples’ territorial rights. A
march held in 2004 also had a national character since it claimed a reform
of the hydrocarbon sector so that a percentage of the taxes would be dedi-
cated to indigenous peoples’ development projects. This successfully trans-
lated in a newly created Fondo indígena (Indigenous Fund), which would
invest these funds in indigenous organizations’ projects (Ochoa, 2012).
The 2004 march was held in the aftermath of the Guerra del Gas that had
led to a strong level of consensus within indigenous movement organiza-
tions and beyond, about the legitimacy of claiming a new hydrocarbon
resources regime based on strong state control.
During its marches, CIDOB received the support of CONAMAQ,
especially in 2002, where it also organized to meet the lowland indig-
enous peoples’ march on the way to La Paz. The CSUTCB often chose
to abstain from joining in the marches. However, once Law 2631 on
Constitutional Reform was adopted in February 2004, in the context
where Evo Morales had great chances of being elected in 2005 and that
the agenda of a popular-based Constituent Assembly could therefore
be implemented, indigenous organizations somehow found the means
to gather and strategize together. Indeed, the most significant alliance
experience between indigenous movement organizations was developed
in the context leading to and during the Constituent Assembly. This ini-
tiative took the name of “Pacto de Unidad” (Unity Pact) and involved
the CSUTCB, the CSCIB, the CONAMAQ, the CIDOB, and the
CNMCIOB “BS” (the Confederación nacional de mujeres campesinas,
indigenas y originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa”, the new name of the
highest authority of the Bartolinas).
These five national organizations agreed to form this common front in
September 2004 during a national meeting called “Encuentro Nacional
de Organizaciones Indígenas, Campesinas y Originarias”. Early on, the
Unity Pact produced, through a participatory process involving over 300
delegates from these organizations, a proposed Bill on the procedures, man-
dates, and powers of the Assembly (Propuesta de Ley de Convocatoria a la
Asamblea Constituyente). Two principles were put forward by the alliance
to describe the spirit of their proposal: “Los excluidos no vamos a excluir
a los excluyentes” (We the excluded will not exclude those who exclude)
and “una Constituyente de todos, con todos y para todos” (Everybody’s

Constituent Assembly, with and for everyone) (Garcés, 2010: 36). The
proposal was based on a representation system founded on cultural, ethnic,
and regional diversity, gender equity, and youth participation. It insisted
that lowland indigenous peoples, who are small minorities, be granted a
certain number of seats to guarantee their representation. It recommended
that 50 % of the electoral lists be made of female candidates who would be
placed on the lists in alternation with male candidates, in order to guaran-
tee that the election would produce a gender-equal Constituent Assembly.
Once elected in power, the MAS party strengthened its internal hierar-
chy through a group of presidential advisors that tended to impose deci-
sions based on party interests and executive control, over and above the
orientations proposed by its organizational bases. As a result, the MAS
party managed to pass a law through Congress to institute the election
for the Constituent Assembly, based on characteristics that were different
from the Unity Pact’s proposal. The election for the Assembly was held
based on party lists and no seats were assigned based on ethnicity. The
only criterion that was adopted from the Unity Pact’s proposal was that
of gender equity in the party lists, but without the principle of gender
alternation (Rousseau, 2011b). This divergence launched what became a
dual dynamics during the Constituent Assembly, whereby the Unity Pact
would act jointly with the MAS in general terms, but always in a tensed
competition. Some organizations (the “peasant organizations”) were in
between both spaces, and had to navigate through different or contradic-
tory pressures coming from their constituencies and from the MAS party
leadership (Mayorga, 2011).
In 2006, when the Constituent Assembly started its work, the Unity
Pact produced collectively another document, compiling its joint vision
of the country and specific proposals for the structure and articles of the
new Constitution. Without entering into details, it is useful to mention
that a significant portion of the Constitution that was adopted by the
Constituent Assembly came directly from the Unity Pact’s document
(Garcés, 2010). The Unity Pact managed to remain united throughout
the two-year process that lasted for the Assembly to complete its work.
What probably assisted in maintaining this level of solidarity and collabo-
ration was the very fierce opposition to the MAS and indigenous move-
ment organizations that manifested itself during the whole period. Elites
and some middle-class sectors from the east of the country (the “media
luna” or “half moon” in reference to the graphic shape of the departments
where the opposition was strong) articulated their resistance to the MAS/
indigenous movement project through the alternative idea of departmental
autonomy. The Constituent Assembly became entwined with this strug-
gle between departmental autonomy and indigenous self-determination,
which implied various options in terms of territorial-political reconfigura-
tion of the state. In the background of the conflict, the issue of who would
control hydrocarbon resources was central.
While within the Unity Pact the different organizations carried dif-
ferent visions and priorities when referring to the notions of indigenous
self-determination and decolonization, the strong challenge mounted by
the media luna departments with their claim for departmental autonomy
dismissed temporarily these differences and focused the Unity Pact on
its struggle against who they called the “reactionary factions” (Garcés,
2010). At different moments of the Assembly’s work and in the year fol-
lowing it, the conflict not only played itself out inside the Assembly but
also involved citizens clashing violently in the streets of different cities.
In all of the cases, the departmental authorities, that is, the prefects who
opposed the MAS, had a clear role in instigating the civil disobedience or
violent clashes. In Cochabamba (the Black January of 2007), Sucre (in
2007, a group of peasants were publicly humiliated by urbanites), Santa
Cruz (attacks on central state offices in the department), and Pando (in
2008, a massacre led to at least 30 deaths and over 100 disappeared; the
state of emergency was declared), the clashes left deep scars in the collective
memory of the events surrounding the adoption of the new Constitution.
Because of the difficulty faced by the Constituent Assembly in adopting
a new Constitution in an orderly and timely fashion, the MAS decided to
“force” the adoption of a text that fitted its vision, which of course meant
that the document’s legitimacy was questionable. Troubles lasted for a year
or so after the production of the new Constitutional draft, greatly destabiliz-
ing the country. Eventually the government decided to negotiate with dif-
ferent actors including some of the political and economic elites of the media
luna departments, in order to adopt a Constitution that would generate a
greater adhesion. On the basis of the text produced at the Assembly, the new
version of the Constitution tried to balance little more the project defended
by the Unity Pact, based on indigenous self-determination, with the project
of the opposition, centered on departmental autonomy. In the end, the new
Constitution defined a new governance structure based on different admin-
istrative/political levels, all conceptualized as “autonomous”: departments,
municipalities, indigenous territories, and indigenous municipalities.
While the indigenous movement can be described as having been

relatively successful in inserting its priorities in the new Constitution,
the post-Constituent Assembly period of intense legislative work around
the implementation of the Constitution meant the return to institutional
politics. Bills were submitted to Congress and the MAS managed to con-
trol most of the legislative process. The dynamics of implementation also
involved a multiple scale of interactions, as all the levels of governance
identified in the new Constitution had to adopt its new autonomy stat-
utes. Therefore, regional politics entered in the equation and indigenous
peoples had to struggle at the level of departments as well as in each of
the indigenous territories recognized by law, or in the newly formed
11 municipalities that decided to become “indigenous municipalities”
through a referendum. This “decentralization” of politics implied highly
complex alliances and interventions at these different levels.
This new complex scenario in itself was sufficient to provoke divisions
and tensions within the indigenous movement. What complicated things
further was the low level of priority accorded by the MAS government in
pushing forward the agenda of autonomy as defined in the Constitution.
The amount of public funds devoted to assisting the different actors involved
in the tasks of debating, designing, and adopting new autonomy statutes
was notoriously low.5 Moreover, the complex bureaucratic requirements
and centralization of control over the approval of the autonomy statutes
also contradicted in part the spirit of the Constitution, which emphasized
indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination (Cameron, 2010).
The relations between the different members of the Unity Pact under-
went a severe deterioration due to dividing sides in a major conflict around
the government’s willingness to build a highway that crossed an indigenous
territory and national protected area, the TIPNIS (Territorio Indígena y
Parque Nacional Isiboro-Secure). The projected highway that had been
approved by the MAS government was meant to connect Cochabamba to
Beni, and eventually to Brazil. The Coca Producers’ Federations were direct
beneficiaries in that this highway would facilitate their commercial activities.
Indigenous and native organizations (mostly CIDOB’s affiliates but also
CONAMAQ) organized a protest march in 2011 (the eighth indigenous
peoples’ march) to oppose the government’s highway project. In the pro-
test, indigenous women had an important leadership role, as was the case,
for example, for Yenny Suarez, president of the Political Committee in the
March’s organizing structure (FundacionTierra, 2012). They were highly
visible as leaders as well as marchers victims of violent repression by the state.
By opposing a government’s project which directly benefited key

embers of the CSUTCB and CSCIB, the protesters launched a confron-
m
tation that produced irreparable damage among indigenous peoples’ orga-
nizations. The CSUTCB, CSCIB, and women’s organizations organically
related to them organized a countermarch and physically impeded march-
ers from carrying forward their peaceful protest. Moreover, these organi-
zations supported government repression against marchers. Indigenous
women, children, and men protesters were attacked with tear gas in a
surprise attack on their Beni camp by 500 policemen.6 Many were beaten
and/or arrested. The repression generated national and international
attention.7 Two ministers resigned as a result of public outrage over the
repression. Instead of denouncing the highly disproportionate and unnec-
essary repression, three indigenous organizations out of five from the Pact
of Unity publicly approved it (Ochoa, 2012). As could be suspected, the
conflict led to the end of the Unity Pact in 2011.
From then on, instead of working together to find ways of reconcil-
ing their different visions of development and justice, the conflict between
the different indigenous movement organizations only grew in intensity.
The MAS government presented ambivalent attitudes, stepping back on its
highway project and then adopting a special law to organize a public con-
sultation on the TIPNIS. The Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera declared
that “some people want those from the TIPNIS to continue living like little
animals (…) now it’s time for them to develop like any other Bolivian”.8
The tone was therefore set to oppose “progress” to supposedly particularis-
tic interests that impeded development to reach local populations. The con-
sultation was held in 2013 and included every adult living in the TIPNIS
rather than only the indigenous peoples who are entitled to collective rights
over it. Therefore, the consultation was rejected by the sectors of the indig-
enous movement who had initially organized the opposition to the project.
On the side of “peasant” organizations, the highway was perceived as a
project that would not only bring “development” to the population living
in the area but also foster increased commercial activities between Bolivian
departments and abroad, something that was highly valued.
CSUTCB, CSCIB, and the women’s organizations that were affiliated
to them also supported the government’s highway project as part of a
broader agenda of struggles over the norms defining land occupation and
ownership. Indeed, in the TIPNIS as well as in other territories legally rec-
ognized through the regime of indigenous collective rights, different waves
of invasions by Quechua or Aymara peasants have produced conflictual
situations between lowland indigenous peoples and these invaders. Many

highland peasants do not accept the fact that lowland indigenous peoples
occupy relatively vast territories without cultivating a high proportion of
them. In contrast, there are no longer agricultural lands available for the
growing population of peasants, a problem that started in the 1960s but
that governments have always “resolved” through promoting or tolerating
the “colonization” of valleys or lowland areas (Fontana, 2014).
The MAS government’s behavior during the TIPNIS crisis and fol-
lowing it has even worsened the situation, as it openly challenged the
authority and leadership of indigenous organizations such as CIDOB and
CONAMAQ. By offering material and political rewards, it managed to
divide CIDOB and create parallel organizations. It did the same at the
level of the regional organizations present in the TIPNIS, where it became
obvious that the MAS had been “buying” indigenous community leaders
around the public consultation campaign. As for the CONAMAQ, it also
suffered from an internal polarization in the aftermath of the TIPNIS pro-
test march. The government sent police officers to CONAMAQ’s central
office in La Paz to intervene during its board election, threw everybody
out of the office, and eventually allowed the pro-government faction to
seize control of the office.9
4 Conclusion
In a little over two decades, the contemporary indigenous movement in
Bolivia has managed to completely transform the terms of politics in the
country. Not only did the nation-state formally become multiethnic and plu-
ricultural in the 1990s and then plurinational in the late 2000s; indigenous
organizations have moved from an intense street protest collective action
to formal politics, winning the highest authority positions in the executive,
legislative, and judicial institutions. As a result of their capacity to show the
legitimacy of their claims, and build on international norms as well as his-
torical memory to reconstruct ethnic identities in political terms, indigenous
actors in the highlands as well as in the lowlands have displaced previous
middle class and elite political parties and installed a new “commonsense”
of what politics should be made of in Bolivia. The critique of neoliberalism
combined with a new discourse of decolonization, both articulated with
indigenous peoples’ rights through different ideological connectors. The
election of Evo Morales in 2005 launched a new era that Canessa (2006)
described as one where many Bolivians would claim “We are all indigenous”.
However, as we neared the end of our research, the politics of

indigeneity revealed many additional layers of complexity, as intense
conflicts between actors identifying as indigenous had launched. These
divisions were associated with some indigenous organizations’ privileged
access to the state and institutional power, while their “opponents” had
to face the MAS’ efforts at dividing and co-opting them. Behind these
political differences, one encounters contrasting visions of emancipatory
projects. The key MAS bases saw the current moment as one where peas-
ants and popular sectors have finally entered the state and can use it to
improve their social status notably through market-based processes. The
other components of the indigenous movement, more centered on ter-
ritorial self-determination, defended ecological integrity and alternatives
to extractivist development models. All see themselves as indigenous, but
indigeneity has clearly been exposed in Bolivia as a category whose mean-
ing is situated, multidimensional, and highly influenced by the relation of
a social group with state power (Canessa, 2012; Fabricant & Gustafson,
2011). In this complex yet decisive breakthrough of the indigenous move-
ment, indigenous women were part and parcel of the mobilizing efforts
and the tensions that multiplied; within the overall pattern of competition
and even discredit between organizations, indigenous women found some
ways to collaborate and pursue an agenda around their rights.
Notes
1. Manifiesto de Tiwanaku, 1973. Available on many websites. Our
translation.
2. “Bolivia is constituted as a Unitary Social State of Community
Plurinational Law, free, independent, sovereign, democratic, inter-
cultural, decentralized and with autonomies” (our translation).
3. See the organization’s Web page: http://www.cscbbol.org/
node/14
4. The Andean Oral History Workshop (THOA) was founded in the
early 1980s by a group of Aymara historians who, inspired by the
Katarista ethnic revival movement, decided to investigate Bolivia’s
indigenous history based on oral sources, in order to contribute to
strengthening contemporary indigenous institutions and practices
based on traditional forms. It became a fierce critique of the
CSUTCB’s union politics and instead promoted the ayllu social
structure. See Stephenson (2002).
5. As explained to us in several interviews with national NGOs and in

an interview with the departmental representative of the Ministry of
Autonomy in one of the departments of the country (Interview
2011).
6. See https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/28/police-attack-tipnis-
marchers-roils-bolivia (last visit July 3, 2014).
7. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2011/10/111005_
bolivia_carretera_tipnis_vs.shtml (last visit July 7, 2014).
8. Quoted in http://www.bolpress.com/art.php?Cod=2013010908
(last visit July 5, 2014).
9. See https://nacla.org/blog/2014/2/3/rival-factions-bolivias-
conamaq-internal-conflict-or-government-manipulation (last visit
July 4, 2014).
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CHAPTER 3
Indigenous Women Transform the

Politics of Representing Women
Bolivian women from rural and popular sectors have a long history of
social mobilization marked by several episodes of social uprising. The
most important current organization, the Confederación Nacional De
Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa”
(CNMCIOB“BS”), is named after a famous Aymara leader Bartolina
Sisa, who was the wife of the late eighteenth-century indigenous rebel-
lions’ leader Tupac Katari. After her husband’s death, Sisa played a pre-
eminent role in leading the rebels’ siege of La Paz. She was captured
by Spanish forces, publicly raped, and later decapitated. She remained
a strong symbol of indigenous resistance, and for that reason Bolivian
peasant women have chosen to honor her memory by naming the orga-
nization after her.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the more recent antecedent to the
contemporary indigenous-peasant women’s organizations is the Comités
de Amas de Casa (Housewives’ Committees), formed in the early 1960s
as women’s organizations to accompany mining unions’ struggles in the
important mining regions of Bolivia. As miners were predominantly males,
whose social reproduction was dependent in great part on the domestic
Si la Descolonización es la revolución india, la Despatriarcalización es la revolución

de la mujer indígena, es decir es la revolución dentro de la revolución.
Web page, Vice-Ministerio de Descolonización, Ministerio de Culturas y
Turismo, Bolivia

labor of their wives, the latter decided to form their own organizations to
contribute to the general struggle of the mining communities and thereby
complement the work of their husbands on different or similar fronts.
Their most important action was a massive hunger strike in the late 1970s
that was deemed central to the fall of the dictatorship of General Hugo
Banzer who ruled Bolivia from 1971 to 1978 (Barrios de Chungara &
Viezzer, 1978; Lavaud, 1999; Nash, 1993).
This experience of organizing and mobilizing in parallel to a pre-
dominantly male form of organization, the mining union, created an
important precedent that was later replicated in several of the organiza-
tions that today form the indigenous women’s movement. This “gender
parallelism” conforms to the strong sexual division of labor and highly
gendered social organization in the Bolivian rural areas in particular;
at the same time, the expansion of this model of organizing reveals the
growing emergence of women as social actors, claiming the right to
participate in the political destinies of their communities and nation.
Indeed, traditionally, indigenous-peasant women have been excluded
from the spheres of political representation and decision-making, mostly
through the sexist rules, formal or informal, presiding over land tenure
and communal assembly governance (Deere & León de Leal, 2001).
The creation of the Comités de Amas de Casa and, later, of new organi-
zations created by and for women to work side by side and permanently
related to predominantly male organizations, can be read as a strategy to
render women’s political participation socially and culturally legitimate
(Salazar, 1998).
1 Women’s Organizing Through Different

Processes and Collective Identities
As mentioned above, the most common type of organization in the indig-
enous women’s movement of Bolivia is a women-only organization parallel
to and permanently related to a male-dominated organization. Alongside
the impressive growth of the indigenous movement in this country, as
highlighted in the preceding chapter, we argue that this model of orga-
nizing has been beneficial for the massive entry of indigenous women
in national politics. The following will describe and analyze the different
organizations created by indigenous women as well as the main obstacles
they faced in their trajectory.
INDIGENOUS WOMEN TRANSFORM THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTING WOMEN 57
1.1 The Confederación Nacional De Mujeres Campesinas

Indígenas Originarias De Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa”
The CNMCIOB“BS” is presently the more powerful women’s organiza-
tion in Bolivia, representing tens of thousands of women from rural areas.
Its pyramidal structure is now covering all the country’s nine depart-
ments and is articulated at the provincial and community levels in many
regions. It was created in 1980 under the name of Federación Nacional
de Mujeres Campesinas de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa” (FNMCB“BS”), but
it changed its name in 2008 to reflect more centrally the diversity of iden-
tities found among its members. This change was also in line with the
2009 Constitution’s article 2 that recognizes the “precolonial existence
of indigenous, native, peasant peoples and nations” (“naciones y pueblos
indígena originario campesinos”).
The “Bartolinas”, as it is called, was formed in the context of peasant
resistance against the dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer in the 1970s,
and the economic policies adopted by the transitional government of
President Gueiler in 1979, which adversely affected the peasants’ living
conditions. As part of the Katarista movement and the blockades and pro-
tests organized by the CSUTCB, many actively involved peasant women
leaders expressed the need to create a specific organization for women
to increase further their contribution to the peasant movement (Leon,
1990). The national executive of the CSUTCB gave the instruction to
form women’s departmental “centrales” (high-level coordinating body).
Initially, the organization was therefore not built from the bottom-up but
rather from a top-down initiative of key leaders.
It was only in the mid-1990s that the Bartolinas started to form depart-
mental federations by drawing in more members (Arnold & Spedding,
2005). From the mid- to late 2000s, the organization expanded exponen-
tially to create local organizations more systematically (Interviews, 2013).
This allowed it to shift toward being a confederation with a truly pyrami-
dal structure throughout the country. As explained by Isabel Dominguez,
who was the national executive president of the Bartolinas from 2006
to 2008 and was elected as a member of the Constituent Assembly, the
Bartolinas gradually replaced the Clubes de Madres (Mothers’ Clubs),
a preceding form of local organization used by governments to con-
trol grassroots women and limit their activities to survival-based claims
(Interview Isabel Dominguez, 2013). They have also built on the experi-
ence of women’s organizations from mining zones.
Several sources indicated that the Bartolinas has for a long time been
building its organization without explicitly advocating an agenda designed
to represent women’s specific interests (Leon, 1990; Salazar, 1998). A
predominant part of what the organization did was to build the conditions
for rural women’s participation in the mobilizations and strategies of the
CSUTCB, and later also of the MAS party. The priorities pursued in that
framework involved land reform, nationalization of natural resources, state
reform based on a new Constitution designed by a Constituent Assembly,
greater state involvement in the economy, and improved education and
health. This being said, in the mid-1980s, there was a strong tension and
debate around the project led by male leaders of the CSUTCB to reinte-
grate the women members of the Bartolinas in the confederation in order
to keep them under control and, more importantly, benefit from their
skills and mobilizing capacity. Leader Genaro Flores stated in an inter-
view that “we are making the organization of the women comrades more
viable: we could frustrate their struggles, their organizations but we are
thinking that women could run the economic side of the Confederation
[the CSUTCB]” (Leon, 1990: 147). Strong women leaders like Lucila
Mejia de Morales opposed such projects and instead aimed to increase
the Bartolinas’ autonomy (Leon, 1990). No side managed to win, and
the status quo was maintained. But gradually the women members of the
Bartolinas developed greater ease at voicing their concerns and ideas as
women peasants, at least internally in their own meetings.
The accumulation of experience as organized peasant women, as well
as the changing context of Bolivian society from the 1990s onward, facili-
tated the consolidation of the Bartolinas as representing rural women’s
voices in the public sphere. At least since 2004 when indigenous-peasant
organizations started to build a more precise agenda for the Constituent
Assembly, the Bartolinas managed to insert a strong demand for gen-
der parity in political representation (Arnold & Spedding, 2005). It also
managed to be the only women’s organization member of the Pacto de
Unidad since its formation in 2004 and up to its weakening in 2011 when
strong tensions divided the Pacto’s member organizations.
Moreover, the Bartolinas also participated in the management of the
Fondo de desarrollo para los pueblos indígenas, originarios y comuni-
dades campesinas, a state-created development fund based on a percent-
age of the taxes collected in the extractive industry sector. This Fund,
popularly referred to as “Fondo indígena”, was created in 2005 but only
started to approve development projects in 2010. As a decentralized
public institution managed directly by social organizations, it became an

important channel for indigenous-peasant organizations to obtain finan-
cial resources from the state. Indigenous women from other organizations
felt disadvantaged due to the exclusive role of the Bartolinas in repre-
senting indigenous-peasant women in the Fund’s management (Interview
Anonymous, 2013; Interview Justa Cabrera, 2011).
The Bartolinas became a highly respected and powerful organization
centrally positioned within the elite circles as well as the grassroots bases of
the MAS party. It was indeed one of the key organizations, among many,
to create this party, as was explained in the preceding chapter. One of the
most active and important affiliates of the Bartolinas is the Federación
Campesina De Mujeres Del Trópico, Fecamtrop, that gathers six organiza-
tions of women coca producers from the Trópico región of Cochabamba,
where Evo Morales first built his political career and remains the chief
leader.
The election of the MAS at the highest political positions there-
fore meant the access of many Bartolinas’ leaders to important political
appointments or elected seats. In that respect, President Evo Morales has
rewarded the Bartolinas for their intense efforts to bring him and the
MAS to power, by nominating and promoting peasant women leaders
to prominent positions of power. An unprecedented rise of women from
humble origins but with impressive trajectories as social leaders to the posi-
tions of ministers, vice-ministers, senators, president of the Constituent
Assembly, and others has definitely transformed the symbolism of political
power by breaking down gender, class, and ethnic barriers (Buice, 2013;
Monasterios, Stefanoni, & Alto, 2007; Rousseau, 2010). Evo Morales has
proudly nominated 50 % of women on his cabinet, another unprecedented
fact that is claimed by the Bartolinas as one of its gains, due to the cen-
tral influence they hold in the MAS (Interviews Isabel Dominguez, 2013;
Leonilda Zurita, 2011). While not all the women appointed as ministers
pertained to the Bartolinas, a number of them did.
The CNMCIOB“BS”’s mission statement in 2013 emphasized the
issues of territorial and food sovereignty as well as the dignity of peasant,
indigenous, and native women of Bolivia. It sought to foster the equitable
participation of women in political, social and economic spheres through
the discursive framework of the “chacha warmi”.1 The gender parallelism
embedded in the history and practice of collaboration and joint politi-
cal platforms between the CSUTCB and the Bartolinas reflects a specific
understanding of this concept emerging from the Aymara language and
representing the complementarity of opposites (“yanantin” is the Quechua

equivalent). According to the Bartolinas’ understanding of chacha warmi,
men and women should occupy equally the spheres of political decision-
making (Interview Isabel Dominguez, 2013). Its perspective is therefore
one of integrating men and women’s struggles, seen as a joint action in
defense of communities.
The consolidation of the Bartolinas since the mid-2000s has therefore
apparently reinforced the gender parallelism in the most important peas-
ant union, to the extent that Isabel Dominguez, an important leader of
the Bartolinas, claimed that women no longer belonged to the CSUTCB,
the “males’ organization” (Interview, 2013). Dominguez claimed that the
Bartolinas was “autonomous”. However, in the opinion of technical
experts working at an NGO that has been working for decades in sup-
port of peasant and indigenous organizing, the growth of the Bartolinas
has not meant the end of women’s participation in the CSUTCB at the
local level. At this level, there is a greater confusion between both orga-
nizations, so much so that women who participate in the Bartolinas also
run as candidates for positions within the CSUTCB structure (Interviews,
2013). At the level of some departmental federations, both CSUTCB’s
and the Bartolinas’ offices shared the same building. The majority of pro-
tests and many activities organized by the highest leadership of these orga-
nizations were held in common.
Moreover, the autonomy of the Bartolinas should be nuanced by point-
ing out their organizational ties to the MAS party and therefore to the
government of Evo Morales. In an interview, Bartolinas’ leaders explained
that when disagreeing with the president or the government, they chose
not to voice their critique publicly and rather resorted to private meet-
ings with the president to let their complaints be heard. In public, the
Bartolinas is known as a fierce defender of the government and even more
so of the President Evo Morales, whom it sees as a brother, comrade, or
even as a paternal figure. Aida Villaroel, departmental executive secretary
of the Bartolinas in Cochabamba as of 2013, referred to Evo Morales
in these terms: “We don’t have another leader; he is an unquestionable
leader. (…) He comes from a very humble family and knows what it is to
suffer from hunger; he knows how life is in the countryside. (…) he works
for everybody equally. (…) We as a social organization always trust him”
(Interview Aida Villaroel, 2013).
The Bartolinas is a clear channel for indigenous-peasant women’s politi-
cal training and career. Leonilda Zurita Vargas, for example, is an i nteresting
case of a leader born in the coca production zone of the Chaparé, who has
held various leadership positions in the Federación de Mujeres Campesinas
del Tropico de Cochabamba, and became the national executive president
of the Bartolinas for the period 2000–2003. Zurita has been imprisoned
several times in the 1990s for her involvement in defending coca-leaf-
producing communities against repressive actions by the Bolivian and US
militaries’ Special Coca Eradication Forces. She was elected Senator in
2005, and later held important positions within the MAS party: Executive
Director for the Department of Cochabamba and later MAS’ International
Relations Secretary (Interview Leonilda Zurita, 2011).
From a financial and logistical point of view, the Bartolinas is not for-
mally a union like its counterpart CSUTCB. The latter is based on the
communal assembly structure relying on the governance of communal
land management. The Bartolinas’ financial basis is comparably weak and
unstable. In that respect, the organization depends to some extent on the
CSUTCB for its capacity to participate in many activities held in com-
mon (Arnold & Spedding, 2005). This situation may gradually change
following the process of women’s greater access to land titles, an issue
that has received more importance under the government of Evo Morales.
Transforming the structure of community governance to include women
on equal terms is in great part related to the way political rights are con-
nected to land titles and male prerogatives in domestic units. Women have
gradually managed to obtain political rights at that level, which is closely
related to the dynamics of indigenous-peasant unions. This being said,
the Bartolinas receives support from international funders such as the
Norwegian cooperation (through Norwegian NGOs) and the Swedish
Cooperative Centre (later called “We Effect”), among others, and has
managed to survive out of the voluntary work of its leaders (Interviews
Isabel Dominguez, 2013; Aida Villaroel, 2013; Leonilda Zurita, 2011).
1.2 Confederación Sindical De Mujeres De Comunidades

Interculturales De Bolivia
The CSCIB, previously named Confederación Sindical de Colonizadores
de Bolivia, was created in 1971 to represent communities of migrants
from the highlands to the lowlands or valleys of Bolivia, as explained in
the preceding chapter. Only in 2010 did the organization decide to create
a “women’s wing” to organize women in a more systematic and politically
recognizable fashion. In June 2011, the newly formed Confederación
Sindical de Mujeres de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia (CSMCIB)

held its first Congress to elect its first national executive.
The relative youth of this organization explains why it still is often sub-
sumed under the men’s organization, previously not identified as such.
As Cornelia Fernandez, executive secretary of the Federación Sindical
de Mujeres Interculturales of Yungas Chaparé (Cochabamba), argued,
women’s organizing as Interculturales was necessary in part because the
Bartolinas would not accept their affiliation (Interview Cornelia Fernandez,
2013). The women seeking to form their organization out of the commu-
nities affiliated to the CSCIB wanted initially to join the Bartolinas, but
the relations between the CSUTCB and the CSCIB would have been neg-
atively affected by this shifting balance of power. Instead, it was felt more
beneficial to the CSCIB that the women from the communities affiliated
to the confederation create their own organization. Negotiations between
male-dominated CSUTCB and CSCIB were therefore key in explaining
the rationale behind this young organization’s creation.
The CSMCIB is deeply connected to the CSCIB. In that respect, it
conforms to the model of parallel organizing conforming to the gendered
structure of unions that emerged out of the mining and then peasant
movements. Moreover, the CSMCIB and the Bartolinas collaborate on a
permanent basis. From the point of view of Cornelia Fernandez, who lives
and works in the coca-leaf-growing region of Cochabamba, the organiz-
ing dynamics is more importantly revolving around the six federations of
coca growers, which act as a unified bloc in all political actions of regional,
departmental, or national importance. Four of the six federations belong
to the Interculturales (CSCIB-CSMCIB), and the remaining two belong
to the CSUTCB-Bartolinas.
In the department of Santa Cruz as well, one could observe that the
logic of affiliation either to the CSUTCB-Bartolinas or the Interculturales
did not respond to an objective criteria, as, in fact, the populations likely
to affiliate to one or the other were descendants of migrants from the
Highlands or migrants themselves, making a living out of activities related
to agriculture (Interview Felipa Merino, 2011). Their ethnic identity
(Quechua or Aymara) contrasted with the local populations of indigenous
peoples who have been present for centuries in the territories occupied
by these migrants and who have different economic activities and social
organization.
The CSMCIB has managed to arrange its relation with the CSCIB so as
to guarantee its economic autonomy. The members of both organizations
pay 1 boliviano per month (approximately US$0.15), and the global sum
collected is divided equally between both in order to pay for leaders’
travel expenses, meetings, and other organizational activities (Interview
Cornelia Fernandez, 2013). Beyond this formal established way of gen-
erating resources for the organization, Fernandez for example explained
how she worked hard to generate productive projects for her Federation’s
members. Sewing and confectionery were the two activities that she iden-
tified as having led to micro-enterprises that ensured some steady revenues
for her Federation’s members.
The Spanish International Cooperation provided funds for a training
project for leaders that included the CSMCIB. According to Fernandez,
this was crucial to allow them to build stronger leadership and explains
why several women members of the organization have been elected as
municipal councilors or senators.
1.3 The Confederación Nacional De Mujeres Indígenas

De Bolivia
The Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas de Bolivia (CNAMIB)
was created in November 2007 and adopted its founding statutes in 2008
with 11 regional affiliates, drawn from the same pool of affiliates as its
parallel organization, la Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia
(CIDOB) (formed in 1982 by four founding indigenous peoples and now
representing the 34 indigenous peoples in the lower lands of Bolivia). Its
creation in the midst of the Constituent Assembly process has enriched
the politics of representing indigenous women in Bolivia, as the CNAMIB
represents women coming from the lower lands of Bolivia, whereas the
main thrust of the Bartolinas is to represent women from the highlands
or valleys of the country, as well as Quechua and Aymara women migrants
from the lower lands. A similar contrast could be drawn between the
CNAMIB and the CSMCIB.
Justa Cabrera, president of CNAMIB when interviewed for this book,
and former vice-president of the Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní, explained
that the organization had its roots in the increasing frustration on the
part of the women leaders from CIDOB’s regional affiliates regarding
their constant marginalizing. Justa claimed that women “are the first to
put out their chest and receive the bullets” and then were made invis-
ible, for example, when the time came for press conferences. Some of the
women leaders and CIDOB’s Gender Secretariat decided to organize a
first general assembly attended by approximately 200 women, where the

decision was made unanimously to form a new organization for indig-
enous women (Interview Justa Cabrera, 2011).
This first assembly was made possible in part due to the support
from some Bolivian feminist NGOs such as Coordinadora de la Mujer
and Colectivo Rebeldía, and development NGOs like CIPCA. At first,
CIDOB’s leaders adversely reacted to the news of the creation of the
CNAMIB. Justa Cabrera recalled that during a meeting, CIDOB lead-
ers expressed their disagreement but then agreed on the condition that
CNAMIB would not ask for a penny or for any assistance from them. She
also remembered how the first CNAMIB leaders were accused of wanting
to “make a parallel organization and divide them”. At first, “we did not
even have paper nor a pencil … we met under a tree” (Interview Justa
Cabrera, 2011). Nevertheless, relations improved gradually. According
to Justa, CNAMIB managed to demonstrate that it wanted to collabo-
rate with CIDOB and organize women in a more efficient way. This led
CIDOB to grant CNAMIB a working space within the building it owned.
Another motivation to create CNAMIB was the willingness to counter
the relative monopoly of representation exercised by the Bartolinas in the
name of the indigenous women of Bolivia (Rousseau, 2014). According
to Justa Cabrera, the Bartolinas “was jealous” when CNAMIB was estab-
lished. The ethnic identity affirmation that was part of CNAMIB’s move
against the Bartolinas’ expansion impulse helped legitimize its existence
in the eyes of CIDOB leaders, even though CNAMIB grew in part due
to the support of non-indigenous feminist organizations, a rather risky
association in the eyes of many indigenous organizations (Interviews Justa
Cabrera, 2011; Lupe Pérez, 2011).
Another organizational type which is particular to the Bolivian case
is that of a single organization including men and women but in a sys-
tematically organized “gender complementarity”, at least from a symbolic
point of view. As mentioned above, throughout the Andes Highlands, the
concept of “chacha warmi” (Aymara) or “yanantin” (Quechua), central to
these indigenous peoples’ cultural understandings of the universe’s equi-
librium, represents the complementarity of opposites. While it applies—
potentially—to any existing thing, it centrally defines the symbolic
relationship between men and women (gender relations) attributed by
many anthropologists and historians to these cultural formations (Arnold
et al., 1997). To some extent but in a flexible manner it also justifies the
sexual division of labor in Andean rural societies. Gender complementarity
as a characteristic cultural trait differentiating some indigenous cultures

from contemporary Western understandings of gender—the latter based
in the contemporary era on the ideal of equality—has also been used in the
discursive strategies of many indigenous organizations. In CONAMAQ,
as will be explained below, it goes further by being embedded in the orga-
nizational structure of the movement.
1.4 Consejo Nacional De Ayllus y Markas Del Qullasuyu

As detailed in the previous chapter, CONAMAQ was formed in 1997 by
Aymaras and Quechuas who sought to rebuild the ancient Ayllus, Markas,
and Suyus (precolonial indigenous territories with customary economic
and political institutions). From the beginnings of the organization, the
dual authority chacha warmi—spouses assuming together the position
and responsibility of community office they have been chosen for—was
established. The Tatas (male authorities) therefore go about performing
their duties accompanied by the Mama T’allas (female authorities). There
is a consensual recognition that the Mama T’allas have not been exercis-
ing political authority on a par with their husbands, both because of the
machista attitude of their spouse and community in general, and the spe-
cific limitations they are facing in the political sphere as predominantly illit-
erate and indigenous monolinguals (Interviews, 2011, 2013). Indigenous
men tend to be more literate and bilingual than their female counterpart.
However, as of the early 2000s, the Mama T’allas started to manifest their
willingness to stop being merely symbolic authorities and empower them-
selves in order to participate in the organization on equal terms. From the
mid-2000s onward, this demand materialized into a series of initiatives
that the CONAMAQ assumed from within with the contribution of sev-
eral NGO partners (CONAMAQ-Cochabamba, 2012).
Toribia Lero, National Coordinator of the Native and Indigenous
Women’s Program at CONAMAQ, explained that the model of dual
authorities works best at the local level, where women’s responsibilities
as political representatives do not conflict as much with their domestic
and other communal obligations. Since both spouses need to accompany
themselves in all the activities involved in their political appointments and
organizational activities, it becomes increasingly difficult as the geographi-
cal scale of responsibility rises. Leaving a house “abandoned” by both
spouses at the same time presents serious challenges to a family, both eco-
nomically and logistically. These challenges are easier to manage when
political duties are at the local level and the authorities can return home
at night. Moreover, communities are more prone to assist their authorities
in carrying out domestic labor when the authorities act at the local level.
Finally, at the local level, politics is carried out face to face and in indig-
enous languages, and therefore the majority of women are as objectively
skilled as men (Interview Toribia Lero, 2013).
Another difficulty related to this gender duality as identified by Toribia
Lero is the fact that male authorities, the Tatas, tend to leave their wives
with the sole responsibility of taking care of the family’s young children.
This also applies to many women leaders from other organizations, but
is more predictable for those of the CONAMAQ where both husbands
and wives are authorities at the same time, making it impossible for them
to stay at home to take care of the children. The Mama T’allas therefore,
in general, have to bring their younger children with them during their
political activities and meetings. Moreover, as explained by Toribia Lero,
many Mama T’allas faced practical obstacles in their first experiences in the
cities because of their lower linguistic skills and were prone to be more dis-
criminated than their husbands because of their gender (Interview, 2013).
In order to try to facilitate the greater participation of women as effec-
tive authorities, some actors joined in 2006 to develop a Leadership School
for Women from the CONAMAQ. José Luis Alvarez, coordinator of the
Indigenous Intercultural Management Program at the Danish NGO IBIS,
now called OXFAM-IBIS, one of the key promoters and funders of the
school, reported in an interview that it has been very difficult and took
long to develop curricula material for this school, and to find women lead-
ers who could participate. From 2010 to 2013 when our research ended,
40 women community leaders per year received training at this school.
Those who received the training were not the Mama T’allas, because their
mandate only lasted two years; it was more productive to train leaders at
a lower level so that they use their training when they eventually became
Mama T’allas (Interview José Luis Alvarez, 2013).
To foster a greater presence of women in its leadership, the CONAMAQ
adopted a resolution in 2004, creating a Gender Commission (Comision
de género) within each regional affiliate and at the national level of the
organization. This move reflected the particular difficulties that the orga-
nization had been facing in practicing its gender duality. Yet CONAMAQ’s
gender duality faced an even more intractable obstacle in its insertion in
the institutional, official space of the state and government. When indig-
enous representation is allowed, it usually comes in the form of a number
of seats or quotas, designed for individual representatives. CONAMAQ’s

dual representation system goes unrecognized, even by the government
of Evo Morales who purportedly proclaimed its own indigeneity or at
least sympathy with the indigenous movement (Interview Toribia Lero,
2013). There was no opening to dual representation when, from the dom-
inant institutional context, seats are conceived as being held by a single
individual.
2 The Agency of Organized Indigenous Women

Bolivian indigenous women’s organizations have managed, in the course
of the past decade, to move from being associated with some of the most
marginalized sectors of society, to becoming a collective actor present
in the country’s major political dynamics. This emergence can be traced
back to the first protests led by lowland indigenous organizations in the
early 1990s, as well as the formation of the MAS and numerous mobili-
zations from the late 1990s onward that have led to the breakdown of
the old political system and the launching of Evo Morales’ new era of
“Democratic Revolution”. In all of these processes, indigenous women
were key participants.
As argued elsewhere, the Constituent Assembly, which lasted from
2006 to 2009, was a key factor for the indigenous women’s movement
to become recognized in the public sphere and at least for some sectors
to institutionalize themselves (Rousseau, 2011). The interaction between
the indigenous and feminist movements during the negotiations that
marked the elaboration of the new Constitution prompted a growing
integration of women’s rights claims into indigenous organizations’ plat-
forms, while the feminist movement decided to open itself to and adopt
many aspects of the indigenous movement’s agenda. In both dynamics,
the role of organized indigenous women was central because of the legiti-
macy and mass-based nature of their organizations. The result was the
adoption of one of the more progressive Constitutions of the world from
a gender and indigenous perspectives. Moreover, the process transformed
the relations between indigenous women’s organizations and the feminist
movement, which were previously quite distant. The relative advantage
of the latter over the former in financial and political capital was replaced
by a more balanced relation of collaboration and mutual need (Rousseau,
2011). However, as expressed in interviews carried out in previous work
as well as for this research, this collaborative stance is filled with obstacles
and frustration, one of them being related to the continuing inequality in

managing the funds and projects within the Coordinadora de la Mujer.
The Bolivian case is characterized by a relatively unique process of insti-
tutionalized coordination work between all the major sectors of organized
women, under the umbrella of a NGO Coordinadora de la Mujer. The lat-
ter was formed in 1984 so that different women’s NGOs from the different
departments of the country could join forces in pushing forward different
legal and policy reforms related to women’s rights agenda. As explained by
Katia Uriona, the Coordinadora de la Mujer’s Executive Secretary at the
time of interview, in 2009 the organization decided to change its approach
and broaden its membership to include social organizations with grass-
roots members such as all the indigenous-peasant women’s organizations:
“before we acted only as ‘the Coordinadora’; now we transformed into a
political movement, as political actors that enter into dialogue with other
movements to construct alliances around agendas that are broader, when
these are also in dialogue with the women’s agenda”. Part of the transfor-
mation was also connected to the acknowledgment by women’s NGOs of
the importance of ethnic discrimination as a political issue, together with
granting legitimacy to indigenous and peasant movements’ claims. Uriona
recognized that, previous to the Constituent Assembly process, her orga-
nization was not prone to endorse these agendas and instead focused on a
gender agenda defined exclusively by non-indigenous women (Interview
Katia Uriona, 2013).
The change involved a process of creating the conditions to foster
dialogue between women working in different sectors of civil society.
The Coordinadora de la Mujer as a network now includes 26 women’s
NGOs that are active in the nine departments of the country, as well as 11
social organizations called “organizaciones matrices” (national organiza-
tions with broad membership and linked to the MAS). Its new goal is to
jointly carry out a concerted agenda constructed around three objectives:
promote a women’s rights agenda in all the social organizations; build
a women’s agenda in the context of the legal and institutional reforms
that seek to materialize the principles and rights contained in the new
Constitution; and empower women leaders in their own organizations
(Interview Katia Uriona, 2013). This being said, Uriona emphasized the
fact that each organization participating at the Coordinadora de la Mujer
remains autonomous. She added that a condition for the durability of
the network is that each respects the views and priorities of the others,
based on the principles of equity and equality. In the context of increasing
tensions after 2010 around the TIPNIS highway and the obstacles the
MAS government put in the way of those who sought to carry out the
agenda of indigenous autonomy, the Coordinadora de la Mujer faced
many challenges to survive as a relevant political network.
A striking conclusion that may be reached when analyzing all the inter-
views conducted with indigenous-peasant leaders whose organizations
participate in the Coordinadora de la Mujer’s work is that they do not
consider it as a central dimension of their efforts as social and political
actors, nor do they express a sense of belonging to it as a sort of collec-
tive of women’s organizations. In all of the interviews, it is only when
specifically asked about the Coordinadora de la Mujer’s work that inter-
viewees expressed their opinion about it. Moreover, when asked about
their links with the feminist movement, the majority of these interview-
ees explicitly distanced themselves from it, claiming to pursue different
visions of change based on distinct options in relation to gender rela-
tions. They stated that in contrast to feminists, they saw their struggle
as being a struggle shared with their male counterparts, a struggle for
greater social justice and less discrimination in general. The Bartolinas was
most adamant in claiming that feminists were urban, middle-class women,
“wearing make-up” and managing well-funded organizations (Interviews
Isabel Dominguez, 2013; Leonilda Zurita & Felipa Merino, 2011). While
acknowledging that many gains have been made in legal and institutional
reforms to empower women and protect their rights better, and that
some feminist activists had provided some help in some circumstances,
the Bartolinas spoke about the “revolutionary gains” as related to the
efforts of the organization’s bases allied with other peasant organizations.
In general, indigenous and peasant women’s organizations criticized the
lack of horizontal leadership within the Coordinadora. Some resented the
absence of political stance of the Coordinadora in the context of social
conflicts such as the TIPNIS’s.
The CNAMIB stands out as an indigenous women’s organization that
has developed close links with feminist organizations from the eastern
lowlands. Justa Cabrera, executive secretary of the confederation in 2011,
emphasized the close links and positive collaboration with Colectivo
Rebeldia, an important feminist NGO from Santa Cruz. She also claimed
that she and many leaders at the CNAMIB were favorable to the decrimi-
nalization of abortion, a very sensitive issue that divides indigenous and
non-indigenous women activists in general in Bolivia and other Latin
American countries (Interview Justa Cabrera, 2011).
2.1 Gains and Victories
Still, the critiques voiced by many indigenous and peasant women leaders
should be juxtaposed in a paradoxical fashion to their continuing par-
ticipation within the Coordinadora de la Mujer’s activities, and to the
important gains that together they managed to attain as part of the pro-
cess of institutional and legal reforms since the election of Evo Morales.
Indeed, amidst all the tensions within the indigenous-peasant movement
described in the preceding chapter, the organizations represented in the
Coordinadora continued to meet, strategize together, and make pub-
lic statements where they jointly made strong demands to the State in
defense of women’s rights.
For example, in March 2013, over 250 women from national orga-
nizations participating at the Coordinadora de la Mujer met at the
“Encuentro Nacional: Mujeres Avanzando hacia la Despatriarcalización y
la No Violencia”. This meeting was called to react on the occasion of the
adoption of the Ley Integral para Garantizar a las Mujeres una Vida Libre
de Violencia (Integral Law to Guarantee Women a Life Free of Violence).
This law recognized femicide and sexual harassment as crimes, among
others. While the meeting’s statement endorsed the law, it called on the
State to adopt further measures to end violence against women, such as
immediate budget assignation to implement the law at the different gov-
ernmental levels, key reforms of the civil, penal, and family codes, and the
provision of adequate training to public and private institutions involved
in the implementation of the law.2
Broadly speaking, the Coordinadora de la Mujer’s affiliates were suc-
cessful in a number of issues that managed to gather consensus within
and outside of its membership. Gender parity emerged as a strong agenda
among indigenous and non-indigenous women’s organizations from
the moment it started to be claimed in the context of the Constituent
Assembly. The Bartolinas was the first to raise this proposal in the public
space, and indeed it boasted about being more radical than the feminist
movement in this field. The latter has typically, in Bolivia and elsewhere
in Latin America, struggled for electoral gender quotas that remained in
the ranks of 25–40 %. Indigenous-peasant women’s perspective on gen-
der relations, based on the general notion of gender complementarity,
was logically associated, with them fiercely demanding that the princi-
ple of gender parity (50 %) be enshrined in the new Constitution and
electoral laws, which it did. Through the work of the Coordinadora de
la Mujer, the issue of gender parity in political representation became
an explicit critique of the patriarchal state associated with the previous,

criollo-dominated regime. Women’s lobbying in Congress to adopt gen-
der parity in the electoral reform law involved the crucial intervention of
Senator Leonilda Zurita, longtime leader of the Bartolinas and the MAS,
who gathered support among elected women’s ranks and convinced an
indigenous Congresswoman to speak for the gender parity and alternation
clauses (Htun & Ossa, 2013: 11–12).3
The proposal to adopt a law on sexual and reproductive rights also mobi-
lized several women’s organizations during the 2000s, leading to the adop-
tion of a Bill by Congress in 2004, which was subsequently vetoed by the
then President Carlos Mesa. At the time, most of the lobbying work had
been done without the participation of indigenous and peasant women’s
organizations. But as of 2010, the CSMCIB started to mobilize around this
issue. Together with the vice-ministry on Equal Opportunity, it presented a
Bill on this matter in 2012. The Bill was a result of a strong effort to gather
proposals and points of view from the confederation’s grassroots.4 But at
the time of writing this book, it was still a relatively controversial issue
which did not generate broad enough consensus to be adopted.
Another major victory for women, and women political leaders in
particular, was the adoption of the Ley contra el Acoso y Violencia
Política hacia las Mujeres (Law against political violence and harassment
against women) in May 2012. The law defines women’s political rights
as candidates and elected authorities, as well as the norms and offenses
that can be penalized under the law when infringing on these rights.
This legal instrument was deemed necessary in light of the dramatic
stories of many women elected as authorities at the local, departmen-
tal, and national levels, who were victims of threats, and physical and
psychological violence. The Women Municipal Councillors’ Association
(ACOBOL) was the key actor pushing for this law for years before its
adoption. In the period 2000–2011, ACOBOL received 300 complaints
about cases of violence or threats.5 The Coordinadora de la Mujer was
also one of the key promoters of the law. When asked about the impor-
tance of this issue, indigenous-peasant leaders such as Leonilda Zurita
(Bartolinas-MAS) indicated that she hoped the Bill would come out of a
consensus among grassroots social organizations rather than “only from
the office of the Coordinadora de la Mujer”. When asked if she had
been a victim of harassment herself, she responded “I always have had
problems, but I am a woman who believes in the organization; I don’t
like to fight. So if they elect me to a position, I go” (Interview Leonilda
Zurita, 2011).
While the relations between indigenous-peasant women leaders and

non-indigenous feminist activists are therefore paradoxical in their com-
bining collaboration, some continuing distrust, and some tensions, and
even if indigenous-peasant women do not usually identify themselves to
feminism, Bolivia offers another idiosyncratic innovation when it comes
to gender politics.6 Indeed, in order to concretize article 9.1 of the 2009
Constitution,7 the government of Evo Morales created a Vice-Ministry of
Decolonization attached to the Ministry of Cultures and Tourism. Within
this vice-ministry, Depatriarcalization Unit has also been formed and is
being headed by an indigenous woman. The first head of the Unit was
Esperanza Huanca Mendoza, an indigenous native authority from the
Marka Saqaqa and Suyu Charcas Q’ara Q’ara, part of the organization
CONAMAQ. The second head of the Unit was Elisa Vega Sillo, from the
Q’alla Hualla Nation. Elisa Vega is the daughter of a former Bartolinas
leader and has herself been a part of the Bartolinas’ leadership. She was
elected as member of the Constituent Assembly and contributed to the
work of its Commission on Gender and Generations. It is clear from these
nominations that the government associated depatriarcalizing the state
and society as a task best led by indigenous women with strong leadership
experience. On the Web page of the vice-ministry of decolonization, one
can read that depatriarcalization is the “revolution of indigenous women”,
and that this revolution implies changing gender relations in the domestic
sphere and applying the principle of gender complementarity to eradicate
patriarchal power relations based on gender inequality and the oppression
of both women and indigenous peoples.8
Besides the work done within the Coordinadora de la Mujer or within
the State, indigenous women’s organizations also instituted in 2009 the
practice of meeting on a yearly basis. For example, in 2011, a total of
4000 women delegates participated in what has been called the Alianza
de Organizaciones Sociales de Mujeres por la Revolución Intercultural y
Unidad. Under the leadership of the Bartolinas, this meeting served to
make indigenous-peasant women’s organizations visible, mass-based actors
in the public sphere (Interview Katia Uriona, 2013). In March 2012, for
example, the Alianza produced a joint statement at the end of its meeting
where it proposed the adoption of a law on the prevention and sanction
of violence against women, which the government did a few months after.
2.2 Tensions and Conflicts
The high level of fragmentation within social movements in the period
following the Constituent Assembly, combined with the efforts of the MAS
government at creating a new hegemony at the cost of repressing some

indigenous organizations, complicates the politics of representing Bolivian
women through a broad coalition. Several issues created tensions between
basically two set of organizations: on the one hand a group formed princi-
pally by the Bartolinas and CSMCIB that acted in full support of the MAS
government and publicly defended President Evo Morales in all circum-
stances. On the other hand, we found the indigenous women’s organiza-
tions such as CNAMIB-CIDOB and the CONAMAQ, which expressed
increasing critiques of the government’s policies and behavior from 2011
onward.
The conflict over the TIPNIS revealed in a stark fashion the different
visions of development and citizenship held by these two sectors. When
asked to explain what the conflict was about, Isabel Dominguez, a key
leader of the Bartolinas, put it this way: “They don’t even know how to
read or write, our Indigenous Peoples from TIPNIS, right? They don’t
even know vegetables, or how to dress properly. They live like animals.
But other people benefit from their situation. This is why we … Of course
we are Bolivians as well, we have rights over protected areas. But they also
have citizenship rights. This is why the State wants to build roads, consider
people’s need for water, electricity, health, education, but business people
don’t allow it. They buy [Indigenous] leaders, they have made a deal with
the heads of organizations, who then earn better wages and for that reason
they don’t allow the roads” (Interview, 2013). Cornelia Fernandez, from
the CSMCIB, presented the same interpretation about the TIPNIS indig-
enous protesters: “They don’t speak Spanish or Quechua, just their indig-
enous language. They have the right to study, to have a medical clinic (…)
We have expressed solidarity with the people. They marched with their
children, how sad this is…” (Interview, 2013). In contrast, Toribia Lero
from the CONAMAQ felt very differently. She expressed feeling betrayed
by how the Bartolinas endorsed government repression against the low-
land Amazonian protesters and publicly criticized them for bringing their
children to the march: “They know perfectly that mothers cannot leave
their children alone in the Amazon because of all the dangers daily life
implies there for young children. (…) But they don’t say this because they
want to; it’s because they are being told to say this [by the government]”
(Interview, 2013). Toribia questioned the commitment that the pro-
government organizations manifested toward indigenous peoples’ right
when, according to her, these organizations did not defend their right to
free and informed consultation.
The basic difference in life projects (Blaser, Feit, & McRae, 2004) and
political orientations between these two sectors was clearly articulated by
Justa Cabrera, president of the CNAMIB at the time of our interview in

2011:
they [the Bartolinas] are entering in indigenous communities to organize

women, focussing only on economic projects and putting into people’s
mind that it’s best to look for individual titling of the land. (…) The indig-
enous communities themselves call us to report that in certain places people
are seeking to organize themselves as peasants rather than as indigenous
communities. This is a serious issue because, while becoming peasants they
start to parcel up the land. They use everything, destroy trees, generate
drought (…) they look and what they see is money, while we indigenous
peoples respect nature (Interview, 2011).
Justa Cabrera contrasted being a peasant and being a member of an

indigenous community as implying two ethical orientations related to dif-
ferent activities and notions of how to conceive and relate with the envi-
ronment. Her critique of the pro-government sectors, which was voiced
also in other interviews with local women’s peasant organizations in the
Cochabamba valleys, focused on the co-optation attempts on the part of
the Bartolinas to “rob” members from other women’s organizations and
consolidate their powerbase (Interviews Justa Cabrera, 2011).
It is worth recalling here that the denomination “peasant” in the
Bolivian context contrasts with “indigenous” and “native” (“originario”)
(Rousseau, 2014). Toribia Lero, speaking from the point of view of native
peoples represented by CONAMAQ, reported that since 2010 she has
seen a change in the political interactions within her ayllu. According to
Lero, previously there was a sort of pact of respect between the peasant
union organization, who worked with the municipality, and the traditional
authorities associated with the project of reconstructing the ayllu promoted
by CONAMAQ. But in the past years, she witnessed frequent interfer-
ence by peasant union leaders and elected leaders from the CSUTCB and
Bartolinas, in the affairs of the CONAMAQ affiliates. This is particularly
true when the latter criticize the MAS government (Interview, 2013). The
harassment of which CONAMAQ’s national headquarters has been a vic-
tim since 2013 is the gravest incident to be noted (see previous chapter).
The break up of the Pacto de Unidad in 2011 was described as a
“divorce” by Toribia Lero. The TIPNIS case and the government’s efforts
at dividing CIDOB, together with the threats against and closing down
of CONAMAQ’s office in 2013, combined with its evident lack of inter-
est in promoting the issue of indigenous autonomy, all generated a cli-
mate of profound distrust. Already in 2010, the diverging positions led
women leaders of the CONAMAQ and CNAMIB-CIDOB to launch a

new space to gather and join forces together. These Encuentros de mujeres
indígenas were organized regularly to foster the sharing of experience
and joint strategizing. The last one held by the time of writing was in
August 2013, in preparation for the II Continental Summit of Indigenous
Communication on Abya Yala held in Oaxaca, Mexico. In its observations,
the meeting’s resolution stated that
the government continues to grant forest, mining and petroleum conces-

sions on our lands and over our women’s bodies, without respecting our
ancestral and collective rights. In order to do so, the government proceeds
by destabilizing, weakening and dividing our ancestral organizations, for
economic, political and personal interests. (…) The government adopts
norms and policies without the participation of Indigenous Peoples and
even less of Indigenous women.9
3 Conclusion
The main spaces where Bolivian indigenous women are represented are all
women’s organizations linked to a male-dominated mixed organization or,
in the case of CONAMAQ, a mixed organization where women’s participa-
tion is designed according to a specific idea of gender complementarity. The
Bartolinas, as the oldest and historic women’s organization, seems to have
inspired other organizations which have imitated the model of “autono-
mous but organizationally affiliated” channel for women’s mobilization
and representation. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the
Bartolinas itself has “ancestors” in the organizations of the miners’ wives.
In the case of the Bartolinas and the Confederación Sindical de Mujeres
de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia, the male leadership has seen
convenient to support the “women’s wing” in order to benefit from wom-
en’s strong involvement in the life of their organization and enhance their
mobilizing capacity. In the case of the latter in particular, which formed
relatively late, it can be interpreted as a move to strengthen the power of
the Confederación de Comunidades Interculturales vis-à-vis the CSUTCB,
in the context of the consolidation of the hegemonic aspirations of the
MAS forces of which both are central components. Independently of the
circumstances presiding over their creation, the struggle of the Bartolinas
to establish its organizational autonomy and position itself in the pub-
lic sphere is visible among others through its participation in women’s
c oordinating spaces such as the Coordinadora de la Mujer, as well as the

MAS government’s appointments of several of its leaders to state offices.
The CNAMIB’s origins are more clearly associated to a discontent among
female bases of the CIDOB about their lack of visibility and misrecognition
of their contribution. While CIDOB’s leadership initially reacted adversely
to its creation, the context of competition with the CSUTCB-Bartolinas
facilitated CIDOB’s later acquiescence and the capacity of CNAMIB to
remain linked to CIDOB’s organizational bases. The CNAMIB was very
active in the major protests related to the TIPNIS and also fostered coali-
tion-building with the women leaders of other indigenous organizations.
In all these cases, the reasoning or “cause” behind the creation of women’s
organizations linked to mixed organizations is fundamentally related to wom-
en’s lack of political recognition as social movement actors. This explains why
the main issue, which has rallied the different peasant-indigenous women
and also the non-indigenous women’s organizations together at different
moments and in various forums, is the demand for gender parity in all political
spaces. No other major substantive issue has divided male and female activists
in the dynamics explaining the creation of the women’s organizations. In this
frame, the CONAMAQ’s model of gender complementarity/duality in the
organization’s authority structure was compatible with the indigenous wom-
en’s movement’s broader claim of gender parity, even if many organizations
commented cynically or critically about CONAMAQ’s practices. Indeed,
most other indigenous-peasant women leaders perceived CONAMAQ as an
organization where women leaders did not have a true voice and were only
symbolic authority figures. While all women leaders contemplated the dis-
cursive frame of gender complementarity as part of their understanding of
how to think about social change—men and women working together to
achieve change, but in gender-differentiated organizations—the structure of
CONAMAQ was found by all the other women leaders interviewed not con-
ducive to women’s equal representation in leadership and voice.
Bringing our social movement analytical concepts in, the Bolivian case
generally can be interpreted as one where the indigenous movement has
opened itself to the demand of indigenous women for their own orga-
nizing spaces without this being associated to the making of a boundary
within the movement. Indeed, the “gender parallelism”, which character-
izes the pattern of indigenous women’s emergence as social movement
actors, is the antithesis of a boundary—which means the development of
an oppositional relation. The gender parallelism is culturally adapted to
the importance given in Bolivian indigenous movement discourse to the
notion of gender complementarity/duality, although we must u nderstate
that indigenous women in the lowlands did not refer explicitly to this
notion and even sometimes criticized it. Nonetheless, the strength of
the Bartolinas and their extensive history have originated the replication
during the 2000s of the mode of organizing we call “gender parallelism”.
The latter allows a relative autonomy to women’s voices, relative because
of the joint origins and bases they share with the mixed-gender organiza-
tions dominated by men.
In the Bolivian indigenous movement, the process of opening to wom-
en’s voices has been ambivalent in the sense that mixed-gender organiza-
tions did not change themselves but rather accepted to live side by side
a new organization designed to be exclusively for female bases. In this
way, mixed-gender organizations transferred the responsibility to promote
women’s political participation and gender equity outside of their direct
reach. This ambivalent opening had nonetheless very concrete effects in
allowing the emergence and consolidation of organizations representing
directly and exclusively the voices of indigenous women. This process also
avoided the formation of boundaries within the indigenous movement. At
the same time, the strength of indigenous women’s presence in national
politics as of the 2000s transformed quite significantly the forms and actors
that claim to represent Bolivian women at large. An ethnic boundary
formed itself within the women’s movement, leading the non-indigenous
women’s organizations to recognize ethnic difference as politically relevant
and to restructure the main collaborative platform, the Coordinadora de la
Mujer, so as to ensure indigenous-peasant women are represented as such.
In Bolivia, the indigenous-peasant women’s movement started to orga-
nize earlier than in our other cases, even if the blunt of the organizing
actually took place much later. The 2000s, and the late 2000s in par-
ticular, corresponded to a blooming of organizations and the consolida-
tion of inter-organizational spaces for collaboration and joint strategizing.
This dynamics accompanies and is directly related to the strength of the
indigenous movement in the national political context, notably through
the election of Evo Morales. While this strength has mostly benefited the
Bartolinas because of its direct connections to the state, the much higher
profile and legitimacy of indigenous-peasant women’s agendas in general
has at least made easier for them to gain access to positions of power at the
local, regional, and national levels.
Most of the advances revolved around gender parity in political par-
ticipation, which led to major improvements in women’s political rep-
resentation, including and especially for indigenous-peasant women. An
improved normative frame for state sanction of violence against women,
as well as an integrated system to receive and respond to reported cases

of violence, was also the result of civil society’s mobilization, but this
was in the context of Bolivia’s dramatic record on this issue and it is to
be expected that concrete results will take time. Other issues such as the
adoption of the Law on Mother Earth and Integral Development to Live
Well (Ley Marco de la Madre Tierra y Desarrollo Integral para Vivir Bien)
where the state created a new juridical subject, Mother Earth, with col-
lective rights of public interest, resulted from the labor of the Bartolinas,
among other organizations.10 Yet as the conflict over the TIPNIS revealed,
and as criticized by some indigenous women’s organizations, the contrast
between the principles contained in this law and the extractivist develop-
ment model pursued by Evo Morales’ government made the law’s real
impact questionable at best.
While the Bolivian indigenous women’s movement has become a key
political actor on the national scene, and has managed to establish itself
as representative of the majority of women in the country, it faces strong
internal tensions and divisions not only on regional lines but based on
different political, ideological, and material interests. Moreover, several
issues of key importance for indigenous-peasant women’s daily life at the
local level, such as the political and institutional context that will define
the new practice of indigenous customary law, are still relatively remote
in women’s agendas, probably due to the complexity of dealing with
this issue while respecting the principle of indigenous peoples’ and com-
munities’ autonomy, as expressed in an interview with Leonilda Zurita
from the Bartolinas (Interview, 2011). Moreover, while the Bolivian
case is one of greatest advances for the indigenous movement in nor-
mative, constitutional, and political terms, it is also clear that the gov-
ernment is reluctant to pursue the agenda of autonomy established in
the 2009 Constitution. Indigenous women from the CONAMAQ and
CNAMIB, who are more centrally involved in the quest for indigenous
self-determination, have chosen to first struggle for the basic institu-
tional framework to be established before inserting specific debates on
gender relations in the context of what political autonomy will mean
concretely.
Notes
1. See http://www.apcbolivia.org/org/cnmciob-bs.aspx (last visit
Jan 8, 2014).
2. See Pronunciamiento del Encuentro Nacional “Avanzando hacia la

Despatriarcalización y la No Violencia”, La Paz, March 15, 2013.
http://www.bolpress.com/art.php?Cod=2013031701 (last visit
Feb 21, 2014).
3. “Gender parity and alternation” (“paridad y alternancia” in
Spanish) means that parties should be mandated to submit candi-
date lists made up of a gender alternating sequence of candidates:
female, male, female, male, and so forth. This way, an equal num-
ber of male and female candidates will run, but they will also be
placed in an equal position in the lists, rather than women being
predominantly positioned at the end of the lists, as is often the case.
4. See “Organizaciones sociales de mujeres, socializan Anteproyecto
de Ley de Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos”, http://www.
apcbolivia.org/inf/noticia.aspx?fill=1870&Id=8&D86rtFv&fil
=9&hrtsdate=10&BDrt54SSDfe=&%FS45 (last visit Jan.8,
2014).
5. See “Bolivia aprueba ‘Ley Contra el Acoso y Violencia Política
hacia las Mujeres’”, http://www.onumujeres-ecuador.org/index.
php?option=com_content&view=article&id=748:bolivia-aprueba-
ley-contra-el-acoso-y-violencia-politica-hacia-las-mujeres&catid=2
5:bolivia&Itemid=32 (last visit February 26, 2014).
6. For more details on Evo Morales’ gender politics, see also Rousseau
(2010).
7. This article establishes as one of the goals of the State to “Form a
just and harmonious society, rooted in decolonization, without dis-
crimination or exploitation, with full social justice, to consolidate
plurinational identities” (“Constituir una sociedad justa y armoni-
osa, cimentada en la descolonización, sin discriminación ni explo-
tación, con plena justicia social, para consolidar las identidades
plurinacionales”.)
8. Seehttp://www.descolonizacion.gob.bo/index.php/despatriarcalizacion/228-
despatriarcalizacion (last visit February 28, 2014.
9. See http://www.conamaqkullasuyu.org/wpcontent/uploads
/2013/06/precumbre_muj_indigenas_bo.pdf
(last visit March 3, 2014).
10. Ley no.300, October 15 2012. See http://www.planificacion.

gob.bo/sites/folders/marco-legal/Ley%20N%C2%B0%20
300%20MARCO%20DE%20LA%20MADRE%20TIERRA.pdf
(last visit March 5, 2014).
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of St. Andrews, Institute of Amerindian Studies. (1997). Parentesco y género en
los Andes. La Paz: CIASE/ILCA.
Arnold, D. Y., & Spedding, A. (2005). Mujeres en los movimientos sociales en
Bolivia 2000-2003. La Paz: CIDEM/ILCA.
Barrios de Chungara, D., & Viezzer, M. (1978). Let me speak!: Testimony of
Domitila, a woman of the Bolivian mines. New York: Monthly Review Press.
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peoples, life projects, and globalization. New York: Zed Books.
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from Bolivia, 1994-2012. PhD, Political Science, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville.
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CONAMAQ-Cochabamba (Ed.), Cochabamba.
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rights in Latin America. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
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Indigenous reservations and gender parity in Bolivia. Politics, Groups, and
Identities, 1(1), 4–25.
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mineurs, Bolivie, 1977–1978. Paris: CNRS.
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Bolivia: movimientos sociales, estado y poscolonialidad. La Paz: CLACSO/Plural.
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tion in Bolivian tin mines. New York: Columbia University Press.
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of Alberto Fujimori’s and Evo Morales’ gender politics. In K. Kampwirth
(Ed.), Gender and populism in Latin America: Passionate politics (pp. 140–161).
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
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Bolivia (pp. 331–351). Lima: Fondo editorial PUCP.
Salazar, C. (1998). Movimiento de mujeres en Bolivia: la federación de mujeres
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Holandés de Cooperación al Desarrollo.
PART II
Mexico
CHAPTER 4
Indigenous Self-Determination:
From National Dialogues to Local
Autonomies
The decade of the 1990s has probably been the most intense period of
indigenous mobilizations in the recent history of Mexico. The Zapatista
movement that rose in arms in Chiapas in 1994 marked a turning point
in indigenous politics. For the first time in history, an indigenous organi-
zation—the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)—succeeded in
positioning indigenous peoples at the forefront of national political debates.
The EZLN and its supporters pressed a national debate on indigenous peo-
ples collective rights and on self-determination. Through the demand for
autonomy the Zapatistas and the indigenous organizations that emerged
during the second half of the 1990s articulated demands addressing indig-
enous peoples’ social, cultural, political, and economic rights (e.g. land
reforms, language, education, democratization, women’s rights).
The resonance of this movement forced the Mexican government
to hold negotiations around indigenous rights in 1996 and 1997, the
Dialogues of San Andrés Larráinzar, unprecedented in the relation
Era inevitable que los pueblos indígenas de México empezaran a darse cuenta de
la paradoja zapatista: por un lado, los rebeldes habían sido capaces de generar
propuestas e iniciar acciones que apuntaban hacia una novedosa ética política
basada en la dignidad y el respeto a la diferencia como base de un mundo nuevo, y
por otro lado, habían sido incapaces de incidir directamente en las reformas políticas
nacionales.
Jan De Vos (2010: 256)

between indigenous peoples and the government. This process repre-

sented at the time an opportunity to bring recognition of oppression
and discrimination against indigenous peoples and consequently the rec-
ognition of their demands for collective rights. However, the Law on
Indigenous Rights and Culture adopted in 2001, resulting from this pro-
cess, was considered unsatisfactory by key indigenous organizations (e.g.
EZLN and CNI) as it codified only partially the San Andrés Agreements.
While the 2001 Law officially recognized indigenous rights, important
restrictions on autonomy were integrated, going against the full recogni-
tion of self-determination.
The 2001 Law affected negatively the indigenous movement. Moreover,
two decades after the Zapatista uprising, the movement had lost its preva-
lence in national politics. On the one side, the Zapatista movement turned
its attention to internal dynamics, to the concretization of a project of
autonomy, and no other organization was able to fill the gap left by this
movement to maintain the mobilization at the national level. On the other
side, central indigenous organizations lost their mobilizing capacity or dis-
integrated. In sum, the leading organizations of the 1990s mobilization
retreated to strengthen their organizational bases and to concretize their
political project, while other national and some regional organizations
that had strong linkages with local groups disintegrated due to internal
divisions.
The downfall of organizational strength affected the movement’s capac-
ity to consolidate and lowered public attention to indigenous politics in
the national political sphere. This pushed the mobilization of indigenous
peoples mostly to the local level where the central claim of the indig-
enous movement in the 1990s—autonomy—continues to be a key issue
for indigenous resistance across the country. Protests against extractivism
and mobilizations for the defense of territory and human rights increased
in different regions of the country and the mobilization of indigenous
women at different levels consolidated through the creation of autono-
mous organizations.
This chapter presents the dynamics that led to the emergence of the
contemporary indigenous movement and its key role in national politics
in the 1990s and thereafter. Complex dynamics shaped the context of
emergence of the indigenous movement and the framing of demands in
terms of indigeneity affected importantly indigenous politics in Mexico.
The shift from an assimilationist to a multicultural discourse and the con-
stitutional changes of the past decades represent an important departure
INDIGENOUS SELF-DETERMINATION: FROM NATIONAL DIALOGUES... 87
from the national narratives that dominated most of the century. The
indigenous movement played an important role in it. And, as will be pre-
sented in the next chapter, indigenous women’s participation within the
movement challenged gender dynamics and affected organizational paths.
1 Race/Ethnicity in the Twentieth-Century

Mexico
State–society relations throughout the twentieth century in Mexico
were mainly characterized by the corporatist system implemented by the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The latter legitimized its power
through a centralized and hierarchical organization of peasants (Mattiace,
2012: 398). In an attempt to modernize the country in the 1930s and
1940s, along with an assertion of political control and the adoption of
economic reforms, the state implemented agrarian reforms, the most sig-
nificant of which was the industrialization of agriculture.
The agrarian elite received the most fertile land. Consequently, as
pointed out by Dietz (2004), this corporate system did not succeed
in integrating some sectors of society, leaving out landless people who
never received land with the agrarian reform and indigenous peoples who
never regained access to their collective territories and previous forms of
land ownership. The peasants were the ones benefiting from land grants
(through the creation of ejidos) with agrarian reforms, while indigenous
people did not recuperate their communal titles of property (no restitu-
tion). Two models of agrarian reform emerged: restitution (communal
land) and land grant (ejidos). The latter was pushed forward during the
post-revolutionary period. Here peasants became those benefiting from
agrarian reforms, while indigenous people did not recuperate their com-
munal titles of property guaranteed by the Crown prior to independence
(Dietz, 2004). The creation of the “ejidos (communally owned land)
unwittingly provided the greatest latitude for local indigenous auton-
omy—they were community based, inalienable, and, while regulated,
often beyond state control” (Dietz, 2004: 64). Since indigenous commu-
nities could exercise their local autonomy to a certain extent, their main
interactions with the state took place via corporatist structures that guar-
anteed them a certain access to resources (land and agricultural subsidies).
In such context, the corporatist state effectively coordinated peasants
and indigenous peoples through mechanisms of state control to contain
the discontent caused by economic reforms, thus creating corporatist
relations and structures. The central organization of this “rural corporat-

ism” was the National Peasant Confederation (Confederación Nacional
Campesina-CNC), founded in 1938 and for decades the only legitimate
structure to channel and mediate relations between the peasantry and the
state: “[t]he campesino central (so-called because of the concentration of
decision-making power in the leadership) maintained a virtual organiza-
tional monopoly over Mexico’s rural poor during the first 30 years of its
existence, since it controlled access to land and to development funding”
(de Grammont, Mackinlay, & Stoller, 2009: 24). Peasants attempted to
create independent organizations—such as the General Union of Workers
and Campesinos (Unión General de Obreros y Campesinos de México-
UGOCM) or the Independent Campesino Central (Central Campesina
Independiente-CCI)—but these were soon co-opted by the government.
1.1 Mestizaje and Indigenismo
As Yashar (2005: 60) argues, the creation of national peasant organiza-
tions, such as the CNC, accompanied the agrarian reforms of the 1930s in
Mexico and “provided incentives for Indians to register as peasant com-
munities” in order to benefit from the redistribution of land. Through
the CNC and its local and regional structures, the corporatist regime in
Mexico sought to contain indigenous communities’ demands and redirect
them through class demands focused primarily on agrarian production.
The attempt to “integrate” indigenous peoples as peasants was rein-
forced by the adoption of an ideology that sought to impose a homoge-
neous form of identification on the Mexican people, namely, mestizaje.
The state promoted the ideology of mestizaje, the cultural and/or bio-
logical mixing of indigenous peoples and European descendants, as the
foundational and common origin of Mexican national identity (De la
Peña, 2006). Prior to the Mexican Revolution, different systems of racial
hierarchies were developed in the country, mostly based on phenotype,
positioning whites with a European phenotype at the top, followed by
mestizos—those with mixed white-Indian phenotype—and indigenous
populations at the bottom (Stephen, 2002).1
After the revolution, the ideology of mestizaje was promoted as the
foundational myth of Mexican identity. It led to the development of
indigenismo, a political project seeking to integrate/assimilate indigenous
peoples through education, acculturation, and income-generating projects.
The central institution responsible for the implementation of i ndigenismo
was created in 1948, the National Indigenist Institute (Instituto Nacional

Indigenista—INI) (De la Peña, 2006; Stephen, 2002). The first goal of
indigenismo was the development of linguistic and cultural uniformity
through the implementation of a unilingual public school system and the
marginalization of indigenous cultures and traditions. The second goal
was the establishment of a citizenship regime based on individual rights
through the dissolution of sociocultural and political systems of indige-
nous peoples’ organizations (seeking to integrate them into the corporatist
organizations of the PRI). Finally, indigenismo sought the modernization
of rural communities through agrarian reform (Sánchez, 1999).
The state’s ultimate goal was to modernize society and assimilate
indigenous peoples through their “Mexicanization” (De la Peña, 2006).
Political elites perceived national heterogeneity, particularly the presence
of indigenous populations, as an obstacle to the project of nation build-
ing. Thus, anassimilationist nationalism was advanced in order to attain
national homogeneity trough linguistic and cultural unification. However,
the national project of mestizaje initiated after the revolution gradually
began to lose its legitimacy in the second half of the twentieth century.
A critique to the assimilationist project emerged along with this proj-
ect but became stronger only in the 1970s (Stephen, 2002). In its early
stages, the indigenous movement sought state recognition of the multieth-
nic nature of Mexican society, the reform of indigenista policies, and the
establishment of a bilingual and bicultural education system (Beaucage,
1996). Indigenous intellectual elites, who paradoxically were trained by
the INI and its different programs supporting indigenous peoples’ access
to education, pushed forward demands for cultural and linguistic recog-
nition (e.g. bilingual education and protection of traditional practices)
(de Grammont et al., 2009; Gutiérrez, 1999a). However, the INI was
effective in co-opting these leaders through the implementation of proj-
ects and the creation of organizations—following the rural corporatist
model—seeking to promote government’s indigenista policies rather than
the interests of the organization’s members (Speed, Hernández Castillo,
& Stephen, 2006). In terms of projects, it was mostly through the cre-
ation of cooperatives by the INI that the state integrated indigenous peo-
ples into the corporatist system. In the case of women, it was principally
through the creation of state-run artisan cooperatives. Overall, the differ-
ent projects aimed to construct a social basis for political support, repro-
ducing traditional modes of mediation between the state and indigenous
communities.
The state created organizations to contend these critiques and discon-

tent: it created in 1973 Indigenous National Movement (Movimiento
Nacional Indígena—MNI), in 1975 the National Council of Indigenous
Peoples (Consejo Nacional de Puebos Indígenas—CNPI), and in 1977
the National Association of Bilingual Indigenous Professionals (Asociación
Nacional de Profesionistas Indígenas Bilingües—ANPIBAC). The corpo-
ratist base of these spaces led to crises of representation (as there was no
connection with the communities they claimed to represent) and to inter-
nal divisions regarding the demands (as some members integrated politi-
cal and land demands that confronted the state). Indigenous elites and
the organizations created where they mobilized in the 1970s constrained
importantly their actions and demands. If important critiques emerged,
then it was only later that autonomous indigenous organizations were cre-
ated—outside the corporatist political structure.
In a context where indigenismo was losing its legitimacy, state–soci-
ety relations underwent significant economic and political changes in the
following decades, affecting both indigenous peoples and peasants. The
constitutional reforms in the early 1990s seeking to privatize land and dis-
mantle the protection of communally-held land—ejidos—faced important
resistance from peasant and indigenous communities leading to a major
shift in traditional intermediation channels (Yashar, 2005).
1.2 Neoliberal Reforms, Popular Discontent,

and Intermediation Channels
The economic crisis of the 1980s and the implementation of Structural
Adjustment Policies (SAPs) led to a decline in living conditions through
the privatization of land, the reduction of public programs to support the
peasantry, and the decrease of public services. All popular sectors were
affected, but the impact was greater for the peasantry as the state withdrew
its previous support to rural communities. “As state-funded projects aimed
at indigenous incorporation gave way to policies of structural adjustment,
decentralization, and privatization, indigenous groups were increasingly
cut off from traditional modes of interest mediation and access to state
funding” (Sánchez, 1999: 13).
This reached a critical point under the presidency of Carlos Salinas
de Gortari (1988–1994), when living conditions became unsustainable
(Mattiace, 2012). Under his rule, reforms were implemented to liber-
alize markets, and the country witnessed the dismantling of previously
ationalized sectors of the economy (coffee) and the opening of the econ-
n
omy to imported goods (grains), the end of land distribution and reforms
allowing the privatization of communal land, and the signing of the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (Speed et al., 2006). The rural
sector was significantly affected, which led to the increase of emigration of
thousands of rural workers every year (Mattiace, 2012).
Among the state’s reforms was the amendment of article 27 of the
constitution, which put an end to agrarian redistribution. The economic
reforms “signaled the end of the social pact of public welfare provided by
the state that had been established after the revolution. The changes lead-
ing up to NAFTA brought Mexico into the emergent global order, ended
decades of corporatist rule, and fundamentally altered relations between
the state and civil society” (Speed et al., 2006: xiv).
This constitutional change marked a rupture with the gains that peas-
ants had inherited from the Mexican Revolution (1910) and the land
redistribution of the 1917 constitution. Although the situation for peas-
ants and indigenous peoples was precarious before these reforms, there
was hope that agrarian redistribution would be implemented.
According to Yashar (2005), it was principally the shift from a corpo-
ratist form of intermediation to a neoliberal form of intermediation that
opened opportunities for indigenous movements to emerge. Collier and
Quaratiello (1994: 15) suggest that it is the post-revolution land reform
that durably stabilized the region and turned peasants and indigenous
populations into “the most reliable supporters of the ruling party since the
1930s”. This is why, these authors argue, it was only with the interruption
of land reform in the 1990s that indigenous peoples returned to the path
of rebellion. It affected in particular Chiapas, where more than a quarter
of Mexico’s unresolved land disputes were located. If social mobilizations
centered their actions and demands on land distribution, the neoliberal
reforms pushed them to change the framing of their demands: from agrar-
ian and economic demands, the peasant mobilizations of the 1980s led to
an increasing opposition to state corporate structures and the emergence
of demands for political democratization (Harvey, 1990).
Neoliberal politics combined with the semi-authoritarian political sys-
tem pushed the Mexican state into a crisis. The neoliberal political and
economic reforms in Mexico affected peasants and indigenous peoples con-
siderably, provoking popular discontent and major mobilizations (Nash,
2001; Sieder, 2002; Yashar, 2005). During this period, peasants mobilized
mainly against the liberalization of the economy and its influence on the
privatization of collectively owned land, the shift toward export-based pro-

duction and the transformation of arable land into bovine production. As
argued by Dietz (2004: 37), “the crisis of agrarian corporatism and of the
governing state-party, and the failure of indigenismo to homogenize and
integrate the Mexican indigenous populations” are two factors explain-
ing the initial mobilization by the peasantry and indigenous peoples as a
response to the lack of state support. In rural Mexico, the negative impact
of liberalization—economic and social—for peasants and indigenous peo-
ples, created new incentives to organize autonomously.2 The emergence of
independent peasant and indigenous organizations challenged corporatist
structures in the second half of the twentieth century, disrupting previous
forms of mediation between peasant and indigenous peoples on the one
side and the state on the other.
From a corporatist regime seeking to modernize society, the state trans-
formed into a neoliberal regime (Speed et al., 2006). Peasant-led projects
for the production and commercialization of their products were pro-
moted by various entities in order to organize people to cope with the
harsh economic situation. These initiatives were supported by different
actors, many of which targeting more specifically women with the goal of
increasing access to economic resources for rural families. As documented
by Gil Tebar (1999), many peasant and indigenous women participating
in local projects in the state of Chiapas were involved through the Diocese
of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and peasant organizations.
These new organizations also protested against neoliberal policies that
significantly affected peasants and indigenous populations: “Social move-
ment organizations challenged the semi-authoritarian party-state and
began to make demands that put pressure on the political system. These
social movements were different from the organizations mobilized by
the PRI party-state in that they presented a sustained challenge to power
holders” (Mattiace, 2012: 398). Independent peasant organizations and
unions were then created outside the corporatist structure of the PRI
(Sánchez, 1999; Sieder, 2002).
Among those peasant organizations were the Independent Center of
Agricultural Workers and Peasants (Central Independiente de Obreros
Agrícolas y Campesinos—CIOAC) created in 1975 and the Plan de Ayala
National Coordination (Coordinadora Nacional Plan de Ayala—CNPA)
formed in 1979, named after the agrarian manifesto of Emiliano Zapata.
The CNPA challenged the corporatist regime through its struggle for land,
which was faced by state repression (resulting in deaths and i mprisonments).
A few years later, in 1985, the National Union of Autonomous Regional

Campesino Organizations (Union Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales
Campesinas Autonomas [UNORCA]) was created. In the 1980s, numer-
ous organizations were regrouped within UNORCA, whose actions were
based on demands for access to land and the increase of basic crops’ mini-
mum guaranteed prices (de Grammont et al., 2009).
The creation of independent organizations by peasants was key, since it
represented the first spaces that emerged autonomously form corporatist
structures and this gave peasants the opportunity to directly challenge the
state and its institutions (Mattiace, Hernández, & Rus, 2002). As reported
by Harvey (1990), what motivated people to join independent organi-
zations was the corruption, ineffectiveness, and unrepresentativeness
of state-controlled organizations (CNC). Until 1990s, these emergent
national organizations were primarily grounded on a collective identity
based on the peasantry. Nonetheless, it was mostly within such organi-
zations that indigenous peoples were involved, both men and women.
Similarly to their compañeros, indigenous women acquired their organiz-
ing experience in such spaces. But women were generally excluded from
leadership positions and relegated to traditional and supportive roles: “in
the struggle there were women, but only in the kitchen, not in decision-
making” (Tiburcio Cayetano, 2010: 261, our translation). Women’s con-
tributions and participation were indeed not as visible as men’s, and were
less valued and recognized.
2 The Contemporary Indigenous Movement

New discourses and practices associated with indigeneity as a renewed
collective identity emerged in Mexico in the late 1990s. It drew on the
legacy of earlier peasant movements, and was influenced by both the pre-
vious cultural demands of indigenous elites and the international context
of negotiations over indigenous collective rights. In the 1980s, local and
regional indigenous organizations were formed, framing demands based
on indigenous rights, representing a shift from class-based to ethnic-based
interests. This led to the emergence of a contemporary national indig-
enous movement in the 1990s.
The Indigenous Congress of 1974 in San Cristobal de Las Casas
(Chiapas) represents a turning point in Mexico as it created a space for
the emergence of an anti-discrimination discourse, as well as the formula-
tion of demands based on culture, language, and particular forms of social
organization (Beaucage, 1996; Leyva Solano, 2005). As Stephen has

argued (Stephen, 2002: 115), this first state-wide Indigenous Congress
is “referred to by many as a landmark event in the development of civil-
society organizations in Chiapas”. The Congress was initiated by the gov-
ernment but organized by the Diocese, by Bishop Samuel Ruíz García,
who had an ability to bring people together and held legitimacy in the
region. What was meant to be an event involving academics became an
event organized for and by indigenous peoples, attended by approxi-
mately 1230 indigenous delegates from 327 communities (Speed et al.,
2006).
This event allowed the emergence of new demands concerning indig-
enous cultures, languages, and traditions: “Speeches at the congress called
for indigenous peoples to unify across ethnic lines, to organize themselves,
and to defend their own rights, rather than depend on others” (Speed
et al., 2006: xii). This Congress facilitated the creation of new relation-
ships between local actors and local organizations, and new discourses
on indigeneity emerged during this period. For the first time in Chiapas,
indigenous peoples spoke publicly about the oppression they experienced
and voiced the need to organize independently from the state. This event
reflected the emergence of new channels of mobilization for indigenous
peoples beyond socioeconomic demands, but also outside official state
structures, which normally aimed to co-opt any indigenous contention
that took place outside official channels such as the National Indigenist
Institute. Moreover, the Indigenous Congress contributed to the training
of new leaderships in indigenous communities (Stephen, 2002).
Some of the representatives who participated in the Congress organized
meetings regarding agrarian problems and demanded land distribution to
be completed in Chiapas as stipulated in previous agrarian reforms; these
demands were supported by land occupations. It is in this context that
indigenous peoples’ organizing efforts emerged, articulating demands
for land, but also for greater autonomy in controlling their resources
(Stephen, 2002). This is highly significant, as it is in these regions—where
such grassroots efforts took place—that indigenous peoples organized
what later became the Zapatista movement. The influence of this event
was both local and national, as other congresses were organized in differ-
ent regions of the country.
In this context indigenous peoples advanced a discourse on indigenous
identity, which led to the creation of local and regional organizations in
different states of Mexico as well as the emergence of indigenous demands
within peasant organizations. In Oaxaca this took place earlier than in
other states, with the formation of the Union of Indigenous Communities

of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (Unión de Comunidades Indígenas
de la Zona Norte del Istmo—UCIZONI) and the Coalition of Workers,
Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus (Coalición de Obreros, Campesinos
y Estudiantes del Istmo—COCEI). According to Ruiz (1994), COCEI
had an important influence on the indigenous organizations in south-
ern Mexico, particularly in the early 1980s. Also, Services of the Mixe
People (Servicios del Pueblo Mixe—SER) aimed to promote the unity
and development of Mixe people through counseling and services to local
organizations (Dalton, 1990). SER contributed to the shift from peasant
to indigenous demands, changing the focus of productive and economic
concerns to “ethnically based demands, emphasizing cultural mechanisms
and traditions that distinguish the Mixe, such as communal work and local
forms of justice” (Stephen, 2002: 237). These organizations voiced spe-
cific demands for cultural and political recognition.
The Independent Indigenous Peoples’ Front (Frente Independiente de
Pueblos Indios—FIPI), formed in 1988, was the first autonomous indige-
nous organization at the national level. This organization aimed to regroup
regional organizing processes from different regions and peoples in Mexico.
FIPI was positioned as independent from any political party while respect-
ing the different political affiliations of its members (regional organiza-
tions). Among its key demands were the recognition of self-determination
and the right to participate in the design of public policies affecting indig-
enous peoples. One of its organizational goals was the consolidation of
regional processes of coordination of local groups to formulate common
demands. This led to the creation of the National Front of Indigenous
Peoples (Frente Nacional de los Pueblos Indios—FRENAPI) in 1990, in
a context characterized by different assemblies, meetings, and forums (e.g.
the National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations and the
First International Forum on Human Rights and Indigenous Rights). It
was ultimately within the Campaign 500 Years of Indigenous and Popular
Resistance that the national and regional indigenous organizations in
Mexico coordinated their actions in the early 1990s (Ruiz, 1994).
These new organizations should be distinguished from earlier popu-
lar and peasant ones that mobilized primarily over class-based demands
(Adams, 1994; Alvarez, Dagnino, & Escobar, 1998; Van Cott, 1994;
Warren, 1998; Yashar, 1998). As clearly exposed by Margarito Ruiz
(1994: 132, our translation), the members of the new organizations are
often “the same social activists who were in other fronts. We indigenous
peoples are not new social actors, but new political subjects”.
Although mobilization during most of the twentieth century in Mexico

followed class interests, with peasant organizations and workers unions,
this situation changed at the end of the century with the increase of ethnic
demands, and more radically with the emergence of the Zapatista move-
ment in a context marked by the adoption of multicultural policies (Yashar,
2005). The Mexican state adopted multiculturalist policies in the 1990s;
this, combined with the liberalization of the economy, became the new
national paradigm. Multiculturalism was both a response to critiques of
the exclusionary roots of the project of mestizaje and an opportunity to call
upon a constitutional recognition of the ethnic diversity of Mexican society
without jeopardizing the neoliberal project (Hale, 2005; Sieder, 2002).
The opposition of indigenous peoples to indigenismo in Mexico pushed
the Mexican state to “abandon”—at least officially—its indigenista policy,
replacing it with a discourse emphasizing the multicultural nature of Mexican
society (De la Peña, 2006). This is clearly exposed by the following quote
by Ruiz (1994: 120): “As long as indigenismo and indigenistas continue to
exist, indigenous peoples will not be able to exert fully our political rights”.
In this perspective, in the 1990s the Yaqui people expelled the INI from its
region and the Chontales people took control of the installations of INI.
In 1992, the government amended article 4 of the constitution to rec-
ognize the multicultural nature of Mexican society. This reform limited
the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights to cultural rights. First of all,
it only recognized cultural diversity and not ethnic diversity, and thus lim-
ited recognition at the political and juridical level as the diversity referred
to was reduced to cultures, languages, and customs.
“As reported by Díaz-Polanco (1992: 29), the original project alluded to an

ethnic plurality while the final text refers to a cultural plurality. The nuance is
of most importance since the notion of ethnicity could have been interpreted
as to establish political and juridical subjects. As the text of law states, they
distinguish different groups based uniquely on their ‘languages, cultures,
practices and customs’ that the state will have to ‘protect and promote’. The
governmental tutelage is then legitimated and reinforced” (Beaucage, 1996:
21, our translation).
Nonetheless, this constitutional change opened up room for challenging

the relationship between the state and indigenous peoples via institutional
channels (Forbis, 2003).
The cultural recognition that was advanced by the 1992 constitutional
changes took place at the same time as the liberalization of the Mexican
economy through constitutional reforms concerning property rights over
land. The reform of article 27 in 1992 modified the country’s agrarian
structure to effectively end collective forms of land property and open
the way for land privatization (Nadal, 2001). As argued by Burguete Cal
y Mayor (2008), this liberalization sought the integration of indigenous
peoples’ territories, resources, and knowledge into the market, denying
their historic collective rights over land as embedded in the “ejido” land
ownership structure.
Multiculturalism was conceived from a neoliberal standpoint where rec-
ognition did not involve redistribution. On the contrary, recognition was
restricted to the cultural dimension, excluding social and political dimen-
sions that involve collective rights over self-administration, territory, and
resources (Hale, 2005). In other words, the adoption of a multiculturalist
discourse in Mexico responded to previous demands for the recognition
of cultural specificity as indigenous elites had advanced in the 1970s, but
did not address new demands for integrating cultural demands with socio-
economic and political ones.
Additionally to the local and national factors—economic and political—
the international and continental context facilitated the making of new
social movement boundaries in the 1990s, such as the consolidation of
continental indigenous networks and the creation of international instru-
ments to promote indigenous peoples’ rights (Brysk, 2000; Mattiace,
2012; Trejo, 2009). The International Labour Organization Convention
169 (ILO Convention 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in
Independent Countries (1989) was particularly important. The Consejo
de Pueblos Nahuas del Alto Balsas (CPNAB)—the first local organiza-
tion in Guerrero to frame its demands in terms of indigenous rights—
was created in 1990 to protest the construction of a dam in the region.
The relationships established at the international level by CPNAB were
central for framing their demands in line with indigenous rights (Bartra,
2000; Brysk, 2000; García, 2000). This transnational articulation of local
organizations was strengthened through the continental mobilization in
prevision of the celebration of the 500 years of Indigenous, Black and
Popular resistance in the Americas in 1992. In Mexico the mobilization
of indigenous peoples and organizations in this context was coordinated
through the Mexican Council of 500 Years of Indigenous and Popular
Resistance (Consejo Mexicano 500 años de Resistencia India y Popular).
This organization led to the formation of state-level branches, such as the
Consejo Guerrerense 500 Años de Resistencia Indígena (CG500Años),
which became a key actor in indigenous mobilizations in Guerrero and
also at the national level (Bartra, 2000). The formation of organizations
at the regional and national levels that would offer indigenous peoples
new opportunities to participate, notably through the introduction of a
discourse on human rights, was fueled by international debates about the
recognition of indigenous peoples’ collective rights at the United Nations.
2.1 The Zapatista Movement

If indigenous organizations mobilized actively in the first years of the
1990s, it was only in 1994 that the indigenous movement had an unprec-
edented resonance at the national level with the Zapatista movement.
As argued by de Grammont, Mackinlay and Stoller (2009: 32): “The
Zapatistas revitalized the national indigenous movement both organiza-
tionally, along the model developed in Chiapas to defend their sympa-
thizers against the government offensive, and programmatically, via the
meetings they organized about the concept of indigenous autonomy”.
The EZLN rose up in arms on January 1, 1994, in Chiapas, as Mexico
celebrated its entry into the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Thousands of indigenous men and women from the highlands and the
Lacandon jungle in Chiapas took to the streets and seized the major cit-
ies of the state in protest. Along with their critique of neoliberalism, they
demanded recognition and respect for their social, political, and economic
rights as indigenous peoples. They put forward demands for justice,
democracy, and liberty, but additionally demands for land, work, food,
education, health, and housing.
The Zapatista movement had decided to move from acting clandes-
tinely to position itself as a public actor challenging the state. Diverse sec-
tors of Mexican society and abroad aligned themselves with the Zapatistas’
demands and supported the movement through different actions (marches,
caravans, human rights observation, donations, attending meetings, etc.).
For example, the CG500Años gave its public support to EZLN with the
organization of a march—“You are not alone” (No están solos)—from
Guerrero’s capital, Chilpancingo, to Mexico City (Sánchez Néstor, 2009).
The significant attention and support the movement received played
an important role in the state’s failure to contain the movement through
tactics of repression and co-optation (Stavenhagen, 2010). The state
attempted to discredit the movement, suggesting that this was not really
an indigenous rebellion but the result of a guerrilla group manipulating
indigenous peoples, and arguing indigenous revolts are spontaneous and
not organized or planned as was the one of January 1994 (Blackwell,
2007). However, the state failed to repress or discredit the Zapatistas, and
furthermore, the rapid and strong support it gathered forced the state to
consider them as political actors with whom they needed to negotiate.
In this context, peace negotiations between the government and the
Zapatistas were undertaken between 1995 and February 1996, and ended
with the signing of the San Andres Agreements on Indigenous Rights and
Culture. The Accords represented a historical gain for indigenous peoples
in Mexico, as they represented an opportunity for generating change in the
relationship between indigenous peoples and the state. The Accords con-
formed to the ILO Convention 169, ratified by Mexico in 1990, as they
recognized indigenous people’s collective right to self-determination and
were the first concrete legislative initiative seeking institutional enforce-
ment, which was beyond the formal recognition in 1992 of the multi-
cultural nature of Mexican society into the constitution (Nadal, 2005).3
More concretely, the Agreements recognized peoples’ right to administer
and make decisions regarding their territories and natural resources, their
own forms of governance, the election of their own authorities, and the
recognition of traditional justice systems.4
The Zapatista movement was the first local indigenous movement that
made waves at the national and international levels, and concrete political
gains. This movement marked a turning point for the indigenous movement
in Mexico, as it created opportunities for local organizations to join forces
and form national organizations to challenge the state (Stavenhagen, 2002).
The Zapatista movement invited indigenous organizations of other regions
of the country to participate in the Dialogues of San Andrés Larráinzar
with the state. This represented the possibility to bring together indigenous
groups, which had been organizing to obtain cultural recognition of their
languages and cultures, and peasant groups mobilized against the impact of
neoliberal policies and the restructuration of agriculture and land property
in the second half of the twentieth century. These regional organizations
created new networks at the national levels to consolidate their demands and
coordinate their organizing processes. In this context, two national-level
indigenous organizations were created: the National Indigenous Congress
(CNI) and the National Indigenous Assembly for Autonomy (ANIPA).
Aiming to consolidate the struggle for indigenous autonomy in the
context of the Dialogues of San Andrés Larráinzar, different sectors of
the indigenous movement organized the first assembly of ANIPA in April
1995, from which emerged a model of pluriethnic regional autonomy that
was proposed to the EZLN during the Dialogues (De la Peña, 2006).
Among the participants were deputies and senators from the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática—PRD),
indigenous organizations, and NGOs. More than 300 indigenous repre-
sentatives from different regions of Mexico attended the assembly. If indig-
enous women were involved since the creation of ANIPA, they were not in
the leadership until after the seventh assembly (1998), where a quota stipu-
lating that the executive board had to be integrated by 50 % of women was
adopted. Two indigenous women assumed the general coordination of the
organization in 2001 and 2004. As we will see in the next chapter, indig-
enous women faced important obstacles to integrate a gender perspective
in the indigenous movement’s autonomy claims (Valladares de la Cruz,
2008). Working together, ANIPA and the EZLN promoted the National
Indigenous Forum in Chiapas in January 1996, and it is from this initiative
that the CNI was created in 1996. The CNI held its foundational congress
with the participation of around 60 indigenous organizations in October
1996 in Mexico City (Sámano Rentería, 2006). Indigenous women also
participated actively in CNI, despite the refusal of the organization to
address specifically the rights of indigenous women in their debates and
demands until the third congress in Nurío in 2001 where a roundtable for
women was held to discuss the San Andres Accords and the Ley COCOPA
(Comisión para la Concordia y Pacificación) (Valladares de la Cruz, 2008).
These organizations were vital for the coordination of indigenous move-
ments at the national level. They organized assemblies and meetings to
prepare the movement’s demands for rounds of negotiations between the
state and the movement’s representatives. It is through different actions
that the movement sustained its support and organizing process, with the
goal of pushing for the enforcement of the San Andres Agreements and
the recognition of indigenous autonomy. The most important results were
the organization of national meetings, public consultations such as the
Consulta Nacional in 1999, and marches through different states.
Between 1998 and 2001, CNI became the organization representing
the indigenous movement at the national level, trying to position itself as
the legitimate interlocutor vis-à-vis the state, and as the coordinating body
of the different organizations and branches of the movement. Around
the federal elections of 2000, the internal differences around autonomy
became stronger, principally between ANIPA (that became formally a
national political association) and pro-Zapatista organizations rejecting
formal politics. ANIPA intended to constitute itself as a formal political
actor with its registration as Agrupación Política Nacional (APN) in 1999.
However, as argued by Burguete Cal y Mayor (2007), such transition

failed to consolidate the organization (in terms of its political impact).
ANIPA favored negotiation and alliances with political parties to sup-
port legislative propositions and increase representation for indigenous
peoples, while CNI and EZLN favored autonomous organizing processes
and were less inclined to create alliances with political parties (Burguete
Cal y Mayor, 2007). Between the second (1998) and the third (2001)
CNI Congress, the organization divided and the movement’s mobiliza-
tion declined in reaction to the refusal of the Mexican Congress to enforce
the San Andres Agreements.
Along with the internal divisions within national indigenous organiza-
tions, the federal elections and the consequent political changes represent
a closure of the political context for the indigenous movement to push for
the adoption of the San Andres Agreements. The San Andres Agreements
on Indigenous Rights and Culture of 1996 were transformed into a leg-
islative project by the COCOPA, a multiparty commission created by the
Mexican Congress, seeking to reach an agreement between parties. The
negotiations initiated by the COCOPA were complex and the legislative
project that resulted was not adopted.
In 2001, the EZLN organized the Marcha por la Dignidad Indígena—
mostly referred to as the Marcha del Color de la Tierra—to pressure
the government to adopt the COCOPA’s bill. Various sectors of society
mobilized in support to the Zapatista movement and brought back to the
forefront of the political landscape indigenous peoples’ demands after the
state’s repression in Chiapas had forced the breakdown of the Dialogue.
Important gatherings took place in different places where the delegation
of Zapatista members stopped during the caravan. An important moment
was the CNI Congress in Nurío attended by more than 3000 delegates of
41 indigenous peoples (de Grammont et al., 2009). The march culminated
with the historical speech of Zapatista Comandanta Esther in the Mexican
Congress in representation of the EZLN, where she pressured the govern-
ment to adopt the Law on Indigenous Rights and Culture resulting from
the Dialogues. Zapatista women framed, from the beginning, a discourse
where their identities as both indigenous and women were conceived as
inter-related. This historic moment was not an exception as evidenced in
how Comandanta Esther positioned herself when delivering her speech:
“My name is Esther, but that is not important now. I am a Zapatista, but
that is not important at this moment either. I am indigenous and I am a
woman and this is what is important now”.5
The 2001 federal elections and the change of government—for the first
time a non-PRI government—put an end to the process. The recently
elected president from the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), Vicente Fox,
adopted a new Law on Indigenous Rights and Culture in 2001. However,
this Law was inconsistent with the 1996 San Andres Agreements, as well
as with the ILO Convention 169, since it reduced the scope of the leg-
islative guarantees of indigenous rights in Mexico. In the San Andres
Agreements, self-determination was defined as the recognition of collec-
tive rights, territorial rights, and traditional political and administrative
structures in indigenous communities (Sieder, 2002). The 2001 law mini-
mized this principle in different ways. Among the most important limita-
tions was the absence of normative legal frames to implement indigenous
peoples’ rights. The law did not include enforcement mechanisms for its
application, which was relegated to the sub-national states. Moreover, the
debates around the recognition of indigenous collective rights revealed an
opposition from different sectors and the state based on the argument that
collective rights endangered individual rights, particularly women’s rights.
Additionally, the terminology it used limited the recognition of certain
rights, including that of collective rights over territory and resources
(Sariego Rodriguez, 2005).
Following the adoption of the Law on Indigenous Rights and Culture
(2001), the indigenous movement in Mexico declined (Stavenhagen,
2002). The Zapatistas condemned the law and definitively ended any rela-
tionship or dialogue with the state or political parties, as representatives of
the three major parties, including the leftist party (PRD), supported the
constitutional reform (Hernández Castillo, 2006). This rupture marked
the beginning of a process of radicalization of certain sectors of the move-
ment—mostly the Zapatistas—and the disintegration of national organiza-
tions (ANIPA and CNI). The national organizations’ reactions to the 2001
Law were not coordinated and did not have a common response. Beyond
the Zapatistas, the opposition was not as visible in Chiapas, Guerrero, or
Oaxaca, where many regional organizations involved in national ones were
based, as in other regions, such as in Sonora, San Luis Potosí, Chihuahua,
and Sinaloa. As suggested by López Bárcenas (2005), this revealed that
new regional actors where emerging.
Many indigenous communities refocused their efforts at the local
level, mobilizing for the creation of autonomous regions, principally
in Chiapas, Guerrero, and Michoacán. The Zapatista experience of the
Caracoles is one that has received much attention. The Caracoles are
regional centers of political, economic, and social coordination in each of

the five zones governed by the Zapatistas in the state of Chiapas. These
initiatives were implemented as alternatives to organize outside insti-
tutional and formal politics and concretize indigenous peoples’ rights
and autonomy. Women participated in the structures and projects of
the Caracoles as members of the governing councils (Consejos de Buen
Gobierno), in the autonomous schools, the health clinics, many coop-
eratives, and so forth. This influenced the emergence of local initiatives
to implement indigenous autonomy through different forms, as with
the implementation of justice with the Policía Comunitaria de Guerrero
or the creation of autonomous municipalities as in San Juan Copala,
Oaxaca (Leyva Solano, Burguete, & Speed, 2008; López Bárcenas,
2005; Mattiace et al., 2002).
This trend strengthened the resistance and local organizing of some
organizations but also contributed to the decline of the coordination
at the national level established in the 1990s. These tensions between
those organizing in collaboration with the state and those organizing at
the margins of the state negatively affected the capacity to build alliances
and networks between organizations in the case of Chiapas. After the
peak of mobilization and coalition building during the Zapatista move-
ment, some organizations reincorporated state institutions and others
radicalized their vision and created autonomous processes. After the
adoption of the 2001 Law, the EZLN turned its attention to internal
dynamics and the concretization of its vision of autonomy in its regions
of influence.6 In 2005, with the upcoming of the federal elections,
it reemerged on the public scene with its political project of La Otra
Campaña (The Other Campaign), a project rejecting formal politics and
calling for alternatives to mobilize civil society against neoliberalism.
The Other Campaign was organized in parallel to the 2006 electoral
campaign for the federal elections and reaffirmed the Zapatistas’ rejec-
tion of formal politics.
The Zapatista movement’s rejection of engaging formal politics was
perceived negatively by leftist actors as a failure to support the leftist party
PRD. However, actors involved directly or indirectly in formal politics
(political parties and unions), even those at the left of the spectrum, had
not engaged with indigenous peoples’ demands (Hernández Castillo,
2006). As argued by Stavenhagen in his analysis of the 2006 elections,
“None of the major parties that contended for the presidency presented a
forceful, unambiguous position on indigenous rights related to the issues
that divided the country on the constitutional reform five years before”
(2013: 147). Moreover, the CNI reemerged in the public sphere with
the organization of the 4th Congress in 2006, but the congress identified
itself with the Zapatista movement’s rejection of formal politics and its
struggle against neoliberalism. These factors may explain why the indig-
enous organizations retreated to the regional and local levels and no actor
maintained a presence at the national level.
Recently, the Zapatista movement and the CNI organized events and
campaigns that could be seen as efforts to mobilize and regain visibil-
ity. The CNI held a national meeting in August 2013 in San Cristóbal
de Las Casas, Chiapas, with the aim of reviving the national indigenous
movement. At this occasion, indigenous peoples from 19 states of Mexico
denounced extractive exploitation projects affecting the use and access to
resources, territories, and traditions of indigenous peoples (La Jornada,
August 21, 2013).7 This meeting has been one of the rare attempts to
coordinate the movement at the national level since the events of 2001.
The same year, the Zapatista movement reemerged in the public
sphere organizing a series of seminars to share the movement’s experi-
ence and teach individuals from other organizations on how they built
autonomous communities. For the 10th anniversary celebration of the
creation of the Caracoles, the Zapatista movement launched an initia-
tive to share its organizing experience with movement sympathizers. At
the first seminar, 700 individuals participated, a number that climbed to
4000 for the second and third editions. This initiative marked a shift away
from the period of internal organization and low visibility of the Zapatista
movement in the past decade. It also echoed the different moments when
the movement organized international conferences such as the one held
in Aguascalientes (1996), or the Zapatista Peoples’ Meeting with the
Peoples of the World (2007), with the explicit goal of building political
alternatives to neoliberalism. The “Escuelitas Zapatistas” however, repre-
sent a novelty as the intention is to show others how the movement has
effectively implemented its project of autonomy. This represented also an
opportunity to discuss the challenges of implementing autonomy. Among
the issues discussed were women’s participation, their struggle for wom-
en’s rights, and the obstacles they faced in the process.8 If it is too soon
to assess the impacts or outcomes of such recent mobilization, what is
obvious is that the Zapatista movement is no longer targeting the State or
the formal political sphere but rather continues to organize outside these
channels.
3 Conclusion
As this chapter explained, the emergence of an indigenous movement is
relatively recent in Mexico, but it has its origins in the earlier mobilizations
of the peasant movement. The Zapatista movement was a turning point
for indigenous peoples as it facilitated the coordination between local
indigenous organizations that had emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s.
The strength of the Zapatista movement and the support it received from
the international indigenous movement played a central role in the devel-
opment of alliances and networks at the national level in Mexico. In this
context, ethnicity, and more precisely indigeneity, supplanted a solely and
unique form of collective identification based on class. This represented a
historical opportunity for indigenous peoples as the momentum they had
gathered through mobilization gave them the leverage needed to nego-
tiate their relationship with the state and challenge the oppression and
discrimination that had excluded them historically, in addition to their
previous class demands. However, the failure to reach full recognition of
self-determination as a result of the negotiation process in the second half
of the 1990s and the decline of the movement it provoked can explain
why the indigenous movements retreated to the local and regional levels
in the 2000s.
The important attention gathered by the Zapatista movement from
national and international spheres offered indigenous men and women an
unprecedented opportunity to become visible political actors (Hernández
Castillo, 2001). If the momentum for promoting and pushing forward
indigenous demands at the national level was lost by the mid-2000s,
indigenous women continued to mobilize around indigenous politics at
the national level, as we will discuss in the next chapter. Although indige-
nous women had gained considerable experience in their previous partici-
pation in the peasant movement, they were not the protagonists in peasant
organizations. The 1990s in Mexico can be described as the period of
intensive training for indigenous women in terms of organizational expe-
rience, as well as in terms of their appropriation of a discourse on gender
equality that they combined with their peoples’ demands and collective
rights. Zapatista women’s contribution to the integration of gender into
indigenous discourses is key for understanding how indigenous women
began to voice demands articulating gender and indigeneity and how this
later influenced the indigenous women’s movement’s dynamics. The fol-
lowing chapter presents the trajectory of indigenous women’s organizing
and illustrates how they came to be the ones that better seized the oppor-
tunities for pushing their agendas in such a context. Indeed, indigenous
women have been successful in taking advantage of those opportunities
created by the indigenous movement of the 1990s. They have continued
to mobilize and are the most active sector of the indigenous movement,
continuing their coordination at the national, regional, and local levels.
This is significant since the indigenous movement remained unable to
consolidate a strong national movement after the constitutional reforms
on indigenous rights in 2001 (Stavenhagen, 2010).
Notes
1. There were more categories and the hierarchies changed over time,
but here we focus on these because they were central throughout
the multiple systems and the ones that lasted into the contemporary
period.
2. This politics not only occurred in rural Mexico but also affected
urban areas where popular organizations were created in response to
the lack of state involvement in resolving social problems, mobiliza-
tions in which women played an active and leading role.
3. The ratification of the ILO Convention 169 by Mexico compels it
to respect the obligation to consult indigenous peoples susceptible
to being affected by development projects. The state has the obliga-
tion to promote indigenous peoples participation and respect the
right to consultation and contentment. However, Mexico has not
yet legislated in this sense at the national level. The only state of
Mexico that has approved and signed a law in this regard is San Luis
Potosí in 2010. See (Aparicio Soriano, 2012).
4. See Velasco Cruz (2003) and Sariego Rodríguez (2005) for a
detailed analysis of the indigenous movement and the debates on
autonomy.
5. Seehttp://palabra.ezln.org.mx/comunicados/2001/2001_03_28_a.
htm (last visit, December 4, 2015).
6. It is interesting to note that while the indigenous movement declined
in the early 2000s, in 2002, independent peasant organizations
called for a major mobilization to protest the government’s policies
regarding trade policies on agriculture products, with the campaign
“The Countryside Can Take No More” (El Campo No Aguanta
Más). The mobilization was important as most of peasant national
organizations participated (except key indigenous organizations,

EZLN and CNI), leading to an increase in rural funding.
7. See “Pronunciamiento de la cátedra Tata Juan Chávez Alonso”
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/08/21/politica/013n3pol
(last visit December 27, 2013).
8. See the book on the participation of women in the Caracoles distrib-
uted to the students of the Escuelitas, “Participación de las mujeres
en el gobierno autónomo” http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/
library/cuadernos-de-texto-de-la-primer-escuelita-2/ (last visit,
January 9, 2016).
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CHAPTER 5
Indigenous Women’s Struggle

for Autonomy
On October 24, 2012, leaders from the indigenous women’s movement

in Mexico presented a political agenda in the Chamber of Deputies of
the Congress of the Union. In her communiqué Martha Sánchez Néstor
alluded to symbols from the Zapatista movement. She concluded her
message, affirming “¡Nunca más un México sin nosotras!” (Never again a
Mexico without us!), thus echoing the demands of the Zapatista women
and more specifically, the words that commandant Ramona had pro-
nounced during the first national meeting of indigenous women “Building
Our History” held in Oaxaca in 1997 (CONAMI, 2012). The appropria-
tion of this symbolism is significant as the Zapatista movement played a
central role in creating opportunities for indigenous women to mobilize
and become autonomous political actors at the national level in Mexico.
This event came out of a long process of mobilization by indigenous
women in Mexico. As mentioned in the previous chapter, indigenous
women participated in the independent peasant and indigenous organi-
zations for decades, but their demands were not integrated within the
In order to be here now at this moment hosted by the Congress many previous steps have
been taken … it has not been easy, for one day we woke up, we rebelled … we pushed
ourselves to walk the path, we organized, one day we resigned to the non-existent
privileges we could possibly have as women in this country and then, we challenged our
own history, the state and society, families, the communities, humanity, only to assert
our rights as human beings, specifically as indigenous women.
(Martha Sánchez Néstor, communiqué, October 24, 2012, our translation).

agendas of the mixed-gender organizations nor did they hold leadership

positions within the organizations of such movements until the 1990s.
The context of that decade created a momentum for women to position
themselves as political actors with autonomous discourses and organiza-
tions at the national level.
The strength of international discourses and mobilization on indige-
nous peoples and women’s rights as well as the uprising of the Zapatistas
all played a role in the opportunities that opened during the 1990s for
indigenous women’s organizing at the national level. In that decade, indig-
enous women participated within different spaces of indigenous protests
and actions where they shared local organizing experiences, and began
to voice common demands and eventually organized autonomously. As
argued by Espinosa Damián (2009: 256, our translation), in this context
women “capitalized a long and silent process of organizing, training and
collective action that in some cases had more than 20 years”. Indeed,
indigenous women who had been active at the local level for years gath-
ered during national meetings and protests of the mixed-gender indige-
nous movement where they identified common experiences and demands,
without previously having built an intermediate coordination level (state-
level) to articulate at the local and national/international levels.
It is in this context that indigenous women created the National
Coordination of Indigenous Women (Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres
Indígenas—CONAMI) in 1997. CONAMI played an important role in
training indigenous women to strengthen their local processes and lead-
erships, and in some states to coordinate at the sub-national level. The
consolidation of indigenous women’s organizing processes at different
levels—local, regional, and national—reveals their active role as autono-
mous political actors with specific demands. In other words, their orga-
nizing and demands have come to be autonomous from the indigenous
movement through the creation of independent organizations (women-
only organizations without permanent link to any other organization).
As stressed by Martha Sánchez Néstor, former coordinator of CONAMI,
indigenous women have succeeded in creating groups that are recognized
by national and international movements and institutions as legitimate
representatives of indigenous women’s interests (Interview, 2011).
Through the analysis of indigenous women’s collective identity forma-
tion as well as organizational processes, we aim in this chapter to identify
the dynamics of the contemporary indigenous women’s movement at the
national level and how it has impacted the organizing forms. Indigenous
INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY 113
women’s organizing in Mexico has often been studied through the analy-
sis of Zapatista women organizing processes, but this chapter aims to go
beyond such emphasis by considering the dynamics that preceded it and
those of the outcomes engendered at the national level.
1 Organizational Forms and Processes
Two different organizational paths characterized the process of indige-

nous women’s mobilization at the national level in the past decades. First,
indigenous women organized principally within mixed-gender indigenous
and peasant organizations in the 1980s and 1990s. They were involved
particularly in the creation of women’s spaces within mixed-gender orga-
nizations—Women’s Commissions or Women’s Areas—to promote peas-
ant and indigenous women’s economic projects and encourage women’s
participation in their organizations (Eber & Kovic, 2003). Second, during
the late 1990s, indigenous women who had been involved in different
peasant and indigenous mixed-gender organizations created an autono-
mous organization (CONAMI). This organizing path is also the privileged
form of organizing at the state level. Indeed, indigenous women began to
create independent organizations in southern Mexico in the 2000s, as
in Guerrero and Oaxaca. This section presents key organizations within
which indigenous women have organized and pushed their agendas at the
national level, as well as the political dynamics involved.
1.1 Asociación Mexicana de Mujeres Organizadas en Red

One of the most important national organizations of peasant and indig-
enous women in the 1990s was the Association of Women Organized
in Network (Asociación Mexicana de Mujeres Organizadas en Red—
AMMOR). AMMOR was created first as a Women’s Area, and then with
a more formal structure with legal autonomy within the National Union
of Autonomous Regional Organizations (UNORCA). AMMOR is inte-
grated by hundreds of local groups (e.g. cooperatives and saving groups)
and more than 16,000 women from 13 states (Espinosa Damián, 2009).
The members of this organization debated questions such as access to
land and empowerment in different regional meetings and workshops.
The majority of the women identified themselves as campesinas (peasant
women). In the 1990s, they coordinated their work and received the sup-
port of different organizations, principally the Red Nacional de Asesoras y
Promotoras Rurales, one of the most active feminist networks integrated

by indigenous and peasant women working on gender equity. By then
they had gained some organizing experience through their participation
to productive projects in the 1980s and began to integrate a framework on
women’s rights in their discourse and actions.
AMMOR worked to promote a reflection on rural women’s condi-
tions, as peasant women. Indigenous women’s participation in such
groups allowed them to discuss their everyday life experiences with other
women and identify their particular needs. National networks such as this
one were instrumental for women, as not many other networks existed
exclusively for women, and therefore their processes were largely isolated
one from another. It is through the women’s area and the different work-
shops, projects, and activities that women promoted women’s rights. They
also challenged the leadership of the National Union of Autonomous
Regional Organizations (UNORCA). Women’s area criticized UNORCA
for choosing as their key goal to gain full control of the productive pro-
cess as they considered access to land a major problem for most women.
The lack of land titles prevented them from gaining access to credit and
programs and reinforced the sexual division of labor (Espinosa Damián,
2009: 119).
In 1996, AMMOR gained a seat within the Executive Commission
of UNORCA. The Women’s Area succeeded in pushing for the adop-
tion of a demand for gender equity and parity at the decisional levels of
the organization during the 2005 general assembly. Yet this decision was
not enforced or respected in practice, and when women advocated for its
concretization during the annual assembly of UNORCA in 2009, they
faced an important opposition. The leadership of UNORCA accused the
women from AMMOR of bringing division within the organization and
excluded them from the Executive Commission of the organization while
also expulsing AMMOR.1 UNORCA was fractured between those who
refused the demands for more democratic practices and a renewal of the
leadership brought by AMMOR and other organizations. This affected
not only women activists but also other members of UNORCA who were
also thrown out of the organization.
In the previous chapter we presented how the indigenous movement
has its roots in the peasant movement. This is no different for indigenous
women whose organizing trajectories are grounded in the peasant move-
ment. It is the case for those that in the 1990s created the first spaces
to organize autonomously at the national level, yet it is less the case of
younger generations of indigenous women whose activism began in indig-

enous and/or feminist organizations (Interviews Dalí Angel Pérez, 2011;
Martha Sánchez, 2011). As argued by Espinosa Damián (2009), in the
1980s, peasant women began to create networks in rural areas where there
were strong peasant organizing processes as well as leftist organizations,
among which some were close to liberation theology. Peasant women
developed these networks through organizing regional meetings. In these
spaces, those who participated were mostly women from mixed-gender
local organizations affiliated to the UNORCA and the Coordination Plan
de Ayala (Coordinadora Nacional Plan de Ayala—CNPA).
AMMOR was far from being the only option for peasant and indig-
enous women who sought to organize. A few years before its creation,
women in other organizations sought to create a broad network. In 1986,
peasant women from CNPA organized the First Meeting of CNPA Peasant
Women. In that meeting, they discussed and shared their experiences as
poor peasant women on issues such as health problems, domestic violence,
lack of reproductive rights, limited access to land entitlement and basic
services, and so forth. They also discussed the secondary role they played
in their respective organizations, where they were excluded from decision-
making processes.
Indeed, the gendered division of labor within peasant and indigenous
organizations restricted women’s options regarding the activities in which
they could be involved. Even when highly committed to their organi-
zations, they were generally excluded from the organizations’ leadership
and often relegated to traditional and supportive roles. Women were
relegated to roles that confined them to the “private” sphere. In terms
of the organizations’ ongoing activities, they primarily participated in
projects aimed at producing and commercializing handicrafts and crops
in women’s cooperatives. During mobilizations, women were often in
charge of logistics in meetings and events (secretaries, cooking, cleaning)
and participated in the movement’s protest actions—in the front lines of
occupations, marches, and roadblocks (Hernández Castillo, 2002; Millán,
2008). While they participated in large demonstrations or meetings, the
spokespeople and representatives were exclusively men. As reported by
an indigenous woman who mobilized within local peasant organiza-
tions in Guerrero, while men were discussing and elaborating strategies,
women were organizing the logistics of the events: “in the struggle there
were women, but only in the kitchen, not in decision-making” (Tiburcio
Cayetano, 2010: 261, our translation).
When attempting to challenge this gender division of labor, indigenous

women faced resistance within mixed-gender organizations. This was the
case in many local processes, such as the case of Tosepan Titataniske (a
cooperative in Puebla that has played a key role in organizing rural pro-
cesses) and Zanzekan Tinemi (an organization in the state of Guerrero).
Conflicts within the Tosepan emerged when the men within the coop-
erative refused women’s autonomy in managing their economic resources
and their proposition to change gender inequalities (Mejía Flores, 2008),
leading to the creation of an independent organization, Maseualsiuamej
Mosenyoltchicauanij in 1992. Within Zanzekan Tinemi, women decided
to organize autonomously as a consequence of the organization’s lack
of support to their productive projects, creating the organization Noche
Sihuame Zanze Tajome (Alemán Mundo, 1997).
As argued by Espinosa Damián (2009), women faced different obsta-
cles to organize more formally to strengthen their organizing processes at
a supra-local level, due notably to geographic distance, lack of resources,
and internal tensions within organizations (e.g. this was the case with
women’s efforts to build a network within CNPA, which was disarticu-
lated due to the organization’s internal tensions). This made the consoli-
dation of women’s networks very challenging. However, women’s local
processes and network formation that took place in the 1980s received
the support of external organizations aiming to promote the development
of a gender perspective within mixed-gender organizations, particularly
the integration of a discourse on women’s rights (Interviews Dora Avila,
2011; Sofía Robles, 2011). The most concrete forms of support were
the financing of projects that integrated a gendered perspective as well
as workshops. If the first form came principally from international and
national agencies, the latter came from feminist organizations promot-
ing a feminist perspective within local gender-mixed organizations (e.g.
Mujeres para el Diálogo and CIDHAL).
The church also played an important role in the promotion of women’s
participation within their communities and local organizations, as well as
the creation of local groups of women, which gave them significant orga-
nizing experience (Norget, 1997). In Chiapas, for example, the Diocese
of San Cristobal provided substantial support for indigenous women to
organize in both their communities and sub-regional movements. The
diocese encouraged women to develop projects addressing their eco-
nomic needs, and also offered them training and access to resources to
implement such projects. The women involved in the process were mostly
active in peasant organizations such as regional organizations affiliated

to UNORCA, as explained by Isabel Gómez López who was regional
coordinator of AMMOR in Chiapas in 1994–1995 (Interview, 2011). As
documented by Gil Tebar (1999), local groups were organized and cre-
ated through the initiatives of women involved in these spaces opened by
the church. Among them was the Coordinadora Diocesana de Mujeres
(CODIMUJ), created in 1992, which succeeded in coordinating indig-
enous women from different regions of the state of Chiapas. CODIMUJ
is one of the largest organizations of indigenous, peasant, and some non-
indigenous women in Chiapas. Its work is mostly directed at the local level
and within the framing of liberation theology, and less toward the state
or the public sphere.2 However, its relations with other women’s groups
within the state were limited and it also had minimal relations with local,
national, or international groups of indigenous women (CODIMUJ,
1999). Although it operated in relative isolation at the local level, this
organization played a central role in promoting women’s rights within its
regions of influence by valorizing women’s work and participation, advo-
cating gender equity, and defending women’s rights, particularly in rural
communities (Millán, 2008).
The different networks and spaces created by women whose primary
affiliation was with mixed-gender peasant and indigenous organizations
gave them the opportunity to assume new responsibilities and to meet
other women. In all cases the projects allowed women to gain experience
and eventually establish new relationships with other indigenous, peasant,
and mestizo (non-indigenous) women. While indigenous women’s initial
work focused on productive projects motivated by economic needs within
mixed-gender organizations, during the 1990s they pushed a new agenda
on women’s rights. This led to the emergence of a distinct discourse as
they began to self-identify as indigenous women, that is, articulating gen-
der and indigeneity (Safa Barraza & Mergruen Rentería, 1994).
1.2 Indigenous Women and the Zapatista Movement

The political context in the aftermath of the Zapatista uprising was key
for shaping indigenous women’s participation in the indigenous move-
ment. More precisely, it created an unprecedented political opportunity
for them to occupy the first ranks of the indigenous movement along with
their compañeros and also opened new spaces for exchanging experiences
with women from other regions, and to create better conditions than in
the 1980s to build networks beyond the local level, and to develop com-
mon demands.
Millán Moncayo (2006) argues that joining the EZLN was perceived
as a better option for many women compared to the opportunities within
communities or outside them. As she explains, among those aspects indig-
enous women considered favorable within the EZLN were that the divi-
sion of work between men and women was undifferentiated by gender, and
that they could occupy positions of authority within the EZLN. Joining
the EZLN gave them also the opportunity to continue their studies and
have a different life than the one they would have in their communities.
These factors facilitated women’s participation within the Zapatista army,
shaping their individual trajectories but also that of women from the com-
munities who were not involved directly in the EZLN but who benefited
indirectly from the changes taking place regarding gender relations in
their communities (Interviews Micaela Hernández Meza, 2011; Cecilia
López Pérez, 2011).
Women from different movements and regions of the country identi-
fied with Zapatista women’s discourses on indigenous women’s expe-
riences of oppression, referring to the double or triple discrimination
they face as indigenous, as women, and as poor. When recounting their
trajectories of resistance, indigenous women often refer to key figures
such as Comandanta Ramona and Comandanta Esther as icons of indig-
enous women’s struggles (Blackwell, 2006; Espinosa Damián, Dircio
Chautla, & Sánchez Néstor, 2010; Speed, Hernández Castillo, &
Stephen, 2006). Through their strong presence in the EZLN at all levels
of the organization, Zapatista women made indigenous women visible
as political actors. Indeed, they were responsible for leading strategic
operations, assumed high-ranking positions in the rebel army, and were
actively involved in decision-making processes and official representa-
tions of the movement.
Zapatista women succeeded in integrating women’s demands into
the EZLN’s political principles and demands, through the adoption of a
women’s law among other revolutionary laws approved by the organiza-
tion. In 1993, Zapatista women from the highest positions within the
EZLN elaborated a first version of the Women’s Revolutionary Law that
was submitted to discussion at the other levels of the EZLN structure and
afterward with women from the bases de apoyo (Castro Apreza, 1998). The
resulting document was approved as one of the laws of the EZLN that
were publicized on January 1, 1994. The Women’s Revolutionary Law
has been an important tool for supporting women’s demands for gen-
der equity and women’s rights (Interviews, 2011). The principal demands
addressed women’s rights to political participation (in the revolutionary
army and social/political spaces), the right to work and receive a fair sal-
ary, the right to live without violence, the right to choose their partner and
the number of children they want, the right to education, and the right to
occupy positions of leadership (Speed et al., 2006).
It was not without opposition that women integrated their demands into
the movement, which would later be illustrated by the difficulties women
faced in obtaining concrete rights. This gain was nevertheless important,
as this law became a referential tool for indigenous women who used the
right of participation to negotiate their entry into spaces where they had
historically been excluded, such as community assemblies and positions of
representation and responsibility designated in assemblies. More impor-
tantly, it was the first time that such demands for women’s rights were
integrated among the agenda of an indigenous organization that became
a leading actor of the indigenous movement in the 1990s. According to
the EZLN spokesperson at that time, “the first uprising of the EZLN was
in March 1993 and was led by the Zapatista women” (Subcomandante
Insurgente Marcos, 1999).3 It is with the demands voiced by Zapatista
women regarding equal opportunities in political and social participation
that a new discourse on indigenous women’s rights emerged.
Indigenous women’s “uprising” led to the creation of spaces for indig-
enous women from different regions to organize autonomously, promot-
ing a shift in the types of activities and discourses that had characterized
their organizing trajectories up to the 1990s. Several meetings were held
following the Zapatista uprising to articulate indigenous demands at the
national level, and this created occasions for women to meet and discuss
women’s rights. One of these key moments was the workshop on wom-
en’s rights and customs Los derechos de las mujeres en nuestras costumbres
y tradiciones organized by feminist activists and academics in May 1994
(Duarte Bastian, 2005; Eber & Kovic, 2003; Millán Moncayo, 2006).
The workshop was held in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and was attended by
about 50 indigenous women who were invited to participate to discuss the
implications of constitutional reforms on traditional indigenous practices
and customs from the perspective of indigenous women’s rights. At this
occasion, the Women’s Revolutionary Law of the EZLN was submitted
for discussion and “[w]omen denounced the use of ‘custom’ to justify
gender discrimination” (Eber & Kovic, 2003: 10). Women’s participation
in these plural spaces was a key factor and a turning point during the pro-
cess of indigenous women’s organizing and the emergence of a new col-
lective identity (Lovera & Palomo, 1997; Sánchez Néstor, 2005).
However, it is mostly during the Dialogues of San Andres Larráinzar
that indigenous women had the opportunity to discuss and elaborate in
detail their specific demands. It was from their analysis of their particular
condition as both indigenous and women that they began to appropriate
a discourse on women’s rights in their own perspective and from their
experiences (Interview Margarita Gutiérrez, 2011). During the dialogues
between the state and the Zapatista movement, a roundtable was created
at the initiative of the Zapatista leaders and called The Condition, Rights
and Culture of Indigenous Woman. This working group gathered indig-
enous women from local groups as well as academics (mostly mestizas).
On this occasion, international agreements on indigenous peoples’ and
women’s rights were presented by non-indigenous women and served as
reference tool for thinking about the articulation of gender and indigene-
ity in terms of human rights (Gutierrez & Palomo, 2000). Indigenous
women’s conclusions pointed to the need to respect individual women’s
rights to reproductive health, political participation, equal access to ser-
vices and resources, access to education, and so forth.
The Dialogues of San Andres Larráinzar were highly significant for indig-
enous women since on this occasion they analyzed the roots of women’s
particular experience of discrimination, their influence on their individual
experiences, and how women’s rights could be articulated with collec-
tive rights. For indigenous women the demands for women’s rights were
compatible with collective rights, but not everyone within the indigenous
movement agreed (Gutierrez & Palomo, 2000; Sánchez Néstor, 2005).
Different positions were expressed regarding the articulation of individual
and collective rights: from those opposing the articulation of both (leading
to prioritizing one over the other; e.g. for the State, individual rights; and
for some indigenous leaders, collective rights), or those who defended a
possible articulation (mostly indigenous women and a few NGOs).
In this context, indigenous women started articulating a distinct dis-
course on autonomy at the national level. This led to the creation of
the first national indigenous women’s organization, as will be detailed
later. The movement’s main demand at the time was political auton-
omy, and this influenced indigenous women’s discourse, which argued
that autonomy (referring here to indigenous peoples’ collective rights)
needed to take into account women’s individual rights. The first effort
that brought indigenous women together was focused on defining what

autonomy meant for women and how this autonomy could be reframed
so as to integrate women’s rights (Gutierrez & Palomo, 2000; Lovera &
Palomo, 1997).
1.3 Women within ANIPA and CNI

Indigenous organizations from different regions of the country gath-
ered to elaborate the indigenous movement’s demands in the context of
the Dialogues. From the beginning, indigenous women sought to open
spaces to discuss women’s rights. However, they faced different obstacles
in this process. During the first assembly of ANIPA (Asamblea Nacional
Plural Por la Autonomía) in 1995, women’s demands to integrate a gen-
der perspective on collective rights were disregarded. The obstacles faced
by women in ANIPA’s assemblies were equally present in the other major
organization of the indigenous movement, the CNI (Congreso Nacional
Indígena). Women demanded the creation of a women’s roundtable dur-
ing the first CNI Congress in 1996, but they only obtained that gender
would be integrated transversally within the other roundtables. It was
argued that indigenous rights are integral and therefore should not be
discussed separately. Although women strategically mobilized to integrate
women’s demands into the agendas of other roundtables, their demands
were not reflected in the assembly’s final propositions (Gutierrez &
Palomo, 2000; Lovera & Palomo, 1997). Moreover, indigenous women
were not in the leadership of these two organizations as recalled by Martha
Sánchez Néstor: “we fought to be spokespersons in CNI and ANIPA, we
did not want to only represent women, but it did not happen. The leader-
ship moved us to the side” (quoted in Espinosa Damián, 2009: 273, our
translation).
The resistance women faced became sufficiently difficult as to make it
necessary for them to organize autonomously. Indigenous women created
a Women’s Commission during the third assembly of the ANIPA, which
had two main goals: organize the Continental Meeting of Indigenous
Women of the Americas to be held in Mexico; and analyze the question
of women’s rights in light of the proposal to create autonomous regions
(Gutierrez & Palomo, 2000). As a result, this Commission organized
in December 1995 the first national meeting of women from ANIPA,
attended by 300 women from all over the country, just before the fourth
assembly of ANIPA in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in order to discuss
women’s demands and bring them to the main agenda of the movement
(Blackwell, 2007; Gutierrez & Palomo, 2000; Valladares de la Cruz,
2008). At this gathering, women articulated a common program around
their demands and discussed women’s rights in light of the question of
indigenous peoples’ autonomy (Gutierrez & Palomo, 2000).
This marked the beginning of a process whereby women negotiated in
the different spaces of the indigenous movement to include their gender
claims. Women from CNI did not create a separate space as did women
from ANIPA with the women’s commission. However, along with women
from ANIPA, they coordinated national and international meetings of
indigenous women that would open up key opportunities for the autono-
mous organizing process of indigenous women in Mexico, leading to the
creation of independent organizations (Interview Sofía Robles, 2011).
1.4
Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas
It is through the negotiation of boundaries within the mixed-gender
indigenous movement that indigenous women navigated in order to
organize autonomously and work on specific political agendas. This
echoes Meyer’s (2000: 41) argument that new organizations are formed
where social actors feel the necessity to “engage a neglected constituency,
give voice to new claims and emphases”. Indigenous women’s mobiliza-
tion in autonomous spaces clearly responds to this need to give voice to
women’s distinct demands. This took place at the national level with the
creation of the CONAMI, by women involved in ANIPA and CNI. But
this dynamics also took place at the local level. This was the case for
example when women organized to gain more representation within the
indigenous organization UCIZONI in Oaxaca. In reaction to the pres-
sure from women to occupy political space and promote their specific
rights, men attempted to limit the scope of the Women’s Commission’s
activities and goals. This conflict motivated women from the organization
to create an independent group in 2000, the Centre for Women’s Rights
Nääxwiin (Centro para los Derechos de la Mujer Nääxwiin), legally con-
stituted in 2003 (Interviews Dora Avila, 2011; Rubicela Gayetano, 2011;
Estela Vélez Manuel, 2011).
From the various experiences of negotiating their specific demands,
indigenous women agreed that in order to be able to have a greater impact
on mixed-gender organizations, they needed a space of their own that
could facilitate the analysis and organizing from a gendered perspective
(Interviews, 2011). With this objective in mind, alliances were consti-

tuted in order to organize the First National Encounter of Indigenous
Women in Oaxaca in 1997, “Construyendo nuestra historia”. Indigenous
women from the major national indigenous organizations in Mexico, such
as ANIPA and CNI, combined their efforts to organize this first national
meeting of indigenous women attended by more than 600 women repre-
senting approximately 26 different indigenous groups. Different women’s
groups as well as feminist organizations supported this initiative.4 This
encounter was inaugurated with a speech from Comandanta Ramona, one
of the key figures of the Zapatista movement. A central theme was the
need to consolidate indigenous women’s organizational processes and, as
a result of this meeting, indigenous women decided to create CONAMI.
Thus, CONAMI became the primary space for formulating and repre-
senting indigenous women’s demands and interests at the national level
(Blackwell, 2007). It was instrumental in providing a space for coordi-
nating indigenous women at the national level but, more importantly, it
organized numerous workshops to train indigenous women to develop
tools to promote rights and to train other women from their communi-
ties and groups (Interview Martha Sánchez Néstor, 2011). The impor-
tance of these workshops and training is clearly illustrated by Hermelinda
Cayetano—former president of the state-level section of ANIPA in
Guerrero—who explains that the workshops indigenous women partici-
pated in “were the way to give us the opportunity to speak, the knowledge
about gender, because in the Council [CG500Años] they never gave it
to us. The Consejo was about marches, sit-ins, rallies, road blocking. It
was more about mobilization, all that. But practice, training and aware-
ness were facilitated by Kinal and the National Coordinator [CONAMI],
with the idea of going back to the communities to do workshops and
transmit what we were learning” (Tiburcio Cayetano, 2010: 263–264,
our translation).
CONAMI was central for promoting individual leaderships and
strengthening local processes in different states. This effort was supported
by Kinal Antzetik, a women’s civil association that was actively involved
in women’s initiatives and projects both at the local level in Chiapas and
Guerrero and at the national level with the consolidation of CONAMI,
as explained by Lina Rosa Berrio Palomo, coordinator of Kinal Antzetik
(Interview, 2011). Indeed, CONAMI was intimately coordinating with
Kinal, both through the activities they developed and promoted as well as
the office space they shared.
The training of indigenous women’s leaderships was central in the first

years of CONAMI: “it was a process where the goal was clearly to help
strengthen indigenous women leaders to advocate within the indigenous
movement … part of the role Kinal played there was to enable those
spaces, those resources for transportation. […] So it was like having a
periodic space for meeting” (Interview Lina Rosa Berrio Palomo, 2011).
Since the national organizations of the indigenous movement operated
more as networks rather than formal organizations, and that indigenous
women processes were anchored at the local level, the space and resources
provided by Kinal greatly facilitated the organizing.
If training took a central place in the first years of CONAMI, from
the beginning CONAMI also endeavored to bring together local groups
of indigenous women to collaborate and organize in regional processes
(Interview Martha Sánchez Néstor, 2011). It is through women lead-
ers’ participation in CONAMI and the access to resources it permitted
that indigenous women from Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas were able to
bring together women from local organizing processes (Interview Felicitas
Mártinez Solano, 2011). Among the first CONAMI coordinators were
leaders from the Guerrero Council of 500 Years of Indian, Black and
People’s Resistance (Consejo Guerrerense 500 Años). Martha Sánchez
Néstor and Felicitas Martínez assumed the coordination of CONAMI, the
former in the early 2000s and the latter in the later years of that decade.
Both leaders’ first experiences were in the indigenous movement, in
the Consejo Guerrerense 500 Años. Martha Sánchez Néstor started as a
secretary of the organization where the directorate was exclusively indig-
enous and mostly male and young (Overmyer-Velázquez, 2002). Martha
was the first woman to work in the executive of the organization, and her
role at the beginning was to organize, take notes, and so forth. However,
when the organization was invited to different meetings in the context of
indigenous mobilizations in Chiapas and other states, she accompanied
the team and quickly became one of the national leaders of the movement.
Moreover, when they specifically invited indigenous women to attend, she
participated by representing the Consejo (Interview, 2011). The opportu-
nities this opened for her individually were considerable. In Guerrero, the
trajectory of other women is similar to Martha’s, as they were also formed
in the organization 500 Años de Resistencia Indígena y Popular. This is
the case of Felicitas Martinez and Hermelinda Tiburcio Cayetano.
After assuming the coordination of CONAMI in 2002–2003, Martha
Sánchez Néstor became the general coordinator of ANIPA in 2004–2006,
being one of the few women who would assume leadership positions
within mixed- gender organizations (Sánchez Néstor, 2009). This is a
clear example of how indigenous women are involved in different types
of organizations in Mexico, in mixed-gender organizations as well as
women’s independent organizations. As explained by Martha Sánchez
Néstor, “many from Guerrero had been representatives of the national
Coordinator, Felicitas among them; I was also in the front, and probably
this helped us to forge strong alliances” (Interview, 2011). Indeed, the
relationships between different levels of coordination depended on these
women’s leadership, particularly Martha’s, and their capacity to articu-
late the national to the local levels. These factors help to explain why in
its first years CONAMI centered its attention on Guerrero and why the
first sub-national organization of indigenous women emerged there. It
was in Guerrero that CONAMI organized its second national encounter
in 2000, and where the first sub-national indigenous women’s organiza-
tion, the Coordination of Indigenous Women of Guerrero (Coordinadora
Guerrerense de Mujeres Indígenas—CGMI), was founded in 2003.
Indigenous women in Guerrero identified the need to have a space to
voice political demands and position indigenous women’s agenda with
greater force, as recalled by Martha Sánchez Néstor: “it was clear that if
we did not articulate at the state level we would continue to be treated
as had always been the case in Guerrero. […] And that it would always
be a minimal consideration for all our demands” (Interview, 2011). Such
need to consolidate the movement at the state level also responded to
the political context in Guerrero. There was a decline of the indigenous
movement at that level, which paralleled its decline at the national level.
The disintegration of the state-level organization representing indig-
enous peoples’ interests directly impacted indigenous women whose
coordination capacity rested with the women’s commission of this orga-
nization. They needed a new space to coordinate, and the leadership
played by those involved in CONAMI was key to provide opportunities
for such coordination.
In other states the influence of the national level in the creation of a
sub-national space was less direct than it was for Guerrero, where the
initiative to create a sub-national structure of coordination followed a top-
down logic. In the case of Oaxaca, for example, we can see a bottom-up
process at work, as it was through local initiatives that a regional space for
coordination, the Indigenous Women’s Assembly of Oaxaca (Asamblea de
Mujeres Indígenas de Oaxaca—AMIO), was founded in 2010.
If some leaders were able to integrate gender agendas within mixed-

gender regional organizations, as was the case of Sofia Robles within
Servicios del Pueblo Mixe (SER), the women interviewed in Oaxaca sup-
ported the creation of women-only networks and spaces. Sofia Robles
is the coordinator of the Women’s Area, founding member, and former
coordinator of SER. The work with women from SER began with proj-
ects addressing health and nutrition, and gradually integrated work on
women’s rights. This organization played a key role in supporting the
organizing process at the state level in Oaxaca. As explained by Sofia, “the
majority of us were trained in mixed-gender organizations and in my case,
I continue to believe that I want to be here [SER—a mixed-gender indig-
enous organization], and that I want to continue to promote indigenous
rights, women’s rights, but I also think that there needs to be autonomous
processes for women” (Interview, July 2011).
The idea of coordinating indigenous women at the state level was
debated in different spaces such as during the First Regional Meeting
of Zapotec and Chatinas Women from the Southern Sierra of Oaxaca in
2009, where participants voiced their concerns regarding the lack of a
sub-national coordinating structure for indigenous women. As recounted
by Flora Gutierrez, “with Sofía, we saw the need to coordinate indigenous
women and to go hand in hand in these regional processes that each of
us had from our community, our region, and to see how to support each
other and how to reinforce those links, those spaces, those networks, those
alliances” (Interview, 2011). This preoccupation was shared by women
from the Network of Mixe Women (Red de Mujeres Mixes—RMM) who
came to a consensus in 2009, during the First Assembly of the Network
of Mixe Women, that they needed to “[a]chieve unity to ensure that Mixe
women’s rights are respected and considered in the different areas of com-
munity life” (Consorcio, 2009). Although the RMM is a regional net-
work, its leadership is critical for the movement at the state level in Oaxaca
(Interview Paloma Bonfil, 2011). When questioned about the reasons that
motivated the creation of a state-level organization, indigenous women
commonly responded that it was necessary for them to have a space where
they could speak for themselves without any mediation from other actors.
AMIO organized different state-level meetings, workshops, and assem-
blies since its creation. It elaborated propositions and goals for the move-
ment, and coordinated the local processes of women throughout the
state. While the state-level organization, AMIO, only has individual mem-
bers (and is thus not a coalition of organizations), indigenous women in
Oaxaca also have various local organizations, where they play a central
role and have decision-making power. Indigenous women in Oaxaca have
effectively positioned themselves as social actors with specific agendas,
goals, and a representational structure that is recognized by indigenous
women’s local groups and the state of Oaxaca (Becerril Albarrán & Bonfil,
2012). As explained by Sofia Robles, indigenous women participate along
with other representatives of the women’s movement in Oaxaca for the
elaboration of women’s political agenda in order to pressure the gov-
ernment during political transitions, while pushing for the recognition
of indigenous women’s demands (Interview Sofía Robles, 2011). Also,
AMIO has important allies within state institutions, such as the Director
of the Indigenous Women’s Rights Department at the government of
Oaxaca who promotes the participation and organization of indigenous
women in the state of Oaxaca (Interview Zenaida Pérez Gutiérrez, 2012).
Additionally, indigenous women’s organizing in Oaxaca has been success-
ful in promoting the training of new leaderships (Morales Hudon, 2014).
The state-level processes in Guerrero and Oaxaca are among the most
consolidated, as in other states indigenous women continue to organize
principally in local organizations. In other states, indigenous women work
on the consolidation of regional spaces, as in Chiapas. In Chiapas, some
initiatives have been advanced but the process was more complex and dif-
ficult than in the other two states, as explained by Martha Sánchez Néstor:
“the challenge in Chiapas has been a coordination at the state level […]
they have not consolidated as in Oaxaca” (Interview, 2012). Margarita
Gutiérrez Romero, one of the founding members of CONAMI and active
leaders at the international level, recognizes the low level of consolidation
of the movement in Chiapas: “it was not possible that we could not build a
local space, therefore I started to promote the meeting. We are in this pro-
cess of construction. Well, it is built, it must be strengthened” (Interview,
2011).5 According to Margarita, the coordination process at the state level
is more recent in Chiapas, contrary to the cases of Oaxaca and Guerrero:
“I think many women here participated in the movement, but are sepa-
rated. Some are invited and go to national meetings; international too,
but there is clearly no coordination” (Interview, 2011). Such observation
coincides with that of other indigenous women who had been actively
involved since the beginning of the 1990s, such as Micaéla Hernández
Meza who arrived at the conclusion that it is no longer a movement as it
was in Chiapas; “much has been lost. There are no longer women’s meet-
ings, there are no longer workshops […] we have lost track of each other”
(Interview, 2011). It is clear that the conditions enabling coordination

beyond the local level were there in the context of the Zapatista move-
ment, but this did not lead to coordination in the long-term in Chiapas,
not as in Oaxaca, for example (Morales Hudon, 2014). However, the
creation of an autonomous organization at the national level seems to
be a facilitating factor to promote indigenous women’s coordination and
leadership.
2 The Agency of Organized Indigenous Women

While indigenous women engaged in different strategies to bring wom-
en’s demands to the table during the encounters and assemblies of the
indigenous movement in the 1990s, they nonetheless faced considerable
resistance. Gender demands were often seen by some leaders as endanger-
ing the unity of the movement, particularly through the introduction of
a discourse of women’s individual rights.6 The internal opposition faced
by women within the indigenous movement was significant; among other
things, critics accused them of bringing “Western” or “external” ideas
to the movement, and of creating internal divisions (Interviews, 2011,
2012). As Cumes (2009) argues in her analysis of the indigenous women’s
organizing processes in Guatemala, indigenous men’s refusal to integrate
women’s demands is based on a discourse that associates their demands
with an external, occidental feminist discourse that has nothing to do with
their cultures and that could destabilize their communities’ harmony.
The resistance women faced was apparent in their accounts of their
trajectories of mobilization in the interviews conducted in Oaxaca and
Chiapas and the testimonies from women in Guerrero edited by Espinosa
Damián et al. (2010). Indeed, this dynamic took place not only in Chiapas
during the Zapatista mobilization but also at the national level in indig-
enous organizations as well as at the local level, as with the case of the
women’s commission of the Union of Indigenous Communities of the
Northern Zone of the Isthmus (UCIZONI) in Oaxaca.7 Indigenous wom-
en’s efforts to gain more independence within organizations as well as to
integrate their specific demands created strong reactions, as the organiza-
tions tried to restrain women’s activities and goals. Paradoxically, although
women’s political experiences were largely shaped by their participation
in these mixed-gender organizations, it is within these same spaces that
they were limited when they tried to introduce a perspective on women’s
rights. The internal opposition faced by indigenous women was important
because it led to the creation of internal boundaries, and ultimately to the

creation of autonomous spaces led by indigenous women.
At the national level, different organizations were instrumental for
indigenous women’s organizing processes and the incorporation of a
gender perspective into their movements, even if their influence varied
from one region to the other. Their support was manifested through proj-
ects, workshops, training, and also financing (Interviews, 2011). One of
the main organizations, Kinal Antzetik, provided different workshops to
women from all over the country and was actively involved in the process
of creating CONAMI. It has also supported local and state-level organiz-
ing processes in Chiapas and Guerrero. Another organization that was
present in Oaxaca is COMLATEZIN, a feminist organization support-
ing peasant and indigenous women’s groups using workshops to develop
rural women’s leadership and also providing counseling to support their
organizing processes (Bonfil, 2012). In addition to the workshops, indi-
vidual fellowships received by indigenous women strengthened their orga-
nizing processes, from national and international organizations such as
the Mexican Society Pro Women’s Rights (Semillas) and the MacArthur
Foundation. Semillas is one of the most important NGOs supporting
indigenous women’s organizing processes by giving grants to indigenous
women to implement collective projects to promote indigenous women’s
rights. It is important to highlight that the different workshops, diplo-
mas, and other types of training made available resulted mainly from the
collaboration between indigenous women’s organizations, NGOs, aca-
demic institutions (UNAM and CIESAS), and international institutions
(UN Women) (Valladares de la Cruz, 2008). Thus, external actors and
resources played an important role in strengthening indigenous women’s
organizing processes.
The influence of international discourses, instruments, and agencies
working on the defense and promotion of women’s rights was also an
important factor that facilitated indigenous women’s organizing in Mexico.
The participation of indigenous women in international meetings, forums,
and workshops enhanced their analysis of women’s and indigenous peo-
ples’ rights, enabling them to develop an agenda integrating gender into
the broader indigenous movement agenda (Blackwell, 2006). Indigenous
women’s first visible presence in an international meeting where they pre-
sented demands as both indigenous and women was in 1995, during the
Women’s International Conference in Beijing (Blackwell, 2006; Valladares
de la Cruz, 2004).
Moreover, indigenous women have also been actively involved in

transnational organizations such as the Enlace Continental de Mujeres
Indígenas de las Américas, a continental organization for indigenous
women created in 1995 as well as regional organizations such as the
Alianza de Mujeres Indígenas de Mexico y Centroamérica created in 2004
as a network of organizations and institutions of indigenous women from
the region of Central America and Mexico. Indigenous women from
Mexico attended the First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Women
of the Americas hosted in Ecuador in 1995—just before the Women’s
International Conference in Beijing. Prior to this series of continen-
tal encounters, different regional workshops were organized, seeking to
create solidarity networks and coordination between indigenous women
leaders at the continental level.8 These events took place in a short period
and preceded the national Dialogues between the Zapatista movement
and the Mexican state. It is through these emergent networks and alliances
that indigenous women acquired resources to push their new demands
for women’s rights (Interview Sofía Robles, 2011). However, these were
possible because of the opportunities created by the mobilizations of the
indigenous movement in the 1990s, particularly after the Zapatista rebel-
lion in 1994.
During the First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Women of the
Americas, indigenous women who represented Mexico proposed orga-
nizing the second continental meeting of indigenous women in Mexico,
which became a strong incentive for them to organize together at the
national level (Rivera, 2008). When they met again back in Mexico in the
context of the Zapatista movement in the meetings organized by ANIPA
and the CNI, their primary agenda was to coordinate indigenous women
in order to hold the next indigenous women’s continental meeting. They
had realized that indigenous women in Mexico were not coordinating, as
they were working separately in their respective organizations. As recalled
by Sofía Robles, one of the indigenous leaders of Oaxaca, “this is why
we organized the national meeting as it was not possible to have a conti-
nental meeting while at the national level there was no organization, no
coordination” (Interview, 2011). However, if this context facilitated the
emergence of spaces to discuss specific issues and interests of indigenous
women, the obstacles they faced were nonetheless significant as presented
in the previous section.
The indigenous women who had the opportunity to participate in the
workshops, meetings, and assemblies began a process of consolidating
local organizations, primarily at the national level and thereafter at the

sub-national level. Along with the roundtable on women’s rights dur-
ing the Dialogues, where Zapatista women and indigenous women from
other states participated, several meetings were held to coordinate indig-
enous women’s organizing process. Seeking to introduce new visions of
their specific rights, indigenous women began to take their local efforts to
the national arena.
But this negotiation within the indigenous movement was not the only
one indigenous women had to go through in their organizing process.
Not only did they have to negotiate within indigenous organizations to
include their specific gender demands, but they also had to face critiques
from some feminist organizations and government representatives who
argued that women’s individual rights were not compatible with collective
rights, and, in particular, with indigenous peoples’ rights. For indigenous
women this involved reclaiming indigeneity in non-indigenous spaces of
mobilization, particularly in women’s and feminist groups, as it was with
these groups that they had established collaborations regarding the pro-
motion of women’s rights. But in this reaffirmation of indigeneity as a col-
lective identity, indigenous women also faced the challenge of addressing
gender in the formulation of collective identity and demands. Hernández
Castillo (2001), who wrote extensively about indigenous women’s orga-
nizing processes in Chiapas, argues that the constant tensions faced by
indigenous women in negotiating these two sets of demands explain their
decision to create their own spaces autonomous from indigenous and
feminist organizations. As exposed by Flora when explaining the reasons
motivating the creation of AMIO as an independent organization exclu-
sively for indigenous women, “one of the resolutions was to create an
autonomous space for us, where we no longer want others to speak on our
behalf. They have spoken sufficiently” (Interview, 2011).
Although the tensions faced by indigenous women in mixed-gender
indigenous organizations are documented by Gutierrez and Palomo
(2000) from an insider perspective, the tensions within the women’s move-
ment have received less attention. The relations between women, which
are embedded in the intersection of multiple structures of oppression such
as race and class, have paradoxically facilitated (access to resources) and
constrained (hierarchies between indigenous and non-indigenous women)
indigenous women’s organizing processes (Morales Hudon, 2014). The
alliances developed between indigenous women and feminist organiza-
tions were critical for creating the necessary networks for indigenous
women leaders at the local and national levels. These networks allowed
the opening of spaces where women were able to identify common inter-
ests and organize meetings to determine political agendas. These alliances
were also instrumental in the development of a discourse on women’s
rights, and as a result, enhanced the analysis on gendered dynamics within
their organizations. However, these alliances did not necessarily lead to a
transformation of power relations between women. For example, indig-
enous women are not always the ones occupying the leadership positions
in women’s organizations working for the defense of indigenous women’s
rights (Morales Hudon, 2014).
In Chiapas, indigenous women are not protagonists in state-level wom-
en’s organizations or in the indigenous movement (with the exception of
the Zapatista movement). Consequently, this prevented them from par-
ticipating in decisional spaces at the state level, and from establishing rela-
tionships with other indigenous women’s organizations. Such exclusion
affected the direct representation of indigenous women by their leaders,
but also led to an unequal access to resources. In contrast, indigenous
women in Oaxaca occupied more positions of representation in women’s
and indigenous organizations, facilitating a relationship where indigenous
women had a greater leverage to negotiate as they have greater organiza-
tional autonomy vis-à-vis indigenous and feminist organizations.
The different forms of collaboration between indigenous women and
mestizas also affect the type of actions that are undertaken by the wom-
en’s/feminist movement, for example, in the collaboration of indigenous
women and feminist organizations, through spaces such as the Sexual and
Reproductive Rights Network (DDSER) and the Indigenous Women’s
House project (CAMI). But, as argued by Hernández Castillo and Mora
(2008: 154), if there have been alliances, there is still much work to do
to concretize them into common actions to end violence against women,
particularly violence against indigenous women.
Notwithstanding these differences, the alliances created with external
actors were instrumental for their organizing process, among them some
feminist organizations whose support was manifested through projects,
workshops, training, and also financing. The regional organizations at the
sub-national level have evolved and benefited from the support of national
and international organizations and meetings. In 2011, CONAMI hosted
the 6th Continental Meeting of Indigenous Women of the Americas in
Mexico, an event that represented an opportunity for women from differ-
ent regions of the country to attend and meet indigenous women from
other organizations and networks from all over the Americas (Blackwell,
2006).9
Moreover, indigenous women have participated in spaces where such
collaborations and alliances could be enhanced, as within the National
Feminist Encounter of 2011 where indigenous women exposed their posi-
tions regarding the indigenous and the feminist movement and elaborated
specific demands regarding justice, health, labor, communication, educa-
tion, and environment.10
3 Conclusion
The strength of the indigenous movement in the 1990s in Mexico repre-
sented a major opportunity for indigenous women in terms of participa-
tion, creation of networks, access to resources, and allies’ support. This
allowed women to participate fully within mixed-gender organizations
but also to develop their own discourses and organizational structures.
Indigenous women have been the most successful in taking advantage of
the opportunities created by the Zapatista movement. This is significant
since the indigenous movement as a whole remained unable to consoli-
date a strong national movement after the constitutional reforms on indig-
enous rights in 2001 (Stavenhagen, 2010).
If indigenous women participated predominantly within mixed-gender
indigenous and peasant organizations in the 1980s, this trend changed
during the late 1990s as we see the creation of autonomous organizations
by indigenous women coming from previous mixed- gender organiza-
tions. Indeed, in the late 1980s and the 1990s, women within the peasant
and indigenous national organizations created Women’s Commissions or
Women’s Areas, but in the late 1990s they created indigenous women’s
autonomous organizing spaces, such as CONAMI, at the national level.
At the sub-national level, this trend was also predominant, even if in
some states of Mexico there were some leaders who continued to organize
principally in mixed-gender organizations. This dominant trend was clear
with the emergence of organizations at the sub-national level such as the
Indigenous Women’s Assembly of Oaxaca (AMIO) and the Coordination
of Indigenous Women of Guerrero (CGMI). Therefore, when the indig-
enous movement declined in the early 2000s, women had constructed
the structures that would allow them, while retreating to the regional
level, to create new and autonomous organizations from which they con-
tinue to mobilize as autonomous social and political actors in Mexico.
Furthermore, beyond the organizational spaces, the movement is now

able to train new generations of young women leaders.
Notes
1. See http://www.cimacnoticias.com.mx/node/45425 (last visit,
December 3, 2015).
2. CODIMUJ is organized at different levels: local (women groups in
communities), regional, pastoral zones (the diocese is divided into
seven zones), and diocese (around 110 representatives from the
seven pastoral zones).
3. This is said in reference to the Zapatista uprising of January 1,
1994, which would then be the second uprising of the EZLN.
4. Among them: K’inal Antzetik, Comision de Mujeres de la ANIPA,
la Comisión de mujeres del CNI, Consejo de Pueblos Nahuas del
Alto Balsas (Guerrero), UCIZONI, Mujeres olvidadas del rincón
Mixe (Oaxaca), ARIC-Démocratica, Jolom Mayaetik, J’Pas
Lumetik (Chiapas), CIOAC (Chiapas), Servicio del Pueblo Mixe,
Maseual siuamej mosenyolchicauani (Puebla), Union de Mujeres
Campesinas de Xilitla (San Luis Potosí), Sedac-Covac (Hidalgo)
(Sánchez Néstor 2005 : 54). Among the indigenous leaders
involved in this initiative were Comandanta Ramona (EZLN),
Sofía Robles Hernández (Oaxaca), Margarita Gutiérrez Romero
(Hidalgo).
5. Other women interviewed in the region share Margarita’s concern
about the need to coordinate indigenous women in Chiapas; how-
ever, few have taken the lead in constructing a regional space, and
efforts remain focused on the local level. For a deeper analysis of
sub-national movements of indigenous women in Mexico, see
Morales Hudon (2014).
6. Such reactions to women’s mobilizing were common in leftist
movements in Latin America—as in other parts of the world—as
the inclusion of a gender perspective was seen as a threat to move-
ments’ unity, and to some extent a bourgeois agenda. See Acosta-
Belén and Bose (1993), Escobar and Alvarez (1992), Molyneux
(2003), Ray and Korteweg (1999), and Safa (1990).
7. As reported by two former presidents of the women’s commission
of UCIZONI, Dora Ávila and Rubicela Gayetano, the relation-
ships between this organization and its women’s commission
became tense when women decided to promote women’s rights

(Interview, July 2011). As told by Dora Ávila, the Women’s
Commission had prepared some material on women’s rights to be
distributed at a forum organized by UCIZONI. The documents
referred to conclusions reached in Chiapas and in women’s meet-
ings, as well as information on the Convention of the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) adopted
by the UN General Assembly in 1979. When members of the
Women’s Commission distributed the document during the
forum, their compañeros openly questioned them and tried to
police their actions. During the assembly, explains Rublicela
Gayetano, men denounced women for “introducing women to
bad ideas” and for not doing their work well (Interview, 2011). As
described by Rubicela Gayetano, “we felt there was a battle
between our compañeros and us because they limited our work”
(Interview, 2011).
8. For the region of South America, a workshop was organized in July
1995 in Colombia. For Central America, it was in March 1995 in
Panama and for North America in January 1996 in Montreal.
Finally, a continental workshop was organized in Guatemala in July
1996. From this previous organization emerged the continental
meetings. The first was hosted by CONAIE in Ecuador, in August
1995, in preparation for the Women’s International Conference in
Beijing. The second continental meeting in 1997 was hosted by
CONAMI in Mexico. The third was in Panama in 2000, followed
by another in Peru in 2004, and then, in 2007, in Canada. The sixth
took place in Mexico, in the state of Morelos. See Rivera (2008).
9. CONAMI invited women to organize at the sub-national level
before the international meeting so that they could send proposals,
demands, and also delegate participants.
10. See http://www.ajuv1121.org/index.php/sala-de-prensa/111-
el-encuentro-nacional-feminista (last visi,t December 4, 2015).
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PART III
Peru
CHAPTER 6
The “Exceptional Case” No Longer

So Exceptional
In the last 20 years in Peru, many social actors have increasingly “indi-
genized themselves” or “customized indigeneity” (Greene, 2009), cre-
ating new political agendas and citizenship claims. This process is not
unique to Peru, and indeed from the 1990s to 2009, there was a debate
in the literature on Andean social movements as to why Peruvian indige-
nous organizations appeared less vibrant or less central to national political
dynamics in comparison to its neighboring countries (Albó, 2002; García
& Lucero, 2004; Pajuelo Teves 2006).
This Peruvian “exceptionalism” (García, 2008; Vittor, 2009) mostly
referred to the situation of highland (Sierra) population, since Amazonian
indigenous organizing had started in the late 1970s, and some of the
organizations’ leaders became prominent at the level of the transnational
Pan-Amazonian Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la
Primero, en la costa, básicamente no hay comunidades nativas por el proceso de

migración a la costa donde está el 60% de la población. ¿Qué comunidad nativa
tienes? (…) En la sierra, la mayor parte son comunidades agrarias, producto de
la Reforma Agraria, etc. Más que todo, comunidades nativas se dan en las zonas
de selva con estas poblaciones que, muchas veces o antiguamente, se llamaban como
no contactados, ¿no? Pero hoy día, con la infraestructura, la modernidad, estamos
tratando de articular a todas las comunidades.
Ollanta Humala, Peruvian president, in interview at Punto Final, Frecuencia
Latina Channel, April 29, 2013

Cuenca Amazónica (COICA) (Greene, 2009). The greater strength of

Amazonian indigenous organizing is associated with the entry of Peruvian
indigenous movements into center-stage national politics during the gov-
ernment of Alan García (2006–2011). On June 5, 2009, 33 people were
killed and 1 disappeared in Peru’s northern Amazon province of Bagua
when security forces violently clashed with indigenous protestors. This
clash ended a two-month long roadblock indigenous communities had
organized to protest against decrees 1090 and 1064 that sought to open
up indigenous territories to increased timber, oil, natural gas, and hydro-
power extraction. Protests had started in 2008, targeting decree 1015
that eased procedures to sell or rent communal land. Central in these
protests was their insistence on the state’s obligation to implement ILO
Convention 169’s provision on the right to be consulted. The long pro-
tests that culminated in the June 2009 clashes with police forces and mul-
tiple deaths in the province of Bagua (department of Amazonas) created a
national crisis and led Peru further in the regional trend of the indigeniza-
tion of politics.1
Other instances of indigenous mobilizing in other regions of the coun-
try followed this dramatic breakthrough. For example, right before the
2011 presidential elections’ second round, massive protests led by thou-
sands of self-identified Aymaras in the Puno region against the Santa Ana
Mining Project were also reported in the national and international press.2
The protests led the government of Ollanta Humala to withdraw a con-
cession from the Canadian Bear Creek mining company that had devel-
oped the Santa Ana project.
However, Peruvian indigenous movements have not developed mecha-
nisms that would allow them to breach regional differences and consoli-
date this breakthrough in national politics so as to impose an alternative
political project. Collaboration between different indigenous organiza-
tions has emerged around specific issues only, and with great difficulties in
avoiding internal fighting and divisions. Since 2011, the major issue at the
center stage of the interaction between the national State and indigenous
organizations has been the adoption of a new legislation granting indig-
enous peoples the right to be consulted on major extractive and other
development projects, as will be explained below.
The politics of the Peruvian indigenous movement is strongly charac-
terized by a dialectical process of (re)constructing indigeneity in the face
of Peruvian elites’ resistance to consider most highland populations as
indigenous peoples. The quote from Peruvian President Ollanta Humala
THE “EXCEPTIONAL CASE” NO LONGER SO EXCEPTIONAL 143
that opens this chapter illustrates the level of confusion and denial which
characterizes even today the way the most powerful elites talk about indig-
enous peoples in the country. Thus, a core dimension of indigenous politics
in contemporary Peru is a highly conflictual process that involves a reshap-
ing of the way some highland Peruvians refer to themselves. Different pro-
cesses in state–society relations and within civil society—inter-related to
various degrees—have generated a context where, on the one hand, racism
and ethnic discrimination are more discussed and criticized than before
in the public sphere, and on the other hand, several collective actors are
promoting the adoption of the language of indigenous peoples’ rights by
communities as a new strategy for collective empowerment.
These phenomena emerging in the new millennium have purport-
edly led more highland citizens to identify as indigenous, although no
comparative quantitative data were available at the time of writing. What
counts as evidence is rather what can be observed in the field of social
movement organizations representing peasants and other social sectors of
the highland region, as well as the ethnographic studies showing a grow-
ing use of indigenous ethnic references in popular culture such as folk-
loric dances and religious rituals (Canepa, 2008; Mendoza, 2008). This
trend is challenging the established labeling and identity practices since
the late 1960s whereby highland rural sectors have been identified and
have largely identified themselves as campesinos (peasant) in opposition to
an “indio” label associated with historical structures of colonial and post-
colonial exploitative social relations. Since field work for this book began
in Peru, we observed a rich discussion among social scientists and in the
media about the proper labeling of the highland population and the mean-
ing of indigeneity. The common answer “oh, but these people are not
indigenous [no son indígenas], they are peasants [campesinos]!” when talk-
ing about highland rural Peruvians, has become increasingly contentious
in the past few years. The works of Peruvian and non-Peruvian scholars
(García & Lucero, 2011; Montoya & Balarín, 2008; Pajuelo Teves, 2006;
Paredes, 2010) have also contributed to presenting substantial evidence
of the growing strength of indigenous “revival” in the Peruvian Andes.
This being said, a substantial portion of indigenous movement dynam-
ics has to do with developments in the Amazon region where, as indi-
cated above, the 2009 protests have galvanized indigenous mobilizing.
Ethnic politics is much more present than before in the media and public
debate, in a context where some sectors in the Peruvian State, NGOs,
and indigenous organizations are attempting to implement a new agenda
of inter-cultural policy. As Greene (2007) argues, the adoption of a mul-

ticultural policy by the Peruvian State in the 1990s, and more explicitly
in the 2000s, led to the public recognition of a new set of rights based
on ethnic diversity. In the Constitution adopted in 1993, the State rec-
ognized the multicultural nature of Peruvian society, the right to ethnic
identity and culture as an individual right, and the obligation of the State
to protect and promote linguistic diversity notably through inter-cultural
bilingual education. The autonomy of indigenous and campesino com-
munity authorities has also been constitutionally recognized in different
areas, such as in the capacity to exercise communal justice based on cus-
tomary law (article 149), yet its exercise is severely limited in practice and
some leaders even face judicial charges for applying customary law in their
communities (Yrigoyen Fajardo, 2002)3.
Greene (2007) recalls how the historical appropriation of Inca sym-
bolism by criollo/mestizo elites has complicated the politics of highland
indigenous peoples’ self-representation, while at the same time Amazonian
indigenous peoples have long been erased from nationalist narratives. This
chapter will argue that this dominant historical construction of collec-
tive identities and their role in nation-building is being challenged by a
growing use of the category of “pueblos indígenas” to encompass both
Amazonian and Andean peoples. A process of “reindigenización” in the
Sierra has been building up since the late 1990s, notably through the
formation of new indigenous organizations of which some women’s orga-
nizations have played a key role. Yet, up until today, this process falls short
of providing the basis for concerted mass-based political mobilization that
would provoke a realignment of national political forces and agendas.
1 Race/Ethnicity in Twentieth-Century Peru

When research for this book began, various Peruvian experts, indigenous
leaders, and politicians were debating over the content of a Bill on the Right
to be Consulted (Ley del derecho a la consulta previa a los pueblos indígenas
u originarios) based on Peru’s obligations regarding the International
Labour Organization’s Convention 169. This Bill was prepared by the
Congress’ Commission on Indigenous Peoples in the wake of the crisis
unleashed by the deadly clashes in Bagua. It sought to regulate for the
first time the right of indigenous peoples to be consulted by the State over
extractive and other major investment projects likely to affect their living
conditions and cultural survival. The government of President Alan García
(2006–2011) used its veto power to return the Bill to Congress, stipulat-
ing that peasant communities were to be excluded from its beneficiaries.4
According to the president, only Amazonian indigenous peoples, com-
monly called “natives” (nativos), were to be granted the rights guaranteed
by this law.
This debate echoed the specificity of Peru’s national construction of
indigeneity filled with changing labels and suppressed collective identities.
To begin, a strong distinction dating from colonial times and continu-
ing in the Republican period has been constructed between two different
categories of Indigenous-Others. On the one hand, Amazonian peoples
were long conceptualized as living on the margins of the State, as the
ultimate “savages” whose lifestyle was deemed primitive. Indeed, during
colonial times they were outside the reach of colonial authorities, just as
they had been during the Inca Empire. For them, the independence of
Latin America with the formation of nation-states with fixed boundar-
ies amounted to a totally new and threatening political context (Remy,
2013). The real trouble started much more intensively with the rubber
extraction era from the late nineteenth century until the early twentieth
century, where many Amazonian peoples were enslaved as forced labor,
massacred, and displaced. It was only in the 1970s that the Amazonian
Peoples were recognized legally by the Peruvian State.
On the other hand, highland (Sierra) and coastal indigenous peoples—
called Indios—were conquered much earlier and integrated to various
degrees in Inca, colonial, and then mestizo dominant society. Various labor
and tax regimes, and later public schools, military service, peasant unions,
and waves of rural–urban migration, were the institutional mechanisms
through which these sectors constituted another category of indigenous
peoples (Golte, 1999; Greene, 2009; Varese, 1973).5
This distinction is based on geopolitical and ethnic differences as they
were constructed during the course of Peruvian nation-building. The
“Indios” and the “Chunchos”6 have each been assigned a different place
at the bottom of the social hierarchy by the hegemonic culture. Orlove
describes the rise of Peruvian geography as an emerging science in the
late nineteenth century and its importance in shaping the new status of
indigenous populations: “These Indians, then, were not described as
members of a casta in a Christian and colonial order. They had become
the inhabitants of a particular region” (Orlove, 1993, p. 326). At the
time, the formation of the Peruvian imaginary made of a country with
three distinct geographical zones—coast, highland, jungle—also meant
the consolidation of a civilizing narrative whereby the impulse of national

development came from the coast (Orlove, 1993).
In the highlands, the terms “Indio” and “Indígena” have been politi-
cally erased from official usage to describe communities under the influ-
ence of Marxist frames and following the reforms of the Velasco military
regime in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These combined an agrarian
reform with a series of other measures aiming at improving the status of
rural Peruvians according to a modernization paradigm. Velasco declared
that highland Indios were from then on to be called campesinos (peasants)
as a way to dignify them and integrate them fully in the modern nation-
state. This labeling had entered gradually into common language from
1940s onward. Velasco also reinforced the differentiation between the
two categories of indigenous peoples through two laws (adopted, respec-
tively, in 1970 and 1974) defining the status and rights of rural peas-
ant communities living in the highlands and the coast, on the one hand,
and native communities or Amazonian peoples on the other. Ironically,
according to Greene (2009), the law on native communities was largely
drawn from the model of highland peasant communities. It transformed
the way Amazonian peoples organize themselves in relation to territories
and legal entitlements.
These important laws, however, have not meant that Peru managed
to get rid of the basic logic of racism as embedded in the legacy of colo-
nial rule. While the 1979 Constitution established universal suffrage,
thus granting full political rights for the first time to the majority of citi-
zens—most of whom were indigenous and women—by then the dom-
inant representation of the indio continued to be linked to notions of
backwardness, lack of hygiene, and ignorance. Marisol de la Cadena has
traced the transformations of the various forms and meanings of race in
twentieth-century Peru, revealing that one of its main constants is the dif-
ferential access to formal education, fluency in Spanish, and the capacity to
manifest what is deemed as “decency” (de la Cadena, 1998). While phe-
notype certainly plays a part in racial categorization, class and cultural dif-
ferentiation including distance/proximity to the land or nature are more
central to Peruvian contemporary racial formation (Orlove, 1998). Social
inequalities continue to reflect the deep racial divide, as the poorest areas
of the country are also the ones with the highest proportion of indigenous
population (Trivelli, 2005).
The term “cholo”, of widespread use in contemporary Peru, refers to
the status of an individual who is seen as having an indigenous cultural
background and yet has adopted some or many dominant Western cultural
practices. The cholo is envisaged as an individual “in transition” according
to the racialized modernization paradigm (Quijano & Quijano, 1980).
Being cholo is being in a situation of upward social mobility, and thus a
cholo identity has now become predominant in many popular sectors of
Peruvian urban areas. However, the transition is in fact leading nowhere
but in the consolidation of the cholo identity (Nugent, 2012).
In an important study of perceptions about racial and ethnic identi-
fication, Sulmont (2011) claims that in Peru, ethnic indigenous identi-
fication is much more frequently attributed to others who are perceived
in a socially lower ladder, than to oneself. Based on the studies done in
the Peruvian Sierra and in Lima’s popular districts where the majority of
the population are migrants or descendents of migrant parents from the
Sierra, Sulmont claims that while ethnicity is perceived as being related to
social inequality—as it is—it does not translate easily into group identifi-
cation and thus has not been constitutive of political action as such. His
conclusion seems to be challenged by the emergence of an indigenous
social movement both in the Selva and in the Sierra, as will be showed
later. In any case, this ethnic invisibility has been reinforced by a trend in
the social sciences whereby the term “andino”, which strictly speaking is a
geographical reference, has come to dominate the categorization of rural
sectors in the highlands in the post-World War II period.7 All this points
to the fact that indigeneity, from the 1960s up to the 1990s, was a social
category generally seen as disappearing or due to disappear in Peru.
However, in the past two decades, indigeneity is being revived as a tool
for emancipatory projects. Yet in Peru, as in other cases, the construc-
tion of indigeneity through the discourse of indigenous movements faces
strong challenges, as regional differences of all sorts have remained strong.
In Peru, the historical divide between the Sierra and the Selva (Amazon)
is accompanied by the existence of strong cultural diversity and political
fragmentation within the two zones.
Coming back to the national debate around the Bill on the Right to be
Consulted that began in 2010, the García government’s attempt to negate
the indigeneity of highland rural populations can be analyzed as being in
line with Peruvian racial formation and its many ambiguities. The gov-
ernment’s position was not foreign to debates that raged also between
Peruvian anthropologists, some of whom still resisted, at the time of
writing this book, to using the label “indigenous” to describe most sectors
of the highlands.8 The debates contemplated the effects of the Bill on the
Right to be Consulted if applied to highland peasant communities, which

might mean these would declare themselves publicly to be indígenas. In
other words, would peasants suddenly claim back their indigenous roots
or would they just pretend to be indigenous in order to be subjects of this
law? These questions and the anxieties that they express opposed an essen-
tialization of racial/ethnic identities (as natural things) with a purely stra-
tegic—and therefore highly suspicious—invention of indigenous identity.
Following most of the literature on indigeneity, one needs to consider
the shifting political terrain which has been building up since the late 1980s
in favor of indigenous claims-making, notably through Peru’s ratifica-
tion of International Labour Organization Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
Convention 169 in 1994. The law on the Right to Prior Consultation
of Indigenous or Native Peoples (Ley de Derecho a la Consulta Previa a
los Pueblos Indígenas u Originarios) was finally unanimously adopted on
August 23, 2011, by the new Congress elected in mid-2011, and ratified by
the government of President Ollanta Humala. This leader of the nationalist
party Gana Perú had pledged during his electoral campaign to move quickly
on this issue. While commentators and indigenous organizations have rightly
declared this to be a historic moment in Peruvian politics, it opened a new
Pandora’s box in the relations between the State and indigenous peoples.
Indeed, one of the manifestations of the national trouble around indig-
enous identification in Peru was to be found in the absence of strong
official statistical effort to register indigenous peoples, race, or ethnic-
ity from 1940s up to the 2000s (Valdivia, 2011). In 1993, the national
census reported only 20 % of Peruvians aged five years and over with an
indigenous mother tongue, of which 96.39 % spoke Quechua or Aymara
(Albó, 2009, p. 243). In the last national census produced in 2007, the
only information available is on “language learned during childhood”
(idioma aprendido en la niñez), where only one language could be chosen
by respondents. A total of 13.2 % responded they had learned Quechua,
1.8 % Aymara, and 0.9 % another native language. Hence, a total of
15.9 % of the population reported to have been socialized through an
indigenous language (INEI, 2007, p. 117). According to various special-
ists, this census underreported the number of actual indigenous citizens
(Solís, 2009: 306). In support of this critique, one can look at another
type of official data released in the 2001 National Survey on Housing
(Encuesta Nacional de Hogares ENAHO 2001-IV) where over 37 % of the
population identified as indigenous (Quechua, Aymara, or Amazonian)
through self-identification according to racial/ethnic categories. In the
subsequent ENAHO 2006, 38.4 % of the surveyed population of heads

of households identified as indigenous (Sulmont, 2011). Aside from the
number of individuals who claim to be indigenous, it is important to note
that the existing data reveal that there are 43 indigenous languages spoken
in Peru (Solís, 2009: 317).
As part of the implementation of the Law on the Right to be Consulted
under the responsibility of the vice-ministry of Interculturality at the
Ministry of Culture, created in 2010, the government of Ollanta Humala
created an official database on indigenous peoples. This database was
meant to determine which communities should be considered entitled
to the right to be consulted.9 It was designed by state bureaucrats dur-
ing the course of 2012 and conceived as an open-ended process available
for modifications and additions over time (interviews with vice-ministry
staff, 2012). The criteria to register a community as indigenous were
said to be inspired by ILO Convention 169—objective factors such as
indigenous language and recognized territory, and subjective factors (self-
identification as indigenous)—but were not initially disclosed in detail to
the public. Indeed, in April 2013, the state decided neither to release the
database publicly nor to use it as part of the mechanisms to activate the
right of communities to be consulted. Rather, the state proposed that each
community that was facing the possibility of an imminent project poten-
tially detrimental to it could present its case to the Ministry of Culture in
order to be considered entitled to the right of indigenous peoples to be
consulted. This maneuver ensured that the State did not have to defend
itself officially on the criteria used to construct the database, nor did it
have to decide on who should be considered indigenous once and for
good. President Humala and other elite members such as the President
of Peru’s National Mining Association made public interviews dismissing
the existence of indigenous communities in Peru’s Highlands, as shown
in the extract presented at the beginning of this chapter. Indigenous peo-
ples’ organizations had not participated in the design of the database and,
instead, a climate of mistrust settled in as a result of the vice-ministry’s
periodic postponement of the official launching of the database.
2 The Peruvian Indigenous Movement

The current state of the debate on indigenous peoples and their rights
in Peru cannot be understood without considering the important role
played by the indigenous movement in the past decade and a half. The
main organizations that form the indigenous movement have indeed been
the central actors in the struggle to establish the legitimacy of indigenous
peoples’ right to be consulted on extractive and other “development”
projects. This struggle is centrally connected to the larger project, shared
by indigenous movements throughout Latin America, of building pluri-
cultural citizenship based on the reconfiguration of governance regimes
to endow indigenous peoples with effective control over their territories
and livelihoods.
The contemporary movement has many precursors among which the
most emblematic might be the 1780s rebellion led by Tupac Amaru and
the late nineteenth-century peasant revolts in Puno, Mantaro, and Huaylas
surrounding the chaos generated by the War of the Pacific. A bit closer to
us in time, de la Cadena (2000) describes the movement led by the Comité
Pro-Derecho Indígena Tawantinsuyu in the 1920s, which claimed the right
for indígenas to access formal education and political rights while remain-
ing indígenas rather than becoming mestizos. While the Committee had
an impact in several regions such as Puno and Cuzco, it was largely super-
seded by the rise of indigenista policies and communist movements led by
non-indigenous activists from 1930s onward. The Committee was one of
the rare organizations up until the past two decades that asserted the pos-
sibility for equal citizenship for indigenous individuals while opposing the
assimilation/acculturation paradigm of Peruvian nationalism.
Indigenous social movement organizations have become important
political actors in contemporary Peru after the country emerged from
a two-decade-long (1980–2000) war between insurgent Shining Path
Maoist guerrilla and state forces. The last years of the Fujimori regime
(1990–2000) were marked by a resurgence of popular mobilization that
has increased since then, leading the country to be plagued by hundreds of
social conflicts, most of which revolved around extractive projects. Largely
in reaction to Fujimori’s neoliberal reforms that attacked the founda-
tions of indigenous/peasant livelihoods, a wave of new social movements
has transformed the panorama of Peruvian politics outside the electoral
sphere. While a lot could be said about the history of the various organiza-
tions that now form the indigenous movement in Peru, the following will
only sketch the broad tendencies and constituencies that these represent in
order to understand the context in which indigenous women have mobi-
lized and organized their collective action.10
In the highlands and on the coast, until the 1990s the main organi-
zations were peasant unions. The CCP (Confederación Campesina del
Perú-Peasant Confederation of Peru) was founded in 1947 as the union

of peasant federations inspired by José Carlos Mariategui’s socialist doc-
trine. It was central to the struggle launched by peasants to overthrow
the hacienda system. The CCP and its regional affiliates led many suc-
cessful land invasions which were instrumental in pushing through the
agenda of a broad land reform (Blanco, 2010; Kapsoli, 1987). As of the
early 1970s, unsatisfied by the agrarian reform adopted by the military
government of General Juan Velasco and its willingness to transform ex-
haciendas into agricultural workers’ cooperatives, the CCP launched a
campaign to radicalize the reform and promote instead what it called com-
munal enterprises. As a result, another peasant confederation, the CNA
(Confederación Nacional Agraria- National Agrarian Confederation), was
created by Velasco in 1974 in an attempt to challenge the CCP’s repre-
sentativeness among rural sectors and maintain the agrarian reform as it
had conceived it. The CNA was initially supported by the State, but with
the overthrow of Velasco and his replacement by the more conservative
General Bermudez, the CNA joined civil society organizations in their
opposition to a new military junta that sought to reverse the socially pro-
gressive reforms adopted previously.
These organizations with contrasting origins and trajectories articu-
lated mainly through the language of class the claims for inclusion and
land rights of Peruvian rural sectors (Kapsoli, 1987). In general, after the
late 1920s and as a result of the diffusion of socialist political discourses,
rural populations of highland Peru started to identify themselves in the
public-political sphere, not in ethnic terms but through socioeconomic
identifiers, mainly as “campesinos”. This corresponded to some of the
Peruvian political and intellectual elites’ project of erasing race/ethnicity
as an explicit social category and promoting ethnic assimilation through
formal education and “progress”. In a similar spirit, the Left and progres-
sive sectors in the military sought to promote the formation of a peasant
“‘working class”. Yet, as Oliart (2008: 295) remarks, the CCP in Peru did
not erase customary communal forms of organizing and the CCP “was
in practice a multicultural space”. It is beyond the scope of this book
to analyze the complexity of local forms of governance which combine
communal assembly, municipal government, and other organizational

forms such as the Rondas campesinas (peasant vigilante committees) in
ways that differ according to several geographical, cultural, and historical
factors (Diez, 2007; Piccoli, 2011; Starn, 1999). Suffice it to acknowl-
edge that the CCP and its departmental, district, and local affiliates had
to compose with a vast constellation of different cultural practices and

understandings in relation to territorial and land use.
Both the CNA and the CCP promoted and/or recognized the for-
mation of peasant women’s organization at the regional level from
1980s onward. For example, the Asociación Departamental de Mujeres
Campesinas de Puno (ADEMUC) was founded in 1983 as an affiliate
of the Federación Departamental de Campesinos de Puno (FDCP). It is
one of the oldest and most active women’s organizations, and through
the Federation it is member of the CCP. It contributed actively to the
transformation of the agrarian cooperatives imposed by the military gov-
ernment in the 1970s as part of the agrarian reform. It was also a core
space for rural women’s political training, as manifest in the election of
ADEMUC leader Claudia Faustina Coari Mamani as Congresswoman for
the 2011–2016 Legislature. Yet Peruvian peasant women never managed
to create a nation-wide peasant women organization that would remain
affiliated to the male-dominated unions, in contrast to the Bolivian case.
In the end of 1980s, the peasant movement—the strongest Peruvian
social movement in the twentieth century—had largely subsided, for two
principal reasons. First, the main objectives of peasant unions, the end
of the hacienda system and land redistribution to peasant communities,
were largely achieved during the 1970s, even if the cooperative regime
imposed by the military government did not correspond to unions’
demands and in fact led to further land invasions in some areas in the
1980s (Rénique, 1998). Second, the internal war between the guerrillas
Shining Path and Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA)
and the Armed Forces provoked the rapid weakening or disappearance
of social organizations in many rural areas, especially those associated to
the Left. These organizations were often the target of attacks or repres-
sion, suspected of either collaborating with insurgent forces or of being
an obstacle to the progress of the “popular armed struggle”. Peasant
leaders, like other union leaders, paid a high toll with their life, their
freedom, or their peace of mind during the 1980s and early 1990s (Burt,
2007). The incentives to participate and mobilize within the two cen-
tral peasant unions went dramatically down in most regions. Local rural
populations instead united their efforts at defending their communities
within “rondas campesinas” (peasant vigilante committees) or “comités
de auto-defensa” (self-defense committees), respectively, created by the
communities or promoted by the government as part of its counterinsur-
gency strategy (Starn, 1999).
By the 1990s, peasant unions had therefore weakened seriously and

no longer played a significant role in national politics. This situation was
compounded by a series of laws and decrees adopted by the Fujimori gov-
ernment (1990–2000) that liberalized land titling and promoted private
investment in the agricultural sector, generating a new process of land
concentration favoring the interests of large agribusiness conglomerates.
Only in the 2000s, with their insertion in transnational peasant move-
ments such as Via campesina and Coordinadora Latinoamericana de
Organizaciones del Campo, and with the renewal of regional politics under
the impulse of decentralization and the resumption of regional govern-
ments, did the peasant unions regain some presence but no longer as a
strong social movement.
This last period is also characterized by a gradual but limited turn
toward using indigenous identity symbols by the leadership of the CCP
and the CNA. In the past decade, as a result of their interactions with newer
organizations described below, the CCP and the CNA have increasingly
adopted an ethnic language to frame the identity of their constituents and
the legitimacy of its political claims. Hugo Blanco, one of the most famous
historical activists of the CCP who was central in the land invasions and
resistance struggle that preceded the adoption of the Agrarian Reform
Law by the State, described the CCP in 2010 as being “in the process of
indigenizing itself … because they are indigenous!” (“en proceso de indi-
genizarse … porque son indígenas!”). Blanco, now a strong promoter of
indigenous identity, explained that in 2006 he felt the need to start pub-
lishing a modest newspaper called Lucha indígena to raise awareness about
Peruvian peasants’ indigenous identity. According to him, within the CCP
(and the CNA), among other civil society spaces, there was still a lot of
reluctance by the grassroots as well as the leadership to call themselves
indígenas (Interview Hugo Blanco December, 2010).11
The platforms and discourses produced by these peasant unions are not
characterized by appeals to ethnic identity. The priorities are expressed in
terms of food sovereignty and food security, resistance to neoliberalism
and to the privatization of control over natural resources, as well as the
classic demands for public policies in support of small and medium agri-
cultural producers. No attention is given, at least at the national level, to
indigenous languages, customary law, or the transformation of the State
so as to create new governance regimes with more autonomy for com-
munities, for example. Nevertheless, the CCP and the CNA participated
in the different events and coalitions that have emerged in Peru in the
past decade to develop a self-defined indigenous movement, as will be

explained below. During the same period, a greater number of women
entered in leadership positions.
The main organization that contributed to the emergence of an indig-
enous agenda in the highland region is the CONACAMI (Confederación
Nacional de Comunidades Afectadas por la Minería—National Confeder
ation of Communities Affected by Mining), formed in 1997 by some lead-
ers formerly from the CCP. Its objectives originally centered exclusively
on defending the rights of local communities where mining activities dis-
rupted and significantly threatened local livelihoods. Later on, as a result
of meetings between its members and Bolivian and Ecuadorian indige-
nous organizations promoted by the NGO Oxfam America, CONACAMI
started to embrace the language of indigenous rights, expanding its work
on the defense of natural resources and territorial rights (García & Lucero,
2011; Pajuelo, 2007). According to Luis Vittor, advisor for CONACAMI’s
Executive from 1999 to 2007, even though CONACAMI was formed by
a majority of Quechua community organizations, ethnic identity was not
emphasized at the beginning. But CONACAMI embraced indigeneity in
its discourse and platform as of 2003, officializing its “new” identity dur-
ing its Second National Congress (Interview Luis Vittor, 2012).
Vittor described how this new identity could be observed: in the use
of indigenous symbols by CONACAMI leaders in their discourse; in the
objects displayed in marches and public meetings; in a stronger emphasis
on the claim to defend territories as a community right; in the leaders’
use of clothing identified as indigenous12; in some use of Quechua in the
organization’s meetings; and in a new tradition of beginning public events
with “spiritual ceremonies” (called “misticas” in Spanish) combining cere-
monial offerings to the mountains and coca chewing, two central elements
of Andean indigenous practices (Interview Luis Vittor, 2012). Carmen
Ugarte, a member of the regional affiliate of CONACAMI in Oyon, Sierra
de Lima, explained why it made more sense to define themselves as indig-
enous peoples rather than as peasants: “the peasant is he who tills the
land, who works its eight hours a day. This is the peasant. The indígena
is the owner of the territory. We are owners, right? Of everything, water,
whatever there is, right? In contrast, a peasant goes and does his work; it’s
not the same. Sometimes, they say ‘yes, we are a peasant community’. But
the majority of peasants are not working in their fields. They work in other
places. But still they live in their territory. We are indigenous communi-
ties” (Interview Carmen Ugarte, 2012).
The organization is based on regional coordinating committees that

gather community delegates from some of the areas where there are
conflicts around mining projects. It never managed to have membership
basis in the entire highland region, and remained mostly concentrated
in the central highlands. While women have been active members since
the beginning, it took several years before the organization took steps to
create specific space for them within its structure. Even then, no impor-
tance was accorded to developing an agenda on women’s rights, as will be
explained in the following chapter.
One of the main issues that the organization has advanced on the
national political agenda is that of the right of communities to be con-
sulted on mining and other extractive industries’ projects affecting their
livelihoods. This agenda has been brought forward by the CONACAMI
in collaboration with a number of international and national NGOs such
as OXFAM and Cooperacción, together with Amazonian indigenous
organizations. In light of the centrality of the right to be consulted as
a right of indigenous peoples guaranteed by the International Labour
Organization’s Convention 169, the move toward embracing an indige-
nous identity among its membership was strategic for the CONACAMI. In
its 2003 Congress when this shift was made, the CONACAMI managed
to attract new members from Regional Defence Fronts as well as Peasant
Vigilantes Committees, two important channels for political mobiliza-
tion in Peru’s rural and regional areas. This shift also led CONACAMI
to create new bonds with Amazonian indigenous organizations such as
Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), as
described below, and to receive funds from NGOs seeking to promote
indigenous movement agendas. The peasant confederations CCP and
CNA remained apart from CONACAMI as it constituted in many ways
a competing organization, capturing peasants’ and other rural sectors’
mobilizing energy away from their more traditional affiliations. Yet, in
some instances, the three organizations have joined forces in pushing for-
ward some common demands.
CONACAMI has been key for the launching of a more concerted
process of popular mobilizing in response to the aggressive wave of
private investments in natural resources exploration and exploitation that
started under the government of Fujimori. The latter’s neoliberal poli-
cies had a major effect in this sector, which has boomed since the 1990s.
CONACAMI initially managed to attract public attention to the problems
generated by mining activities and the lack of appropriate regulation of
this sector. Later, it became gradually one of the key players in the efforts
on the part of various actors to create a national indigenous movement
in Peru. During the first half of the 2000s, it contributed to holding the
Toledo government (2001–2006) accountable as the latter was creating
the first state agency, led by the president’s wife, to deal with indigenous
peoples’ issues. The Comisión Nacional de Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y
Afroperuanos (CONAPA), installed in 2001, rapidly became enmeshed in
corruption scandals, and was later replaced by a new agency, the Instituto
Nacional de Desarrollo de Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y Afroperuano
(INDEPA), in 2005. CONACAMI and some other indigenous organiza-
tions criticized the lack of representativeness and corruption within the
CONAPA, and decided to concentrate their work on trying to form an
autonomous movement (Pajuelo, 2007).
After holding various regional meetings to discuss the future of an
indigenous movement in Peru, CONACAMI and other organizations
held the First Cumbre de Pueblos Indigenas del Perú (Peruvian Indigenous
Peoples’ Summit) in Huancavelica in December 2004. With over 800 del-
egates participating, the Summit was a success. Nevertheless, in 2005 and
2006, the key organizations behind the initiative to create a national indig-
enous movement, such as CONACAMI, entered into different internal
problems and left it aside (Pajuelo, 2007). Since then, the CONACAMI
has not managed to retain its coordinating role either in the popular
protests against mining or in other aspects of indigenous politics. Many
protests against mining activities have been successfully led without the
CONACAMI’s involvement, such as in the case of the Conga mine proj-
ect in Cajamarca in 2012, where one of the most important social conflicts
took place during the Ollanta Humala government. Moreover, on the side
of indigenous politics, CONACAMI has become one of several organiza-
tions to play a role in the Pacto de Unidad (Unity Pact), a coordinating
body created in 2011 by five indigenous and peasant organizations, as will
be explained below. The creation of new organizations led by indigenous
women in the second half of the 2000s provided an important alternative
to the CONACAMI for women in the highland regions in particular, as
we will explore further in the next chapter.
Indeed, many problems affecting CONACAMI were likely to drive
women away from the organization. The internal fighting between dif-
ferent factions of CONACAMI, together with some corruption rumors,
deeply affected the legitimacy of the organization. The worst incident
took place in 2012 and involved CONACAMI’s President Magdiel
Carrion, who stabbed one of the organization’s regional delegates, sup-

posedly because the latter was going to report badly on his (Carrion’s)
management. Newspaper reports mentioned a heavily drunk Carrion
attacked the delegate while the latter was sleeping.13 Few months after the
incident, at its Fifth National Congress, the former president and founder
of CONACAMI, Miguel Palacín Quispe was reelected as president of the
Board of Directors. However, accusations that he and other people run-
ning in his list had incurred in fraudulent electoral behavior were made
official a month later, leaving the organization without legitimate leader-
ship and in the midst of conflicts between its different regional affiliates.14
The same Miguel Palacín has also been the leader of the CAOI
(Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas) from its begin-
ning in 2006 until 2012. This transnational Pan-Andean organiza-
tion gathered one indigenous organization per country (from Ecuador,
Bolivia, Colombia, and CONACAMI in Peru) and had more impact at
the international level than at the national level. A few NGOs such as
OXFAM America and IBIS Denmark, as well as the International Labour
Organization (whose regional office is based in Lima), have been active
promoters of meetings, workshops, and political lobbying between indig-
enous organizations coming from different countries as well as between
Peruvian organizations (Interviews with OXFAM America, IBIS Denmark,
and ILO staff in Lima, 2010 and 2012). Palacín was key in facilitating
these networking activities and in participating at the United Nations
and Inter-American institutional spaces dedicated to indigenous peoples’
rights. However, many criticized Palacín for staying at the head of the
CAOI for too long, and accusations of corruption and mismanagement of
funds donated by international NGOs under his mandate were mentioned
in several interviews we conducted.
In the Peruvian Amazon, the most important indigenous organiza-
tion is AIDESEP (Interethnic Association for the Development of the
Peruvian Rain Forest), formed in 1980 by joining various regional orga-
nizations of Amazonian indigenous peoples. Its emergence is linked to the
increasing encroachment on indigenous peoples’ territories by the State,
“colonos”—peasant migrants coming from the Sierra—, and multinational
corporations (Interview Richard Chase Smith, 2010). It claims to represent
nine regional organizations, 65 federations and territorial organizations,
based on 1500 communities with approximately 650,000 inhabitants.15
AIDESEP’s indigenous identity derives from its affiliates, self-identified
ethnic groups organized at the local level into “native communities” as
defined by Peruvian law.16 Greene (2009) describes the transformative

organizing process through which different ethnic groups have gradually
integrated the frame of indigeneity in the way they projected their collec-
tive identities outbound and in relation not only to their neighbors but
to broader interlocutors in Peru and abroad or with foreigners. The first
organization was formed in 1969 within the Yanesha people. In the fol-
lowing years, other organizations were put together to represent different
peoples, until AIDESEP was formed in 1979 (Interview Richard Chase
Smith, 2010). Its creation gave further incentives for other peoples to
organize themselves and join in the umbrella organization that now rep-
resents a diversity of ethnic groups vis-à-vis the Peruvian State, multina-
tional corporations, and other actors. Until the second half of the 1990s,
women had not held any leadership positions within the organizations at
the regional or national level. Hence, gender issues were not discussed
until the 2000s in AIDESEP’s political agenda and statutes.
What is also relatively recent in Amazonian indigenous peoples’ orga-
nizing is the development of a feeling of national belonging whereby its
members are claiming citizenship rights as Peruvians within the frame-
work of the Peruvian State (Greene, 2009). To give a concrete example
of how this plays out nowadays, AIDESEP’s President Alberto Pizango
attempted to run as candidate for the presidency of Peru in the 2011 gen-
eral elections. While he did not manage to fulfill all the legal requirements
to register his candidacy, this move is revealing of the current insertion of
Amazonian indigenous political claims within the national Peruvian frame.
At the 2011 elections, Eduardo Nayap Kinin, from the Awajun people,
was elected to the Congress with the governing party Gana Perú. He was
described by the media as the first Amazonian indigenous person to be
elected in such a position.
AIDESEP has managed to attract a lot of international funding and
has had an important role to play in Pan-Amazonian organizing since the
formation of the COICA (Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas
de la Cuenca Amazónica) in 1984. The COICA represents nine national
Amazonian organizations from the different countries that divide the
Amazon region. The Pan-Amazonian organization was based in Lima
from 1984 to 1992, and AIDESEP was effectively leading it at that
time. AIDESEP has also developed a strong protagonism in Peru in the
2000s by opposing many of the policies seeking to liberalize forest and
other natural resources laws affecting their territories. During the second
government of Alan Garcia, in 2009, AIDESEP spearheaded a several
week-long protest against governmental decrees, which ended in con-

frontations with the police, causing 33 deaths, one disappeared, and over
200 injured, as explained above. Following this drama, a few AIDESEP
leaders went into exile, while others remained hidden for months to
escape the arrest order that had been launched against them.
Another important organization is the CONAP (Confederación de
Nacionalidades Amazónicas del Perú—Confederation of Amazonian
Nationalities of Peru) which united 25 federations when it was created in
1987. The CONAP grew from a sector of AIDESEP, turning its back to
it. Today it claims to represent 40 federations representing about 150,000
inhabitants.17 The CONAP and AIDESEP compete to a certain extent in
their willingness to represent as many regional federations as possible, but
also carry out joint campaigns and produce joint statements occasionally.
Both organizations are involved in defending and promoting the rights
of indigenous peoples. These are recognized in the laws on native com-
munities (1974 and 1978) which define locally based community rights,
the law on natural protected areas (1997) which create communal reserves
for indigenous communities, and others. Most notably, AIDESEP and
CONAP also pursue broader agendas based on the notions of territories
and peoples rather than communities which is a smaller historical unit
recognized by the Peruvian State (Varese & Chirif, 2006).
3 Coordinating Political Action

The Peruvian indigenous movement has had a hard time producing
national-level mechanisms uniting organizations from all regions of the
country. In 1997, the COPPIP (Conferencia Permanente de los Pueblos
Indígenas del Perú—Permanent Conference of Indigenous Peoples of
Peru) was formed in Cuzco at the First National Congress on Human
Rights and Indigenous Peoples of Peru, to open up a space for dialogue
and joint platforms between the different indigenous organizations, spe-
cifically excluding NGOs, and providing space for encounters between
Andean and Amazonian peoples. A couple of years later, in 2001, the
organization split, and one branch of it formed the Coordinadora
Permanente de los Pueblos Indígenas del Perú, also with the acronym
COPPIP. The Coordinadora was supported by international NGOs such
as Oxfam America. It notably organized the First Summit of Indigenous
Peoples of Peru in Huancavelica in 2004 (Naveda, 2008, p. 313). The
split was due to ideological differences and accusations of malversations,
but basically led to the two COPPIP competing for international funds
(Garcia & Lucero, 2008). Due to several inter-personal conflicts, the two
COPPIP only lasted a few years. The Coordinadora failed to sustain itself
due to leadership disputes between Andean and Amazonian organiza-
tions. The Coordinadora was supposed to be headed on the basis of a
two-year rotation between its Andean and Amazonian member organiza-
tions. After the first two-year mandate completed by AIDESEP in 2002,
CONACAMI’s Miguel Palacín remained in power and refused to end his
leadership after 2004, extending his mandate until 2006 when he was
appointed as the head of the CAOI. This and other problems led to the
end of the COPPIP Coordinadora.
More recently, however, in March 2010, the main organizations of the
Peruvian indigenous movement formed a coalition called Pacto de Unidad
(Unity Pact), to consolidate a joint agenda notably around the negotia-
tions with the State on the implementation of the Law on the Right of
Indigenous Peoples to Prior and Informed Consultation. Its first National
Meeting (Encuentro Nacional) was held in Lima on November 29, 2011.
At the time of its creation, five indigenous and peasant organizations
gathered within the Pact: the CCP, the CNA, AIDESEP, CONACAMI,
and ONAMIAP (Organización Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas Andinas y
Amazónicas), for some time the only women-only organization member
of the Pact.
The Pacto de Unidad participated in the Multi-Sector Commission
(Comisión Multisectorial) set up by the Ministry of Culture to allow par-
ticipatory and consultative dialogues around the implementation of the
Law on the Right of Indigenous Peoples to be Consulted and the indige-
nous movement’s demanding the creation of state institutions responsible
for public policy on indigenous peoples. When the Law on the Right of
Indigenous Peoples to be Consulted was finally regulated by the govern-
ment, the CCP broke out of the Pacto de Unidad to support the reg-
ulations, while the rest of the organizations severely criticized both the
consultative process leading to the adoption of these rules, as well as its
outcome, and more fundamentally condemned what it saw as the uncon-
stitutionality of the Law on the Right to be Consulted.18 Even though this
division weakened the Pacto de Unidad, it managed to rebuild its unity
after this episode.
When assessing its trajectory since then, one can conclude that the
Pacto de Unidad managed to first strengthen itself significantly by adding
three more member organizations to its ranks by the end of 2012: another
women-only organization, the Federación de Mujeres Campesina,
Rurales, Indígenas, Nativas, Asalariadas del Perú (FEMUCARINAP), the
Unión Nacional de Comunidades Aymaras (UNCA) based in the Puno
department, and the Central Única Nacional de Rondas Campesinas del
Perú (CUNARC), which mostly gather organizations from the northern
highlands departments of the country. Moreover, the Pacto adopted a
Strategic Plan and called on the Peruvian State to create a specific insti-
tutional mechanism to address indigenous peoples’ rights and coordinate
the adoption of public policies in favor of indigenous peoples. In April
2013, the Pacto de Unidad demanded that the Peruvian State create a
Ministry on Indigenous Peoples, positioned itself in favor of the adoption
of a new Constitution to give a plurinational character to the Peruvian
State, seriously questioned the way the State had (not) been implement-
ing the Right to Prior and Informed Consent so far, and condemned the
criminalization of indigenous peoples’ protest whereby several leaders
were arrested and/or condemned for very serious offenses in the context
of political protests.19
Instead of listening to these organizations, the Peruvian govern-
ment maintained the Ministry of Culture (created in 2010) as the main
official interlocutor responsible for indigenous peoples’ affairs through
its vice-ministry on inter-culturality. Within the latter, an Office on
Indigenous Peoples’ Rights (Dirección General de Derechos de los
Pueblos Indígenas) was created in 2013. Decision-making remained in
the hands of non-indigenous bureaucrats, and few financial and human
resources were assigned to this Office or to the Ministry of Culture in
general.
The rise of indigenous women’s organizing spaces has enriched the
dynamics of Peru’s indigenous movement through a number of ways. On
the one hand, as will be explained in the next chapter, indigenous women
from all the regions of the country have joined to form two women-only
organizations. This “national” unity, even if relatively due to the plurality
of organizations, has not been achieved in mixed-gender organizations.
On the other hand, indigenous women have also been key actors to facili-
tate joint initiatives between all or most indigenous organizations. Their
emergence is also associated with new efforts by these organizations to
reflect upon gender relations in indigenous communities, even if on this
issue little concrete gains have been made.
4 Conclusion
Indigenous politics in Peru is characterized, perhaps more than in any
other cases in Latin America, by serious difficulties in creating sustainable
organizations in regions of the country where the majority of indigenous
language speakers live. As emphasized in the first part of this chapter, the
historical division between the highlands and the Amazon is another of
the key issues at stake in the discursive struggle to define indigeneity, who
belongs, and with what rights attached. This being said, the fact that there
are now national debates on these issues involving political authorities, big
business leaders, social scientists, and, of course, indigenous leaders, is a
remarkable novelty in Peruvian politics. The adoption of the Law on Prior
Consultation has led to a transformation in the relation between indig-
enous organizations and the state, in creating entitlements for indigenous
communities based on ILO Convention 169.
Nevertheless, the indigenous movement is facing a daunting challenge
to consolidate and maintain the collaboration it was finally able to estab-
lish within the Pacto de Unidad until 2013. This is also in the context
where the national political sphere is still very close to putting forward
state mechanisms to address indigenous peoples’ demands in a systematic
and institutionalized fashion. Territorial rights are very weakly defined and
protected, and no representative body exists within the State to give indig-
enous peoples a place at the decision-making table. In this difficult context,
indigenous women’s mobilization and participation have emerged in the
past decade as fundamental piece of the process of strengthening indig-
enous organizing and voices in Peruvian society. Yet, without the help of
an indigenous movement that would open spaces inside the highest politi-
cal institutions, the efforts at creating and sustaining indigenous women’s
spaces have led to little progress in the institutional-political sphere.
Notes
1. The decrees have since been repealed by Congress.
2. See http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/25/us-peru-
protests-idUSTRE75O1XJ20110625 (last visit March 10, 2013).
3. Article 149, Constitución de la República del Perú 1993.
4. “Peasant Community” is a legal term that refers to highland and
coastal rural communities as defined by the State since the early
1970s.
5. During the nineteenth century, indigenous communities suffered

extensively from the application of liberal laws which negated their
collective rights and exposed them to losing their lands. The gov-
ernment of Augusto Leguía recognized in the 1920 Constitution
the legal status of “comunidades de indígenas” that included,
among others, the protection of communal land. In the 1933
Constitution, collective rights to land were further protected by
being declared inalienable and indivisible, and indigenous com-
munities were granted legal personhood (Castillo 2007).
6. Chuncho is a Spanish word originated from Quechua and Aymara
ch’unchu. It refers to the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon
and has derogatory connotations of being “savage”.
7. See the debate launched by Orin Starn’s piece (1991).
8. See, for example, excerpts from a debate between prominent
anthropologists held at the Research Center CEPES, Lima, on
August 11, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/cepesperu#p/u/0/
E5W6pky1TQQ (last visit, August 13, 2010), and interviews with
anthropologists Raquel Yrigoyen and Jurgen Golte at La Hora N
Program, Canal N on June 25, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=2R8hp46nmKs (last visit, December 28, 2010).
9. Ministerio de Cultura del Perú, Resolución Ministerial no. 202-
2012, May 22, 2012.
10. See García and Lucero (2008) for a discussion of the challenges
and risks involved in interpreting and categorizing indigenous
organizing.
11. The newspaper Lucha indígena started to be published in 2006 by
a small group of activists under the leadership of Hugo Blanco, and
without any official affiliation to any organization. In 2012, it still
presented news about popular mobilizations in Peru and other
countries against multinational extractive companies, for the
defense of peasant and indigenous control over natural resources,
for the promotion of indigenous practices such as ayni (joint col-
lective work) and communal participatory democracy. Available
online at: http://www.luchaindigena.com/
12. Such as ponchos, distinctive ribbons on distinctive hats, scarfs

made of Andean weaving patterns, and the chakana cross.
13. Reported in the daily newspaper Perú 21, September 1, 2012.
http://peru21.pe/politica/titular-conacami-apunalo-diri-
gente-2040198
14. In January 2013, the SUNARP (Superintendencia Nacional de

Reg istros Públicos) declared that Palacin’s electoral victory was
canceled because of his use of falsified signatures to register his can-
didacy. In http://servindi.org/actualidad/81348#more-81348
(last visit, March 11, 2013).
15. AIDESEP Web site: http://www.aidesep.org.pe/organizacion-

politica/ (last visit, August 9, 2012).
16. There are at least 65 ethnic groups in Peru’s Amazonian region,
according to the INEI’s Censo de Comunidades Nativas, 1993.
17. CONAP Web site: http://conap.org.pe/mapa/ (last visit, August
9, 2012).
18. Pronunciamiento del Pacto de Unidad, March 4, 2012. Available
online at: http://servindi.org/pdf/Pronunciamiento_Pacto_
Unidad_marzo.pdf (last visit, August 9, 2012).
19. Pacto de Unidad, Pronunciamiento en el marco del II Encuentro
nacional 2013. Available online at http://www.justiciaviva.org.
pe/webpanel/doc_int/doc02052013-163401.pdf (last visit, May
15, 2013).
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CHAPTER 7
Indigenous Women Strengthen

the Indigenous Movement
The rise of Peruvian indigenous women’s voices on the national politi-

cal scene is a recent phenomenon—less than ten years old—with direct
antecedents going back to the 1990s. While many women from rural and
urban popular sectors have had some opportunities to join what is called
survival-based grassroots organizations from the 1990s onward (Blondet
& Trivelli, 2004; Rousseau, 2009b), for the majority these were the only
spaces opened to them until recently. Women also did mobilize within
peasant federations but in a subaltern status since their gender did not
allow them to own land or to have political rights within peasant com-
munities. Some peasant women’s federations (Comités regionales de
mujeres) emerged and had some influence in some areas of the country
such as Puno, under the umbrella of male-dominated peasant federations
(Coronado, 2003). In the Amazon, women’s organizing is comparatively
more recent but has grown rapidly since the mid-1990s, mainly within the
indigenous ethnic organizations at different levels (Oliart, 2008; Paredes
Piqué, 2005).
A raíz de la invasión de las empresas mineras se nos ha ido perdiendo hasta la

lengua, ¿no? Pero tenemos nuestra sangre. Nos defendemos nuestros territorios.
Carmen Ugarte Leandro, Women’s Affairs Secretary. Confederación regional
de comunidades afectadas por la minería (CORECAMI), Cuenca de Huaura y
Oyón.

All the major indigenous organizations described in the previous chap-

ter started with predominantly male leaderships and constituencies and
with no significant discussion whatsoever about women’s needs or gen-
der equity. What, then, explains the formation of indigenous women’s
organizations? What processes were at stake that led to various levels of
inclusion of women in indigenous mixed-gender organizations? What
prompted the creation of new indigenous women’s specific spaces (either
in mixed organizations or women-only organizations)? In Peru there are
two indigenous-campesino organizations at the national level formed by
women only, without permanent links to a gender-mixed organization.
They are what we call independent organizations. We argue that the weak-
ness of indigenous movement organizations in the highlands is one of
the factors explaining the greater “ease” to create women’s autonomous
organizations, although, as will be discussed here, this is only one aspect
of a complex historical process.
Indeed, in the Peruvian case the origins of indigenous women’s auton-
omous mobilization are not related to indigenous movement organiza-
tions’ dynamics. One dimension of these origins is in the creation of a
consciousness-raising, dialogue, and training space designed especially
for indigenous women coming from a broad range of different organi-
zations not identifying as indigenous. The Taller Permanente de Mujeres
Indígenas Andinas y Amazónicas del Perú (Peru’s Andean and Amazonian
Indigenous Women’s Permanent Workshop) was established in 1995 to
follow-up on previous meetings called by Chirapaq Centro de Culturas
Indígenas del Perú, an NGO led by Tarcila Rivera Zea, an indigenous
woman activist of modest origins from Ayacucho, Peru. Chirapaq was
founded in 1986 with the goal of contributing to indigenous cultural
revival in Peru. It organized some meetings around the preparation to
the UN Beijing World Conference on Women to gather the views and
priorities of rural peasant and indigenous women from indigenous organi-
zations in order to produce a document seeking to represent the voices of
these sectors in the broader advocacy work at the continental level to bring
together the demands of indigenous women.
Following these meetings, which involved among others some sessions
with Ecuadorian and Bolivian women, the Peruvian women participants
saw it necessary to pursue the efforts at elaborating a platform on indig-
enous women’s rights. They decided to set up a “permanent” mechanism
to allow for their training, exchanges, and organizational strengthening,
and called it “a workshop” (taller). This decision came up after 12 women
INDIGENOUS WOMEN STRENGTHEN THE INDIGENOUS MOVEMENT 169
leaders from Peru (six Andeans, six Amazonians), who participated in the
meetings mentioned above, were shocked to discover that their organiza-
tions (mostly collective kitchens and Mothers’ Clubs) were pursuing only
very basic claims (daily meals or other subsistence goods) in comparison
with women’s organizations from the other Andean countries. The lat-
ter were claiming rights to land, territory, natural resources, indigenous
language, and education. As Tarcila Rivera Zea remembers, these leaders
came back saying, “lo nuestro es muy chiquitito” (“our work is very lim-
ited”) (Interview, 2010).
The Permanent Workshop was sought as a space where these women
leaders could start building a new vision of their identity and leadership,
a new political project. One of the key issues they worked on, especially
for women coming from the highlands, is that of constructing indige-
nous identities through consciousness-raising activities emphasizing eth-
nic pride and knowledge about indigenous peoples’ rights. As mentioned
by Tarcila Rivera and other participants of the Permanent Workshop, the
identity shift toward embracing indigeneity was a long process (Interviews
Tarcila Rivera, 2010; Rosa Montalvo Reynoso, 2012; Gladys Vila, 2010).
The other component of the Permanent Workshop’s work was to foster
the conditions of women from both the Amazon and the highlands by
meeting and sharing their experiences, thus breaking apart some of the
frontiers historically constructed in the country to distinguish and separate
indigenous populations based on this geographical and cultural division.
The Permanent Workshop had several impacts: constructing and/or
strengthening women’s indigenous identity and ethnic pride; training
women as leaders, who then served in indigenous mixed-gender organiza-
tions and rural women’s organizations; building women leaders’ knowl-
edge of women’s human rights and indigenous peoples’ rights; inserting
them in international networks such as the Enlace continental de mujeres
indígenas de las Américas, which allowed for regular exchanges, joint
strategizing, and lobbying in international fora. Back home, the women
leaders who participated in the Permanent Workshop became key spokes-
persons, pushing for a greater level of participation of women in mixed-
gender organizations and eventually in electoral politics (Interviews Tarcila
Rivera, 2010; Rosa Montalvo Reynoso, 2012).1
Indeed, according to Tarcila Rivera, the Permanent Workshop par-
ticipated in laying the ground for the Amazonian federation AIDESEP,
electing Teresita Antazu as the first woman member of its executive.
Once elected, Teresita was invited by Chirapaq to an international
training course, which she described was the key factor for her acceding
to information and contacts on indigenous women’s rights. Following
that groundbreaking experience, Teresita worked hard to build a new
space for women within her organization, as will be explained below.
Once created, the new Women’s Program at AIDESEP sought to rep-
licate the training method of the Taller Permanente, using some of the
training manuals on human rights and indigenous women’s rights that
Chirapaq had designed and shared with AIDESEP.
From 1995 to 2009, the Permanent Workshop managed to con-
solidate itself. Several international cooperation agencies supported its
work, such as the Organización Intereclesiástica para la Cooperación al
Desarrollo—ICCO de Holanda, Rights and Democracy—Canada, el
Fondo de Desarrollo de Naciones Unidas para la Mujer—UNIFEM,
Ford Foundation, The Hunger Project—THP, Fondo de Población de
las Naciones Unidas—UNFPA y la Agencia Española de Cooperación
Internacional para el Desarrollo—AECID.
In spite of the pioneer work of Chirapaq, some interviewees in the
mixed-gender organizations or even in some NGOs or agencies who sup-
port indigenous peoples did not recognize it as crucial to building the
indigenous movement. When pressed to comment on it, these experts
and activists sometimes made negative comments, especially about Tarcila
Rivera. For example, the supreme insult was to disqualify her as an indig-
enous person (“she’s not really indigenous”). The motives behind that
ethnic disqualifying varied, but centered on critiques about her suppos-
edly high standard of living due to the foreign funds her NGO obtained,
and her being disconnected from the grassroots community life while
investing most of her energies in building international networks. These
accusations are quite common among social movement organizations in
Peru and other Latin American countries such as Mexico, and should be
treated as indications of existing rivalry and different visions of political
action. In that case, however, it was used in order to delegitimize her
voice as an indigenous activist. This reveals some of the difficulties faced
by those who made an explicit goal of promoting indigenous women’s
political mobilization and organization independently from the mixed-
gender indigenous organizations and at the international level. Indeed, an
important part of the obstacles comes from inside the indigenous move-
ment and its supporters.
Another organizing process cited as having fostered some prior spaces
of organization and training for those who would become indigenous/
campesino women leaders in the 2000s was La Red nacional de mujeres

rurales (Rural women’s national network), a project led by the feminist
NGO Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristan since 1988. This project
has brought together women’s organizations from various regions of the
country through various training and communication initiatives, leading
to the formation of nine departmental rural women’s networks that are
dedicated to consolidating local leaderships. Several interviewees men-
tioned that this project played an important role at the beginning of the
mobilization and formative process of many indigenous women leaders
(interviews Rosa Montalvo, Diana Miloslavich, and Adelaida Alayza). In
general, feminist NGOs have had greater links with Andean rural women
through different programs and projects dealing with women’s rights,
reproductive health, violence against women, and economic empower-
ment, and fewer links with Amazonian women (interview Elvira Raffo).
1 Organizational Forms and Processes
Our research led us to identify Peruvian indigenous women’s organizing

in three different spaces that have some resonance at the national level. We
will first present these three spaces and then analyze in greater detail some
of the organizations that we deemed more significant in each of them.
The first space is that of women belonging to mixed-gender indigenous
movement organizations such as AIDESEP and CONACAMI. AIDESEP,
as a federation of regional organizations where women leaders are still a
minority, adopted in its 1999 Congress a resolution to mandate women’s
entry into national leadership. In its 2004 Congress, another resolution
created the Secretaría de la Mujer (Women’s Issues Secretary) as a new
program area of the organization, and called on the regional organizations
to create similar programs as well. Moreover, a resolution institutionalized
women’s presence in the national leadership through the mandatory elec-
tion of at least two women in the Board of Directors (Consejo Directivo).
In CONACAMI, the position of Secretaría de la Mujer is part of
the National Board of Directors (Consejo Directivo Nacional) and
elected by women representatives of three macro-regional levels that
each includes six regions, later ratified by CONACAMI’s National
Congress. In 2010, there were two women elected out of 13 positions
on CONACAMI’s Board. However, in 2013, after a controversial elec-
tion, the number of elected women on the Board dropped down to a
single one. Feliciana Amado, who held the position of Secretaria de
la Mujer in 2010, mentioned that in each of the regional affiliates of

CONACAMI, called CORECAMI, there was a position of Secretaria de
la Mujer in the Board of Directors (Interview Feliciana Amado, 2010).
Compared to the situation of these mixed-gender organizations where
women usually occupy two or three of the positions within the Board of
Directors or Executive, the CCP is an exception. Its National Executive
Committee for the period 2011–2015 was made up of ten women, includ-
ing the president, for a total of 21one positions, which is practically gender
parity. Yeni Ugarte, a Quechua leader from the Cusco Department, was
elected president of the CCP after a trajectory that involved leading the
Comités del vaso de leche organization in her Province of Anta, and being
elected secretary general of her community, Piñanccay. By the time of her
election as the head of the CCP, she was the president of the Federación
de Mujeres de Anta (FEMCA) and had been involved for several years in
the training program for indigenous women leaders offered by Chirapaq,
the Permanent Workshop (Interview Yeni Ugarte, 2012).
The second space for indigenous women’s organizing is that of women-
only indigenous organizations that are related to a mixed-gender organi-
zation. At the regional level, there are various organizations such as the
Federación Regional de Mujeres Ashaninkas, Nomatsiguengas y Kakintes
(FREMANK), created in 1998, and related to the CONAP, yet in prac-
tice autonomous; and the Federación de Mujeres Aguarunas del Alto
Marañon (FEMAAM), founded in 2002 in the district of Imaza, Bagua
Province, Department of Amazonas (Paredes Piqué, 2005). The latter
participated in the 2009 protests leading to the deadly clashes between
indigenous protesters and police forces. In the Sierra, as mentioned in
the previous chapter, peasant women created women’s associations in sev-
eral departments from 1980s onward. In the Cajamarca Department, the
Rondas femeninas or female vigilante committees are connected to the
Rondas campesinas (peasant vigilante committees formed exclusively by
men). The Rondas femeninas is an organization that provides for the par-
ticipation of women in local justice and governance mechanisms based on
customary/community law. Piccoli (2011) argues that the Rondas con-
tributes to reinforcing traditional gender roles and machismo, but that it
also responds in different ways to some of women’s practical problems in
the community such as sanctioning rape or domestic violence.
At the national level there now exists a third space of indigenous
women’s mobilization: two organizations that do not have a permanent
link to a mixed-gender organization, or what we can call independent
organizations. As explained above, the Taller Permanente de Mujeres

Indígenas Andinas y Amazónicas (Permanent Workshop of Andean and
Amazonian Indigenous Women) provided training and capacity-build-
ing to grassroots women leaders in rural areas and cities for almost 14
years (1995–2009), focusing on developing indigenous identity and pro-
moting an agenda of indigenous women’s rights. In 2009, the women
activists involved in the Taller decided to form their own autonomous
organization, the Organización Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas Andinas
Amazónicas del Perú (National Organization of Andean and Amazonian
Women of Peru—ONAMIAP). The first Junta Directiva elected in 2009
struggled hard to obtain legal personhood under Peruvian law and to
establish itself as a central collective actor representing indigenous
women. One of its main achievements was the creation of the Pacto de
Unidad formed in 2011, which allowed it to develop quite a high public
profile and to become an interlocutor for public policy-makers. In late
2012, the ONAMIAP held its second National Congress in Lima where
its first president, Gladys Vila Pihue, was unanimously reelected.
The second independent organization is the Federación Nacional de
Mujeres Campesinas, Artesanas, Indígenas, Nativas y Asalariadas del Perú
(National Federation of Peasant, Artisan, Indigenous, Native and Salaried
Women of Peru—FEMUCARINAP), a young national organization of
rural women created in 2006. The FEMUCARINAP was formed initially
by women coming from the ranks of the CCP (Confederación Campesina
del Perú) and the CGTP (Confederación General de Trabajadores del
Perú), with the support of a few feminist NGOs. It opened its Casa de la
Mujer Campesina (the Peasant Woman’s House) in Lima in September
2010. The FEMUCARINAP is an organization that brings together
women who do not necessarily define themselves as indigenous—although
many do so, and the collective identity of the organization is not exclu-
sively geared toward claiming indigeneity or indigenous rights. This being
said, in practice, the FEMUCARINAP shares a lot of priorities with indig-
enous organizations and participates in meetings on indigenous issues and
organized by indigenous peoples.
The ONAMIAP and the FEMUCARINAP were created almost at the
same time, a few years apart, and while differing in many ways, they are
perceived by some observers as advancing similar issues. In fact, in several
interviews, people mentioned that several local or regional women’s orga-
nizations are affiliated to both or participate in the events and training ses-
sions organized by both. The first presidents of each organization, Gladys
Vila (ONAMIAP) and Lourdes Huanca (FEMUCARINAP), have devel-

oped a strong animosity toward each other, mainly because of a clash of
personalities according to several interviews. However, this animosity can
certainly be explained also by the anxiety caused by this problematic situ-
ation of competition between both organizations that seek to enlist grass-
roots women especially in rural areas. This competition adds an additional
challenge linked to the need for them to ascertain their legitimacy vis-à-
vis indigenous and peasant mixed-gender organizations, non-indigenous
women’s organizations, international donors, the State and regional gov-
ernments. A quote from Gladys Vila gives a clear idea of the kind of strong
criticism that these organizations have received from indigenous mixed-
gender organizations at the time of their creation:
when we started 3 years ago certainly we faced a number of difficulties,

first with mixed-gender indigenous organizations that were telling us “what
will you do, now that you’ve formed the women’s association we will form
the men’s association?” They insisted that we were an organization without
territory, “where is women’s territory? Women don’t have territory, only
peoples do”. (Gladys Vila, 2012).
Beyond the basic competition between each other, the two women-only
independent organizations have nonetheless managed to find a way to col-
laborate in some spaces such as the Pacto de Unidad, and also through the
formation of Peru’s Alliance of Agrarian Organizations (Alianza de orga-
nizaciones agrarias del Perú) in November 2012. The alliance was formed
by five organizations: Asociación Nacional de Productores Ecológicos del
Perú (ANPE), CCP, CNA, FEMUCARINAP, and ONAMIAP. The alli-
ance was supported by the NGO OXFAM, among others, and sought
to defend Peru’s biodiversity, food sovereignty, and small and medium
agriculture. It was clearly an initiative led by women, as the ANPE’s first
president was a woman and so were all the presidents of the alliance mem-
bers except the CNA.
1.1 A Case of Strong Institutionalization in a Mixed-Gender

Organization in the Amazon: AIDESEP
A Yanesha leader of the Unión de Nacionalidades Asháninkas y Yaneshas
(UNAY), Teresita Antazu was one of the key individuals to push for the
inclusion of women’s participation in AIDESEP, the largest umbrella
organization representing Amazonian Peoples’ federations. As elected

responsible of “Women’s Affairs” (“Asuntos femeninos”) in Asociación
Regional de Pueblos Indígenas de la Selva Central (ARPI Selva Central)
in 1996–1997, she began to participate in AIDESEP’s meetings. Angela
Meentzen, a German scholar, began working with her at ARPI on gender
issues. Together they chose to publish a first pamphlet under the name
of “Men and Women Working Together” (“Hombres y Mujeres traba-
jando juntos”) instead of talking about gender directly, because the term
did not make sense in Amazonian Peoples’ culture, according to Teresita
Antazu (Interview T. Antazu, 2010). At the time, and with no resources,
Teresita and other women started to lobby so that AIDESEP would pro-
mote women’s participation. With the collaboration of Meentzen, they
organized workshops at different levels, federations, and communities.
Initially, male leaders did not react well to her idea of fostering women’s
participation within the organizations. They argued that there was no dif-
ference between men’s and women’s rights, and therefore there should
be no specific actions taken in the name of women. She was accused of
being a feminist—which was an insult in her social context—and of want-
ing to divide indigenous communities (Interview T. Antazu, 2010). At
AIDESEP’s 1996 Congress, Teresita and her allies proposed a resolution
to change the statutes of the organization so that the executive council
would obligatorily include women. Teresita was elected as the first woman
on that Council in 1999. She had been a leader of ARPI, and she knew
how to read and write, a requirement that was inserted in the statute. She
was later reelected for a second mandate in 2005, after the organization
had adopted the rule that two out of five executive council positions be
filled by women.
Once elected, it was hard for Teresita to make her way within AIDESEP’s
executive council. Her relation with AIDESEP’s president, Gil Inoach,
was especially tensed at the beginning. For example, “I remember that my
first trip, to Panama, was at the first meeting of this Enlace continental de
mujeres indígenas. They invited me [through Chirapaq] so I went with the
invitation, happy, to see the President, right? ‘I have this invitation, I am
being invited to Panama, I’d like to go, what do you think?’ And he told
me ‘no, because these are women’s organizations and they will give you
bad ideas … they are feminists, so I disapprove’”. Teresita had to convince
the others members of the executive, who then forced the decision onto
the president. The latter accepted, but on the condition that the organiza-
tion would not pay a penny for the trip. Teresita received support from
the German scholar’s mother, Kathe Meetzen, who was leading a coop-
eration project with Amazonian Peoples. Her project paid for Teresita’s
passport, visa, and travel expenses. When Teresita came back from her trip
to the Enlace Continental’s Meeting, she gave AIDESEP’s president all
the documents that she had collected there and told him that he should
have a look to see by himself that there was nothing bad in it, on the
contrary. The president laughed and gave Teresita his approval (Interview
T. Antazu). Inoach then started to support the issue of women’s promo-
tion inside the organization by accompanying Teresita and her team in
the workshops that they organized in different regions. His support was
key to grant legitimacy to her work. In contrast, Inoach perceived the
benefit deriving from this work when AIDESEP received funding to do
projects on this issue, from the German Cooperation Agency (GTZ) in
particular. Several cooperation agencies put pressure on AIDESEP’s lead-
ership to work seriously on addressing the deficit in women’s participation
(Interview T. Antazu).
At AIDESEP’s Congress in 2002, Teresita proposed to change the stat-
utes again so that two women be elected for some of the positions at the
executive council. Her proposal was accepted, and at that same Congress,
the Women’s Program (Programa de la Mujer) was created. This program
was conceived like other existing programs on education, territory, and
other thematic issues to which the organization dedicates resources and
energies. It was also a way to attract funding for projects and training. In
2004, AIDESEP adopted the obligation for its regional affiliates to create
their own Woman’s Program. GTZ supported the work of decentralizing
women’s leadership at the regional levels of AIDESEP as well as the par-
ticipation of women in national assemblies at AIDESEP, which led it to
fund leaders’ training programs (Interview Elvira Raffo, 2010). In 2009,
the Woman’ Program created a yearly political training school for women
and young men. Each regional affiliate selected the individuals who would
have the opportunity to participate in the school. Rocilda Nunta, who led
the Woman’s Program in 2010, explained in an interview that the school
was designed for both men and women because the organization sought
to promote “gender equity”. This involved training both men and women
in order for both to understand what gender equity implies and how it
translates into the work that the organization does.
Teresita saw as a clear result of this ten-year-long process the fact that
“today women are community chiefs, heads of women’s secretariats, presi-
dents of federations or of regional organizations … and now [in 2010]
AIDESEP has her first female Vice-President” (Interview T. Antazu). The

institutionalization of women’s participation in the organization included
the formation of an Advisory Committee to the Woman’s Program,
the Mesa de la Mujer Indígena, where a number of NGOs such as the
Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristan and the Centro Amazónico
de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica could be consulted and informed
about the organization’s work and needs (Interviews Rocilda Nunta,
2010; Elvira Raffo, 2010). This friendly relationship has been useful nota-
bly in 2009 when Teresita Antazu was being chased by the Peruvian State
after the Bagua clashes, which prompted the Centro de la Mujer Peruana
Flora Tristan to represent her legally for her defense. Commenting on
the existing collaboration between AIDESEP and some feminist organiza-
tions, former coordinator of the Danish development NGO IBIS in Peru,
Elvira Raffo, claimed that it was still difficult for most of the latter to
understand that indigenous women or indigenous organizations do not
want to put women’s rights at the top of their agenda, “before” collective
rights. According to Raffo, the challenge is to understand that they go
together (in a tension) (Interview E. Raffo, 2010).
1.2 The Oldest Peasant Confederation Challenged

from the Inside: CCP/CONACAMI-CAOI/FEMUCARINAP
As discussed in the previous chapter, during the late 1990s, the CCP suf-
fered a blow after the decision of a few of its leaders such as Miguel Palacin
to leave the organization and form a new one, the CONACAMI. Right
from the beginning, OXFAM America and IBIS, among other NGOs,
supported the activities of CONACAMI. IBIS is a Danish NGO that
has accompanied and supported indigenous movement organizational
strengthening for over 20 years. In an interview, Elvira Raffo (2010),
who was coordinating the IBIS office in Peru by then, mentioned that
the impetus to work on gender came from within her institution rather
than from indigenous organizations. Luis Vittor, who was an advisor to
CONACAMI’s first president, confirmed that the activities surrounding
the creation of the Andean regional organization CAOI, strongly sup-
ported by a group of international funders, also marked the beginning of
CONACAMI’s specific actions for women’s greater inclusion in the orga-
nization (Interview Luis Vittor). In other words, CONACAMI started to
discuss and integrate some projects to foster women’s participation in its
ranks under the suggestion of IBIS and other NGOs and in relation with
the formation of the transnational coordination efforts with Ecuadorian

and Bolivian organizations. In Bolivia and Ecuador, indigenous women
had been central actors in the indigenous movement for some time.
CONACAMI would have remained the only organization without a sig-
nificant participation of women in its executive if it had not opened itself
to joining the trend already institutionalized in its new Andean partners.
In 2006, as part of the activities for the launching of CAOI, the
CONACAMI organized the National Meeting of Peru’s Indigenous
Women (“Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas del Perú”), held
in Cusco, where women from CONACAMI’s grassroots affiliates gath-
ered for the first time. That same year, CONACAMI also elected its first
Secretaria de la Mujer (Woman’s Secretariat), a new position within its
executive, at the same time that it implemented the creation of a similar
position at the local and regional levels of its organization. Feliciana
Amado was the first person elected at that position at the national level,
after having been elected in 2003 as president of her provincial organi-
zation (COPROCAMI) in the San Marcos Province of the Department
of Ancash.
Starting also in 2006, IBIS, together with the NGO HIVOS, funded a
project called “Interculturalizando la equidad de género” (“Making gen-
der equity intercultural”) implemented by the CAOI to support indig-
enous women’s leadership in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The project
included a component that promoted exchanges between women leaders
from all three member organizations—with CONACAMI in Peru, a very
important process for the construction of an agenda on women’s par-
ticipation in mixed-gender indigenous organizations, according to several
interviewees (Interviews Feliciana Amado, Elvira Raffo, Luis Vittor). The
project allowed women to present an indigenous women’s agenda at the
First Continental Summit of Indigenous Women held in Puno in May
2009 in the context of the Fourth Continental Summit of Indigenous
Peoples. One of its achievements was that the problem of violence against
women in indigenous communities was mentioned in the final statement
of the Fourth Continental Summit.
“The issue of indigenous women’s political participation is still being
seen in indigenous mixed-gender organizations as a requirement of coop-
eration agencies. […] this even creates jealousy when we provide them
funding specifically for projects on women’s participation. But as they see
money flowing in, they say yes; yet this is something that generates a lot
of discussion and tensions inside” (Interview NGO staff, 2010). What
could be perceived as a unilateral imposition coming from funders holding

different priorities is in fact much more ambivalent even in these funders’
organizations. As some NGO funders staff told us, the tensions around
gender mainstreaming and women’s participation are also felt within their
ranks. In IBIS, OXFAM, and other NGOs, an expert would typically be
hired to do the work of mainstreaming gender within the organization’s
programs. But as reported in our interviews, the latter mostly contin-
ued to function as they were designed initially because of several forms
of resistance and practical difficulties (Interviews NGO staff people). For
example, OXFAM has worked with the indigenous movement for over
20 years. Only in 2008 did the office in Lima hire an expert in a new
position of staff officer in charge of gender issues (Interviews Adelaida
Alayza, 2010, 2012; Santiago Alfaro, 2010). In 2013, this position was
transformed and ceased to focus on mainstreaming gender.
Another factor accounting for the opening of CONACAMI and CAOI
to women’s participation is the perception of being usurped their share
of representation in international networks, supposedly monopolized
by CHIRAPAQ up to the mid-2000s. Liliam Landeo (2010), a non-
indigenous woman who worked at OXFAM America in Peru during that
time, mentioned that “The CAOI basically realized that there were wom-
en’s spaces in which indigenous women were not present; that these were
women’s spaces that were being occupied by other women who called
themselves indigenous but were not really indigenous” (Interview Liliam
Landeo, 2010). Liliam was also critical of the organizing process led by
Chirapaq and did not see the Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indigenas—
in which Chirapaq strongly invested—as an initiative of indigenous
peoples: “The Enlace de mujeres is a group of women that are already
internationalized. So these are women who are already in the international
arena, and a lot of them are uprooted and no longer return to their bases,
nor represent their organizations. […] Some, not all, still maintain some
contact by going to their region, but not always” (Interview L. Landeo).
The perceived competition between Chirapaq and Andean indigenous
organizations such as CONACAMI and CAOI thus accounted, in part,
for the decision of their leadership to accept their NGO partners’ sugges-
tion to foster new opportunities for women’s greater voice and presence
in their leadership. The CAOI’s meetings and the Indigenous Summits’
meetings were used as opportunities to train indigenous women leaders
and develop an indigenous women’s agenda which did not echo the paral-
lel process going on within Chirapaq and its international repercussions.
Faced with the need to suddenly find women leaders to fill new posi-
tions, CONACAMI resorted to calling candidates who were not neces-
sarily aware of the amount of difficulties they would have to deal with to
really make a difference. Feliciana Amado went directly from her local base
in Ancash to being the first elected Secretaria de la Mujer at the national
office of CONACAMI, without passing through the regional level. She
had to learn really quickly, and had to face a reluctant male leadership that
did not accept to share decision-making even when it came to the activities
falling directly under the mandate of the Secretaria de la Mujer. “even if
there is funding, the Secretaria de la mujer is only one branch of the orga-
nization; we are not autonomous; we’re always under the authority of the
president, of the males, and I don’t like it but what can I do? We need to
follow through … obeying … this way you know?” (Interview Feliciana
Amado). Still, according to many interviewees, Feliciana did very good
work, developing a women’s agenda within CONACAMI and ensuring
that every regional affiliate would have a functioning Secretaria de la Mujer
in its executive. When she lost the following elections and returned to her
base, the momentum she had built was lost because the subsequent person
elected as Secretaria de la Mujer did not work seriously on women’s partici-
pation (Interviews Adelaida Alayza; Carmen Ugarte, 2012). The leadership
crisis experienced by CONACAMI as of 2012 only accentuated this loss.
The CCP not only had to face the competition from CONACAMI as a
new channel for the mobilization of rural sectors as of the late 1990s, but
also had to confront the challenge mounted by a few of its own women
leaders who decided to leave the confederation in 2006 to form an auton-
omous organization dedicated to pursuing women’s interests. The year
2006 was definitely a turning point in many ways since that same year saw
the creation of the FEMUCARINAP, a women-only organization made
of peasant and indigenous women. That decision is particularly interest-
ing in light of the fact that the CCP had been a good training school for
peasant women leaders who had managed to be elected at the highest
authority level in many Peruvian departments. At the IX Congress of the
CCP in 1999, an affirmative action measure was adopted to guarantee
that at least 30 % of the national executive positions would be filled by
women.2 In many departments, women had formed women-only peasant
organizations affiliated to the CCP. This had even allowed some of them
to then jump into partisan politics and be elected as Congress member in
2006: Hilaria Supa, who was a leader of the Federación Departamental
de Campesinos del Cusco, and Juana Huancahuari, who was president of
the Federación Agraria Departamental de Ayacucho and member of the
National Executive Board of the CCP until 2005.
So FEMUCARINAP was formed at a moment when the CCP

women members seemed to be on a growing trend toward empow-
ering themselves within the organization. Alejandra Tucno Ccahuana
from FEDECMA (Ayacucho) and Human Rights Secretary at
FEMUCARINAP in 2010 recalled the context that led a group of
women from the CCP to walk out: “it was the CCP Congress [in 2005]
and women members felt mistreated by men. They did not let them
participate nor adopt decisions, they did not respect that women could
speak out and had their own ideas. So as a result, the women comrades
met and said ‘how can this be? We women we’ll be all of our life practi-
cally used, they call us to meetings and then they don’t let us speak!’
They were coming from different regions and decided to create a wom-
en’s federation, initially with the organizations that were present and
that represented 9 departments of the country” (Interview Alejandra
Tucno Ccahuana, 2010).
As a result, the FEMUCARINAP was created few months later
on the occasion of a meeting called by the Confederacion General de
Trabajadores del Peru (CGTP), the oldest trade union confederation.
The meeting was initially supposed to convene with women workers
only, but upon the requests of Lourdes Huanca, FEMUCARINAP’s key
founder and president, peasant women were also invited to participate.
During that meeting, it was decided to create an organizing commis-
sion to form a new organization for peasant women and other categories
of rural women and female workers. Lourdes Huanca had to convince
women at the CGTP and in a few NGOs to support the bold move to
invite peasant women to a unions meeting, and to “secretly” work at
night on the project of forming this new organization, outside of the
meeting’s planned agenda. She explains her move:
“I had been 5 years at the CCP, where we’ve always suffered from the diffi-
culty of how to create space for women; in mixed-gender organizations they
don’t consider women’s issues (…) when I finished my mandate as national
executive member of the CCP in 2005, I said ‘I’m done with the CCP,
I don’t quit to divide the organization but rather to strengthen women’s
organizations’. Since I had experience, and the knowledge I owe to the
feminists also” (Interview Lourdes Huanca, 2010).
Being the product of a “schism” within the CCP, FEMUCARINAP

had a hard time in its first years to be recognized as a legitimate
organization in the eyes of this historic peasant confederation and many
of its supporters and allies. Accusations of treason were imputed to the
fact that the FEMUCARINAP was “feminist”—a disrespective term

in the minds of most peasant leaders. So only with many efforts and
determination did it obtain some respect. One of the strategies fol-
lowed by FEMUCARINAP was that it sought recognition from abroad
in order to impose itself nationally. It managed to become a member
of the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo
(CLOC), regional affiliate of Via Campesina, the most important
global peasant organizations network. Bypassing the CCP and CNA’s
prohibition, justified by the latter’s willingness to maintain its monop-
oly of representation of Peruvian peasants, the FEMUCARINAP sent a
delegation of 100 women to the CLOC’s meeting in Ecuador in 2010.
These delegates “invaded” all the working commissions of the Congress
and maneuvered to be appointed as rapporteurs of several of them. This
allowed them some visibility, which they used to disseminate their plat-
form. Lourdes Huanca also managed to get elected as responsible of
the CLOC’s international relations. These moves allowed them to get
more leverage vis-à-vis the CCP and CNA back home in Peru. As mem-
ber of CLOC Vía Campesina Perú, the FEMUCARINAP was assigned
the responsibility of organizing activities on gender and training, which
had to involve delegates from the CCP and CNA, and also co-members
of that network (Interview Lourdes Huanca, 2012).
Within the group of indigenous and peasant organizations,
FEMUCARINAP distinguishes itself by the fact that it openly defines
itself as feminist. It works closely with Peruvian feminist NGOs (Centro
de la Mujer Flora Tristán, Aurora Vivar, Calandria, DEMUS, Género y
Economía, etc.) and has created a consultative committee to meet regu-
larly with representatives of these NGOs. Each of them, according to its
specialization, works in collaboration with FEMUCARINAP on its dif-
ferent thematic priorities (Interview Lourdes Huanca, 2012). Lourdes
Huanca explains that her organization went on modifying its alliances in
accordance with its increasingly feminist political agenda. For example, it
had to distance itself from the Comité Episcopal de Accion Social (CEAS),
a Catholic Church institution that had initially helped FEMUCARINAP
to come to life, as the latter took public position in favor of the decrimi-
nalization of abortion and the free distribution of the “morning-after pill”
(Interview Lourdes Huanca, 2010). The feminist movement’s close links
to FEMUCARINAP are explained by Lourdes Huanca as a product of
the “sectarian and machista” character of the “indigenista” [indigenous]
movement (Interview Lourdes Huanca, 2010).
The rise of FEMUCARINAP can probably be pointed out as a phe-

nomenon accounting for the election of the first gender parity national
executive committee at the CCP, at its 2011 Congress. Moreover, at that
same Congress, Yeni Ugarte became the first woman elected as president
of the CCP since the CCP’s founding in 1947. The principle of gender
parity is not institutionalized within the CCP’s internal rules. Yeni’s list
included an equal number of men and women candidates, positioned in
alternation. The other competing list was made of predominantly male
candidates. In an interview, Yeni mentioned that the fact that her list won
was probably due to a greater participation of women at the Congress,
who then voted for her list (Interview Yeni Ugarte, 2012). Other interpre-
tations could consider the pressure put on the CCP since the creation of
the FEMUCARINAP to foster greater participation by women and give
them more space in decision-making. This pressure could translate into
a perceived need of cutting the grass under their feet, or into a greater
momentum that women within the CCP used to further occupy authority
positions. As will be described further, the creation of another women-
only indigenous organization, ONAMIAP, occurred during the same
years and probably also contributed to this pressure.
In an interview, Yeni Ugarte mentioned that she did not see the pos-
sibility of collaborating with women-only organizations, saying that “I
am not saying that they are bad. But they are very feminists. Sometimes
because we are women we want to take advantage of it, right? By seek-
ing to obtain things as women. But I think we need to look for gender
equity”. The only collaboration she identified was the one that developed
within the Pacto de Unidad, where she felt the joint work was very valu-
able (Interview Yeni Ugarte, 2012). So clearly, the move toward women’s
greater empowerment within the CCP was not seen as fostering new alli-
ances with women-only organizations, even though on a personal level,
many of the leaders of all these organizations maintained a respectful
stance toward each other. Moreover, as exemplified with the case of the
Pacto de Unidad, when framed as alliances between indigenous/peas-
ant organizations, rather than with women’s organizations, these links
became possible.
1.3 A Women-Only Indigenous Organization: ONAMIAP

ONAMIAP’s creation is explained by its first President Gladys Vila as being
a logical result of the formative process launched by the Taller permanente
de mujeres indígenas andinas y amazónicas del Peru. The relation between

the Taller and the NGO Chirapaq, the latter being the one who initiated
and sustained the activities of the former for two decades, had to be trans-
formed and turned into a partnership, so that the training and mobilization
process could be shifted toward the formation of an autonomous and clearly
political actor (Interview Gladys Vila, 2010). As a program carried out by
an NGO, the Taller involved some inherent limitations when it came to
political action and lobbying. In addition, Gladys reported that in order to
delegitimize the work of the women leaders united under the Taller, their
critics accused them of being only a puppet of Chirapaq, of lacking politi-
cal representativeness. So in the mid-2000s, ten indigenous women lead-
ers decided to propose to end the experience of the Taller to form a new
indigenous women’s organization. The goal was to provide to all the local
and regional organizations to which they belonged a national political tool
to be represented in discussions and decision-making about broader issues
of interest to them. This gave way to the First National Congress of Peru’s
Indigenous Andean and Amazonian Women in November 2009. This event
was strongly supported by Chirapaq even though the decision to break away
from it had been initially received reluctantly by some of the NGO leaders.
The women leaders who participated at that first Congress had to provide
for their own transportation costs as a show of real interest in investing in the
organization. This decision was risky, but according to Gladys Vila it ended
up paying well politically, as over 180 women delegates came to Lima from
all over the country to join in the creation of the organization (Interview
Gladys Vila, 2010).
When ONAMIAP was created, its conveners invited women leaders
from mixed-gender indigenous organizations to join in, as they envisaged
the new organization as a place where indigenous women from all orga-
nizations could unite and develop a specific agenda alongside the differ-
ent agendas of the various indigenous organizations. This move caused
them to be accused of being a transversal organization with no bases. This
accusation was certainly false, as ONAMIAP has historically emerged out
of existing women’s organizations that, for the majority of them, were not
connected to a mixed-gender indigenous organization but nonetheless
had grassroots bases. This being said, once it was in place, ONAMIAP also
recruited from mixed-gender organizations, although only a minority of
its members came from them (Interview Adelaida Alayza, 2012; Interview
Gladys Vila, 2012).
One clear particularity of ONAMIAP, shared to some extent by
FEMUCARINAP,3 is its capacity to mobilize indigenous women from
both the Selva and the Sierra (Amazon and highland regions of the coun-
try). As its membership comes from both areas, the dynamics of the
organization projects a truly national agenda, breaking down the barriers
constructed historically around Selva/Sierra differences, as explained in the
previous chapter. This positions ONAMIAP in a unique capacity to repre-
sent the interests of indigenous women beyond the clashes and occasional
mutual suspicion that were frequently experienced between the indige-
nous mixed-gender organizations (Interview Adelaida Alayza, 2012). This
cross-regional unity has been constructed over the years through the Taller
where women have been able to talk to each other and deconstruct false
images and prejudices that they previously held regarding “the other”.
Gladys Vila remembers, “when I was a child my mother used to tell: ‘these
“chunchas” [despective term for Amazonian people] to talk about women
from the Amazon, these natives are lazy ones who have huge lands but work
only a small part of it, the size of the tummy’, this was the thinking of all my
community. (…) the same occurred in the Amazon—now we laugh about it
with our sisters—they were saying that we Andean people were colonizing
and invading their territories, that we wanted to take their food out of their
forests. (…) Certainly these are two contrasting visions because we live in
two different territories. Now we talk and understand each other, we under-
stand why the others think the way they think about us. (…) Now we are
friends, we are together, and we hope that the men one day may reach that
level of cohesion. In their case, I don’t see this happening, they act in two
blocks, Andean and Amazonian. We women have broken these barriers”
(Interview Gladys Vila, 2012).
The creation of ONAMIAP raised strong opposition from

CONACAMI. The latter was described by many interviewees as led by
machista leaders, particularly under the presidency of Miguel Palacin.
AIDESEP also distanced itself from the organizations that participated
in the Taller permanente when ONAMIAP was created. The perception
that ONAMIAP was going to rob AIDESEP its bases led it to make the
decision to stop collaborating directly (Interview Rocilda Nunta, 2010).
In contrast, the CNA and CCP supported ONAMIAP, especially the CNA
through lending them an office space in a building it owns. One can sus-
pect that the CCP’s support may be related, partly at least, to its interest
in seeing the FEMUCARINAP experience competition, which indeed was
the case with ONAMIAP’s creation.
In 2009, ONAMIAP started to approach the indigenous mixed-gender
organizations identified in the preceding chapter through contacting their
women leaders and trying to plan activities with them. In light of the
rejection it faced from AIDESEP and CONACAMI, it decided to pursue
another strategy: that of making itself useful to the work pursued by these
organizations in general. Instead of working on women’s issues upfront
in its interactions with these organizations, ONAMIAP proposed the
creation of the Pacto de Unidad and did all the groundwork related to
its start-up and effective functioning. The Pacto de Unidad was born on
March 22, 2010. This allowed ONAMIAP to be in direct contact with the
highest executive authorities of the mixed-gender organizations, rather
than only with the women members who usually did not have real lever-
age within (Interview Adelaida Alayza, 2012; Interview Rosa Montalvo,
2012). ONAMIAP’s president was convinced about this strategy’s justi-
fication: “It’s quite clear. The issue that, you know, we women want to
organize ourselves and articulate our struggles, is seen by the male lead-
ership as a danger. So they don’t allow it. But we can’t fall in this trap;
we need to work this through little by little. It’s this way we’re going”
(Interview Gladys Vila, 2011).
From 2010 to 2012, ONAMIAP was the only women’s organizations
within the Pacto de Unidad. In several instances of public appearance in
the media, Gladys Vila, ONAMIAP’s president, represented the Pacto de
Unidad alongside its other member organizations’ male leaders. Her media
profile rose quickly as she revealed herself to be a very good communica-
tor. ONAMIAP was also the backbone of the Pacto de Unidad’s work,
doing all the paperwork and coordination (Interview Rosa Montalvo,
2012; Interview Gladys Vila, 2012). The organization managed to estab-
lish clearly and publicly its willingness to contribute to a shared agenda of
indigenous peoples’ organizations, rather than “only” to that of women’s.
This was crucial to obtaining a significant level of acceptance within the
indigenous movement and beyond.
ONAMIAP is not the only national women-only organization repre-
senting indigenous women. FEMUCARINAP, whose identity is not as
clearly centered on indigeneity, also represents indigenous women’s orga-
nizations. Many of its leaders, when interviewed, identified themselves
as indigenous, even though its president and founder, Lourdes Huanca,
did not. In comparison with FEMUCARINAP’s networks located in
feminist and peasant organizations, ONAMIAP is mostly connected to
international actors dedicated to indigenous women’s rights. It has estab-
lished itself with the support of international funders such as the FIME
(Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indígenas), UNFPA (through a project to
design an indigenous women’s agenda on reproductive health), and ONU

Mujeres, besides the assistance Chirapaq provides, also coming from inter-
national funding.
This being said, at the time research was done for this book, one
could observe a relatively strong competition between ONAMIAP and
FEMUCARINAP, embedded in a conflictual relation between their two
leaders, as mentioned earlier. Both had different versions of why animosity
grew between them, but most of the observers concurred that the problem
revolved more around a conflict of personality. Both organizations were
set up during the same period and had to work very hard to constitute
their membership, unleashing a dynamics of struggle for political posi-
tioning both in the eyes of the public and those of the potential local and
regional organizations that could join them. Rumors of local organizations
that would be affiliated to both were suggested by FEMUCARINAP as a
problem resulting supposedly from ONAMIAP’s attempt to steal its bases,
a suggestion that was dismissed by ONAMIAP in an interview (Interview
Rosa Ojeda, 2012; Interview Gladys Vila, 2012). However, as nuanced by
then OXFAM staff Adelaida Alayza, the issue of national organizations’
representativeness is an issue that all organizations face, not only women’s
organizations like ONAMIAP and FEMUCARINAP (Interview Adelaida
Alayza, 2012). All the organizations of the Peruvian indigenous move-
ment were experiencing some crisis of legitimacy, and none could claim to
have stable and effective links to their bases.
Both organizations also competed in terms of their relationship to
indigenous movement organizations and the non-indigenous wom-
en’s movement. FEMUCARINAP’s role in the indigenous movement
dynamics has been less central and more recent than ONAMIAP’s, even
though it has participated in the First Continental Meeting of Indigenous
Women held in Puno in 2009.4 Still, it entered the Pacto de Unidad at
the end of 2012, after being refused entry a year earlier. Interestingly,
FEMUCARINAP’s leader Lourdes Huanca argued that her organization
had first been turned down because of its feminist politics; however, the
other interviewees whose opinion was sought on the matter explained that
it rather had to do with the conjunctural interaction between the State
and the Pacto de Unidad. At the time FEMUCARINAP first required to
be included, the Frentes de Defensa, which are departmental civil society
associations filled by strong opposition figures, also required the same.
Since this occurred at the height of the negotiations between the State and
the Pacto around the issue of the Law on the Right of Indigenous Peoples
to Prior Consultation, accepting so many new members with sometimes

dubious legitimacy would have jeopardized the capacity of the Pacto de
Unidad to maintain its open dialogue with the State. So the members of
the Pacto de Unidad had to close ranks at that time and it was only many
months after in a different context that FEMUCARINAP could join in.
2 The Political Agency of Organized Indigenous

Women
Notwithstanding the different histories behind each organization’s open-
ing to women’s participation or the creation of independent women’s
organizations, there is an important overlap in terms of the agendas pur-
sued by the different actors. However, depending on their identification,
political affinities, and alliances, each actor presents some particularities
that are important to underline. Within AIDESEP, the Woman’s Program
was following a five-year plan composed of the following main objectives:
develop women’s capacity-building on issues relating to territorial rights,
promote women’s education and literacy, work to foster inter-cultural
health by seeking that traditional indigenous medicine be offered in the
state’s health centers and hospitals, promote women’s political partici-
pation including in political parties, and raise awareness of communal
authorities on the many forms of violence against women in communities
and in indigenous organizations, in order to end the common percep-
tion of violence as a normal form of social interaction (Interview Rocilda
Nunta, 2010).
Even though some of these issues are also part of the feminist move-
ment’s agenda, the women leaders from AIDESEP interviewed for this
research positioned themselves as working first and foremost for their
communities and for gender equity, along with men. In their work, they
encountered a lot of resistance against the term “gender” or “gender
equality”, describing them as having Western feminist notions foreign to
Amazonian cultures (Interview Teresita Antazu, 2010; Interview Rocilda
Nunta, 2010). Working on women’s participation and rights within the
mixed-gender organization was a hard-won struggle that only could be
done if a clear distance was maintained with “white” feminist movements,
even though, as described above, they collaborated on occasion and had
a relatively fluid exchange up until 2009. By then AIDESEP decided to
work with CONACAMI on a project to develop an “indigenous alterna-
tive to gender” to understand social relations between women and men.
Unfortunately, this project died too soon without producing tangible

results (Interview Adelaida Alayza, 2012).
Both organizations also worked together to produce an Indigenous
Women’s Agenda for the First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Women
in 2009. This agenda focused on territorial rights and the protection of
natural resources, political participation of indigenous women, educa-
tion and identity, health and ancestral knowledge, and violence against
women. The agenda was prepared in collaboration with the CCP and
CNA, as well as Aymara organizations in Puno, where the meeting was
held. No input was sought from feminist organizations, as indeed it was
a process that was meant to put forward an indigenous women’s agenda
based on the orientations of the indigenous organizations (Interview
Feliciana Amado, 2010).
Yeni Ugarte, CCP’s president, also indicated that the CCP’s Women’s
Federation in Cusco, as its equivalents in other regions of the country,
is also active in participating in the country’s new participative mecha-
nisms such as the participatory budgeting, or the adoption of regional and
national Plans for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, policies that
started in the 2000s (Interview Yeni Ugarte, 2012). There is also an agenda
of cultural revitalization through the diffusion of the Indigenous Peoples’
Rights international instruments, which has found a concrete application
in the politics around the Law on the Right of Indigenous Peoples to
Prior Consultation. Women from the CCP are also working on the issues
of inter-cultural health policy, food security, as well as the protection of
indigenous seeds against the threat of multinationals’ OGM-related seeds.
These are also important aspects of ONAMIAP, FEMUCARINAP, and
AIDESEP’s priorities. Most importantly, their efforts are targeted at fos-
tering income-generating and productive activities for women and men.
FEMUCARINAP has a very similar agenda to that of the CCP, except
that it adopts a more specifically female and/or feminist perspective on
some issues, making parallels between Mother Earth (Pachamama) and
women or rural women. FEMUCARINAP’s Marisa Marcavillaca explains
that “we identify mostly with Mother Earth, as our central worry is cli-
mate change, food security and water. (…) I have five children; Mother
Earth has an infinite number of children. Plants, animals, living beings,
and they exploit her so much that she is tired and she tries to protest ‘I
can no longer continue like this’ she says. So I say to myself: what would
happen to me if they forced me to give birth two times a year, year after
year?” (Interview Marisa Marcavillaca, 2010). Marisa participated to an
event sponsored by OXFAM America in March 2010, “Climate Change

Witnesses”, where she spoke at the US Capitol Hill on the effects of
climate change on the lives of peasant communities and women in par-
ticular. She was quoted by Al Gore in his campaign to bring awareness on
Climate Change.5
FEMUCARINAP has developed a public image whereby it organizes
ceremonies that they call “misticas” during their meetings or events.
The same practice is found with other indigenous organizations like
CONACAMI or CAOI. It consists in ceremonial food-offerings to the
key powerful places—mountains, lakes—that are considered as their par-
ents or that which make life possible (Salas Carreño, 2012). In the case of
FEMUCARINAP, it has become its trademark to also display food prod-
ucts from all over the country, so as to relate to their agenda as indigenous
peasant women who defend food sovereignty and the seeds, water, land,
and territories. One such “mistica” was held on October 14, 2011, at
Lima’s Plaza de Armas, in front of the Presidential Palace. During this
event, several important authorities such as Lima Mayor Susana Villaran,
minister of Women’s Issues Aida Garcia Naranjo, and others came by to
express their support to FEMUCARINAP. In light of the strong connec-
tion of this ritual to indigenous customs from Peru’s highlands, this is one
of FEMUCARINAP’s ways of expressing its indigeneity even though it
does not present itself as representing only indigenous women.
ONAMIAP articulates its agenda exclusively around advocating on
behalf of indigenous women to influence public policies and make sure
they address indigenous women’s needs. It seeks to promote indigenous
women’s political participation at all levels, from participatory budget-
ing to elected state authorities; strengthen women’s organizations;
promote inter-cultural health; raise awareness about violence against
indigenous women and propose ways to work toward eliminating this
violence; and demand state measures to ensure that indigenous women
have equal access to education. It is an ally of other indigenous organi-
zations on the key issues of land and territorial rights, as well as bilingual
inter-cultural education.
One initiative ONAMIAP had particularly at heart was to advocate
for new state standards in census making and statistics so that these pro-
vide desegregated information on indigenous women. The Peruvian
State adopted a resolution in June 2013 to include for the first time in
its Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2017 (National Census on
Population and Housing) a set of questions to report on ethnic identity.
As part of the elaboration of the methodology of the survey, the Instituto

Nacional de Estadistica e Informatica (National Institute on Statistics and
Computer Science—INEI) created a Comité Técnico Interinstitucional
sobre Estadísticas de Etnicidad (Inter-Institutional Technical Committee
on Ethnic Statistics) and appointed ONAMIAP along with CONAP as the
only two indigenous organizations to play an advisory role.6
2.1 Exclusion(s) and Views on Feminism

Besides their platforms and priorities which reveal a common core but with
some important differences, we found that many indigenous women’s
activists shared a similar personal experience of exclusion or knowledge of
exclusion experienced by other women in relation to communal assembly
mechanisms where key decisions are taken on collective matters affecting
rural sectors. Carmen Ugarte from CONACAMI mentioned that she was
working to encourage women to lobby for the modifications of their com-
munities’ statutes so that they could be recognized as head of family and
thus obtain all the rights to vote and be elected at the communal assembly
(Interview Carmen Ugarte, 2012). While it was not an issue pursued by
CONACAMI, Carmen was hoping that the lawyers who collaborate with
CONACAMI could help her and other women in their quest to reform
communal assemblies’ procedures.
Marisa Marcavillaca from FEMUCARINAP’s executive and leader of
the Federacion de Mujeres del Cusco (Women’s Federation of Cuzco)
also mentioned the difficulties that women faced in peasant communi-
ties to be recognized with equal rights at the communal assembly, and
in productive work in general. This difficulty was part of the reasons why
she started to get involved in organizations, which led her to become
the secretary general of the Federación Departamental de Campesinos
del Cusco (CCP’s affiliate) before joining FEMUCARINAP. Gladys Vila
from ONAMIAP recalled in an interview that her first experience with
collective organization was with the communal assembly of her commu-
nity Qarpapata (Huancavelica), where she faced strong resistance from
her male comrades to participate in the collective work activities (faenas)
instead of her father who had migrated to work in the jungle. She man-
aged to impose herself to do the work, but her opponents still insisted
that her family pay the fine for her father’s absence (a typical disciplinary
measure found in peasant communities in Peru). In the early 1990s, grass-
roots survival-based women’s organizations started in her community (the
Vaso de Leche and Collective kitchens), and that is where Gladys started
to assume leadership positions. In her community, as in a great many oth-
ers, women only managed to be accepted as members of the communal
assembly if they were single mothers or widows.
While sharing many experiences of exclusion as women, the different
organizations had different positions and values when it came to analyzing
and acting politically on it. All of the leaders interviewed rejected the label
“feminist” except the ones from FEMUCARINAP, who either defined
themselves as feminists or expressed deep sympathy for the feminist move-
ment and ideas. Among those who rejected the feminist label, many rec-
ognized the historical importance of the feminist movement in Peru. The
lines of division revolved around different issues.
The first of these lines of division, within the indigenous organizations,
had to do with the common idea found within Andean indigenous circles
that indigenous peoples’ cultures were historically or are still based on a
different conception and practice of gender relations, based on the notion
of complementarity. The latter is in fact a crucial dimension of highland
cultural representation of the world in general—not just as it affects gen-
der. Some indigenous movement organizations, such as CONACAMI
and CAOI, claim that indigenous women and men should be seen as
complementary and practice complementarity in social interactions, based
on an analogy with natural elements (Interview Feliciana Amado, 2010).
However, based on Feliciana Amado’s critique of her own organization’s
machista practices, one can see that the road will be long to either “recu-
perate” or build the complementarity that for the moment serves to dif-
ferentiate discursively indigenous gender relations from “Western” ones.
Within the movement led by Tarcila Rivera which eventually formed
the basis of ONAMIAP, the main idea was that women and men need
to be equals if the society is to attain complementarity. Rivera argued
that “All things and human beings need to reach a point of equilibrium,
which requires recognizing them as equals. This does not mean neces-
sarily that they will do or be the same” (Interview Tarcila Rivera, 2010).
Indigenous men accuse her of being a feminist. She, in contrast, is not
in favor of complementarity as practiced by the Bolivian organization
CONAMAQ, where all positions of authority are dual (filled by a het-
erosexual couple). Tarcila argues that within CONAMAQ, women sit
in silence while men are the ones who discuss and make decisions. The
same critical tone was found in Gladys Vila’s (ONAMIAP) and Teresita
Antazu’s (AIDESEP) view of complementarity. They basically described
it as an ideal that was contradicted by the daily interactions in indigenous

communities and organizations.
The debates about how to conceptualize men and women’s relations in
indigenous cultures as part of the political project of indigenous movement
organizations are not very present in the Peruvian indigenous movement,
and almost non-existent in the public sphere. But there are clear differ-
ences of views between most indigenous women leaders and the feminist
platforms on sexual and reproductive rights, among others. Indigenous
women tend to see the latter as issues that are best approached through
community or family dynamics, rather than as a matter of women’s indi-
vidual right to autonomy. When evaluating what their priorities are in this
field, they refer to indigenous women’s experience of suffering from coer-
cive and degrading practices by health professionals that lead to frequent
human rights violations and complete disregard for indigenous medicinal
knowledge. Clearly, the racist structure of the health and education sys-
tems is one of the main problems cited by indigenous women leaders when
talking about their rights as citizens. Some also point to the paternalistic
and alienating framework within which social programs are conceived and
executed by the state for the supposed benefit of the poor and extremely
poor sectors of the country, among which indigenous women are a major-
ity (Interview Lourdes Huanca, 2010; Interview Gladys Vila, 2012).
Rosa Montalvo, a longtime observer and ally of indigenous women’s
organizing, argued that indigenous feminism does not exist—yet—in
Peru. Indigenous women’s organizations need to become much more
stronger before they can think about exposing themselves to a highly
tensed struggle with men if they want to define themselves as feminists.
Lourdes Huanca (FEMUCARINAP) is the only one who openly says she
is a feminist, but as Rosa remarks, it is not an “indigenous feminism”
that Lourdes is defending, but feminism without adjectives (Interview
Rosa Montalvo, 2012). Huanca’s feminist identification is not accompa-
nied with a critique of hegemonic feminist discourse, such as is found in
Mexico, for example. FEMUCARINAP has managed to establish a part-
nership with some feminist organizations, which means that both sides
have accepted to adopt some of the agenda of the other. Lourdes Huanca
claims that she now trusts her feminist allies much more than her male col-
leagues in the peasant-indigenous movement (Interview Lourdes Huanca,
2012). Marisa Marcavillaca (FEMUCARINAP) explained that earlier she
was afraid of the feminists and thought they were “lesbians”. She later
came to feel “protected” by the feminists, that they were no longer alone
as peasant women but accompanied by the feminists who helped them in

many different ways (training workshops, legal advice, political and finan-
cial support) (Interview Marisa Marcavillaca, 2010).
3 Conclusion
The past decade has been crucial for the mobilization of indigenous women
in Peru. From a very low profile they have risen to become leaders of either
mixed-gender organizations or independent women’s organizations. In Peru,
we find women’s branches of mixed-gender organizations at the regional
and departmental levels, but at the national level, mixed-gender organiza-
tions have preferred to maintain a unified leadership structure, where they
have created specific measures to include women in the highest decision-
making offices. Another strong particularity of the Peruvian case is the fact
that two independent women’s organizations have managed to create them-
selves and receive recognition from the mixed-gender organizations after a
hard struggle and always under a strong pressure to justify their existence.
In terms of the mechanisms that we find at play for the construction
of women’s spaces and organizations, in general terms we can describe
the Peruvian case as exhibiting a dual process. The opening of indig-
enous movement organizations such as AIDESEP and CONACAMI to
women’s participation did not mean concretely that the organizations
have started adopting agendas reflecting women’s needs and demands.
AIDESEP was in a better position in that respect, but the organization
did not assume a leadership role in promoting a women’s agenda. Within
the CCP, we find a story of repeated schisms, one of them to create an
independent women’s organization. Nevertheless, women’s leadership
was on the rise within the CCP, which might be explained by its decreas-
ing political relevance and drowning representativeness, making it less
attractive to male leaders.
Another mechanism that should be underlined is the construction of
frontiers between mixed-gender organizations and indigenous women’s
organizations around the notion of indigenous authenticity, which plays
out by criticizing them as feminists, or as no longer related to the grass-
roots, or somehow acting against the interests of indigenous communities.
The creation of national indigenous women’s independent organizations
also prompted AIDESEP and CONACAMI to start uniting their efforts
to promote more visibly women’s participation within their ranks, which
led to real achievements around the Puno Summit in 2009.
Finally, the national political process and the interaction with the state
around the negotiations for the adoption and regulation of the Law on
the Right of Indigenous Peoples to Prior Consultation favored indigenous
women’s integration and recognition by mixed-gender organizations,
mainly because of the initiative by ONAMIAP to create a formal vehicle—
the Pacto de Unidad—to ensure coordination. FEMUCARINAP’s later
inclusion in the Pacto de Unidad showed that both women’s organiza-
tions’ bases were seen as important to mobilize and unite around key
issues of relevance to most rural sectors of Peru.
Indigenous women are now recognized actors both within the indig-
enous movement and in the eyes of the Peruvians who pay attention to
indigenous movement politics—which is a relatively small portion of the
population. They are seen as the defendants of food sovereignty, territorial
rights, and ethnic identity, but have not managed to send strong messages
to carry their voices at the core of state politics. In itself, this should not be
a surprise, in light of the difficulty that the Peruvian indigenous movement
as a whole is facing to penetrate in a more sustained fashion in national
political institutions and debates.
Notes
1. Some participants from the workshop have later run for candidate at
the National Congress of Peru. Hilaria Supa Huaman, from the
Province of Anta, Cusco, was elected Congresswoman from 2006 to
2011 with the Nationalist Party, and then as a member of the
Andean Parliament. She was a co-founder of the Grupo Parlamentario
Indigena (Indigenous Parliamentary Group) in 2006, in which
women formed the majority of Congresspersons.
2. As mentioned on http://movimientos.org/es/cloc/ccp/show_
text.php3%3Fkey%3D5973 (last visit, October 8, 2013).
3. FEMUCARINAP’s membership is more concentrated on the coast
and in the Sierra.
4. The First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Women was held in
the context of the 4th Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples
from Abya Yala. This transnational meeting is not to be confused
with the meetings of the Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indigenas
that have been held periodically since 1993. In Peru, the indigenous
women who have been most connected to the Enlace Continental
are Tarcila Rivera and her NGO Chirapaq.
5. See http://blog.algore.com/2010/03/witnesses_to_the_climate_
crisi.html (last visit, November 2, 2013).
6. As reported at http://servindi.org/actualidad/95148 (last visit,
November 2, 2013).
References
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rollo local : fortaleciendo la participación de las mujeres. Lima: IEP Ediciones.
Coronado, J. (2003). Ademuc: 20 años a la vanguardia de las organizaciones de
mujeres de Puno. http://movimientos.org/cloc/ccp/show_text.php3?key=2214.
Retrieved 2013.
Paredes Piqué, S. (2005). Invisibles entre sus árboles. Derechos humanos de las
mujeres indígenas Amazónicas del Perú. Lima: Centro de la Mujer Flora Tristan.
Piccoli, E. (2011). Les Rondes paysannes. Vigilance, politique et justice dans les
Andes péruviennes. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-L’Harmattan.
Rousseau, S. (2009b). Women’s citizenship in Peru: The paradoxes of neopopulism in
Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Salas Carreño, G. (2012). Entre les mineurs, les grands propriétaires terriens et
l’État. Les allégeances des montagnes dans le sud des Andes péruviennes (1930-
2012). Recherches amérindiennes, XLII(2–3), 25–37.
CHAPTER 8
Conclusion
Indigenous women organized as political subjects early on at the begin-

ning of indigenous movements in Latin America. This book has presented
different trajectories of indigenous women’s mobilization leading to the
creation of autonomous spaces from which they speak in their own name.
This has meant the elaboration of new discourses on indigeneity from a
gender perspective and collective action on behalf of indigenous women
since the late 1990s in the case of Mexico, the early 2000s in Bolivia, and
the late 2000s in Peru. These trajectories in Mexico and in Peru have
involved the creation of autonomous spaces within mixed-gender organi-
zations and also the creation of independent organizations. In Bolivia we
found that the predominant forms are women’s organizations that main-
tain an affiliation to a male-dominated mixed-gender organization or orga-
nizations based on gender dualism. Challenging various forms of exclusion
through these different organizing paths, indigenous women have trans-
formed indigenous movements’ organizations and collective identities.
Our comparative analysis reveals that both internal and external dynam-
ics of social movements determine the autonomy indigenous women can
exercise as political subjects, and thus the different organizational tra-
jectories that they follow. Our intersectional analysis allowed for a more
illuminating understanding of indigenous movements’ internal dynamics.
The latter were both shaped by and shaped indigenous women’s organiza-
tional trajectories, particularly in relation to processes of collective identity
formation. Moreover, these trajectories were also influenced by the politi-
cal context or the external dynamics of movements. Thus, the relevance

of using the political process model in social movement studies in the

analysis of these movements. The political context of the three countries
combined with internal dynamics of exclusion and competition created
different opportunities for women to organize and voice specific demands.
Regarding the internal dynamics of the indigenous movement, the
analysis of our three cases revealed how the articulation of gender and
indigeneity in women’s collective identity formation has positioned them
in complex situations of negotiation of the boundaries and the framing of
the indigenous movement’s discourse and agendas. In voicing concerns,
demands, and priorities as indigenous women, they have challenged their
organizations, which have been resistant to recognize them as political
actors of their own. This has consequently involved the transformation or
creation of new organizations. Indigenous women have adopted different
strategies to face the obstacles in gaining recognition within their organi-
zations, which resulted in different organizing paths.
However, internal dynamics are not to be analyzed in a vacuum.
Indigenous women’s organizing paths are closely related to how the
indigenous movements fared in the political context of each of the coun-
tries we studied. Moreover, indigenous women’s organizing is also related
to the connections or absence thereof they were able to establish with
other actors such as the women’s/feminist movements. These connec-
tions or alliances affect the mobilization opportunities insofar as they leave
greater or lesser political space to represent certain social sectors and pro-
vide resources of different kinds.
This conclusion briefly presents a typology of the different forms of
organizing that characterize the indigenous women’s movement in
Bolivia, Mexico, and Peru. Then, we propose an interpretation of the
effects that indigenous women’s actions have had, both in the broader
political context and in social movements’ dynamics. We end by discussing
the relation between both aspects, that is, the organizational trajectories
and the effects and impact, highlighting the contribution of our study to
the comprehension of how gender dynamics are key to better understand-
ing indigenous movements.
1 Indigenous Women’s Mobilizing Paths

In the different chapters covering our three cases, we analyzed the processes
that led to the creation of various organizations indigenous women used
to mobilize as women within the indigenous movement. The typology we
CONCLUSION 199
propose to describe them is fourfold: women-only spaces in gender-mixed

organizations; women-only organizations created out of gender-mixed
organizations that remain related to the latter (parallel organizations or
“gender parallelism”); organizations based on gender dualism in all posi-
tions of authority (couples fill in all the positions jointly); and women-only
organization without permanent link to any other organization (indepen-
dent organizations).
1.1 Women’s Spaces in Gender-Mixed Organizations

The formation of specific women’s spaces within gender-mixed organi-
zations is an organizational path that we mostly observed in Peru and
Mexico with the creation of “women’s secretariats” or “women’s com-
missions”. In some of these cases, indigenous women succeeded in cre-
ating spaces where they were able to design projects targeting women’s
needs as well as promoting their participation within the mixed-gender
organizations. In a few organizations, it also represented an opportunity
for women to promote a new agenda on indigenous women’s rights. In
the two countries the organizations’ reaction to women’s demands was
relatively positive. However, in most cases these spaces resulted from the
pressure of international donor agencies that funded projects targeting
women.
In Peru, the most important indigenous and peasant organizations
in the highlands and the Amazon (AIDESEP, CONACAMI, CNA, and
CCP) created “women’s secretariats” within their organization to channel
and promote women’s participation. In Mexico, peasant and indigenous
national organizations (UNORCA, ANIPA) created “women’s commis-
sions” or “women’s areas”. However, these spaces have not necessarily
succeeded in changing the organizations’ core agendas to specifically
address indigenous women’s demands in a forceful way. Nonetheless, in
both countries, such paths to organizing were key as they allowed women
to develop their leadership and agendas.
1.2 Parallel Organizations
In Bolivia, women’s organizing paths are different from those in Peru and
Mexico. In Bolivia we observed what we named “gender parallelism”—
the creation of a parallel organization for women that remains tied to an
indigenous mixed-gender organization. For example, indigenous women
negotiated the creation of the Confederación nacional de mujeres campesi-

nas indígenas originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa” (“Bartolinas”), out of
the largest peasant union of the country, the CSUTCB. This was under-
stood as a key move to enhance the organization’s mobilizing capacity
by capitalizing on women’s availability and strength. Other organizations
followed this path, such as the CNAMIB, created out of the CIDOB,
and the CSMCIB, created out of the CSCIB. In these cases, the new
organizations remain related to the mixed-gender organizations but are
organized as parallel organizations with statutes and leadership of their
own. This is qualitatively quite different from the women’s spaces cre-
ated within broader organizations that we described above for Peru and
Mexico (only-women spaces in gender-mixed organizations). For one, it
allows indigenous women to develop a public profile of their own, and to
be represented in official institutional settings where negotiations are car-
ried out on indigenous/women’s rights.
1.3 Organizations Based on Gender Dualism

The third organizational path is also unique to Bolivia, where an organi-
zation based on gender dualism in all positions of authority was founded
by Aymara and Quechua communities, the CONAMAQ. This organiza-
tion was designed following a structure of leadership that assigns mar-
ried couples to fill each position jointly. According to the gender ideology
promoted by this organization, the Mama T’alla (female authority) and
the Tata (male authority) are conceived as complementary, just as the
heterosexual married couple is conceived as the basic social unit of the
community.
1.4 Independent Organizations
Indigenous women also created women-only organizations without per-
manent link to any other organization since the late 1990s in Mexico and
the 2000s in Peru. These organizations were created by women who had
been involved in peasant and indigenous organizations, but who decided
to build a women-only space to represent indigenous women with full
autonomy at the national level. This decision was principally motivated by
the negative reaction from national mixed-gender organizations to inte-
grate gender demands and recognize the need for women to organize in
spaces of their own.
CONCLUSION 201
In Peru, one of these organizations is the ONAMIAP that was created

out of a process of ten years of training and networking among grassroots
rural women’s organizations promoted by the NGO Chirapaq Centro de
Culturas Indígenas del Perú. In Mexico, the national indigenous wom-
en’s organizations were created out of an intense mobilizing period of
the indigenous movement in the aftermaths of the Zapatista movement.
In this context, indigenous women faced some resistance from different
organizations to incorporate their demands. Combining their efforts, two
women’s areas of national indigenous organizations (ANIPA and CNI)
created the CONAMI. This was the first indigenous women’s national
organization to present a gendered perspective on autonomy and to
strengthen indigenous women’s organizing processes and leadership.
As this typology reveals, indigenous women have mobilized through
different paths to position themselves as political actors. They have cre-
ated their own organizations when the balance of power allowed or forced
them to, and because they lacked political recognition as social move-
ment actors. There are two major tendencies regarding social movement
organizations’ reactions to new claims and demands voiced by indigenous
women. On one side, there are internal opportunities when the balance of
power allows women to negotiate for the recognition of their claims and
redefine—to various extents—the organizations’ discourses, as with the
case of Bolivia. On the other side, there is a closing of the opportunities
when indigenous women are not successful in challenging the resistance
of their organizations to incorporate their claims, when the organizations
refuse to change their discourse and agendas, as in some organizations in
Peru and Mexico. This is due to the absence of external allies, the lack of
effective strategies to put pressure on male leaderships, or the political con-
juncture which forces a toning down of internal disputes. Consequently,
some women continue to mobilize within the indigenous movement’s
organizations, while others create new spaces for mobilization. In the lat-
ter situation, the unequivocal resistance of mixed-gender organizations
to indigenous women’s demands increased the perceived need for greater
autonomy and boundary transgression.
2 Boundary-Making and Collective Identity

To position themselves as political actors, indigenous women created a
collective identity on the grounds of the social categories of indigeneity
and gender. In the three cases we observed that women mobilized by
formulating demands that combined them. The process of collective

identity formation involved principally the creation of internal boundaries
within indigenous movements on the basis of gender. However, in Bolivia
the making of a boundary within the indigenous movement was somehow
avoided through the phenomenon of gender parallelism we described
above. Indeed, the opening of the movement to women’s demands was
strategically transferred “outside” male-dominated organizations, yet
presented as the best way to recognize the specific contribution made
by women to the movement. We interpret this pattern as a strategy to
avoid the construction of boundaries within the indigenous movement, as
indigenous women act jointly with indigenous male-dominated organiza-
tions, yet they can also pursue “complementary” issues of greater interest
to them.
Another way to avoid boundaries was found within some mixed-gender
indigenous organizations in Peru as well as in Mexico where women’s
commissions or secretaries were created. But in these two countries
we also observed a process of boundary-making within the movement
through the creation of indigenous women’s independent organiza-
tions. In both cases, the resistance of some of the mixed-gender orga-
nizations to integrate gender demands motivated women to create new
organizations. In Mexico, this process was visible with the creation of the
CONAMI and one of its explicit goals of developing a gendered perspec-
tive on the concept of indigenous peoples’ autonomy. Indigenous women
defended the importance of integrating women’s rights in the formulation
of a political project of indigenous autonomy. In Peru, the formation of
independent organizations is associated with a perceived closing of the
indigenous movement to women’s voices. The independent indigenous
women’s organizations were seen as a threat to mixed-gender organiza-
tions, and thus suffered exclusion and campaigns to delegitimize them.
This resistance gradually diminished when indigenous women’s organiza-
tions found ways to strengthen the role of the indigenous movement in
national politics.
Beyond such differences in the transformation occurring within the
indigenous movements, what is common to the three cases is the process
of boundary-making that took place within the women’s movement.
Similar to the internal dynamics that women went through in negotiating
within the indigenous movement, indigenous women had to defend the
recognition of their specific discourse articulating gender and ethnicity
vis-a-vis the women’s/feminist movements.
CONCLUSION 203
As within the indigenous movement where women challenged gender

dynamics that excluded them from the leadership or marginalized their spe-
cific demands, indigenous women faced similar obstacles within the wom-
en’s/feminist movements. Power relations between women are anchored
in neocolonial social structures that position indigenous women in sub-
ordinate positions in relation to urban middle-class mestiza women who
occupy the leadership positions in the women’s and feminist movements.
These hierarchies were invoked when indigenous women claimed to carry
different understandings of oppression and emancipation. Indigenous
women emphasized that oppressive relations are historically located in rac-
ist social structures and that ethnic and gender oppression are inter-related
in their experiences. As a result, indigenous women challenged power rela-
tions within the women’s movement on the grounds of ethnicity and class.
Indigenous women organized outside of the established channels of
representation of the women’s movements. The majority of the organi-
zations we studied explicitly distanced themselves from feminist move-
ments, even if some of their members identify as feminists. The majority
of the indigenous women we interviewed positioned themselves clearly
in the terrain of the indigenous movement rather than the feminist or
the women’s movement. However, the creation of boundaries between
indigenous women’s and feminist movements varies from one context to
the other.
There are clear boundaries between both movements, but these do not
prevent different forms of joint action on the defense of women’s rights.
In Bolivia, the Constituent Assembly created a historically unique oppor-
tunity for collaboration between indigenous women’s and feminist orga-
nizations—that was previously weak or non-existent. Indigenous women
occupied a key role in the process and therefore were able to pressure
the feminist movement to open itself to the demands of the indigenous
movement. Permanent mechanisms for inter-organizational collaboration
to advance joint platforms on women’s rights have been created between
middle-class urban feminists and indigenous women. These mechanisms
have been key for the recent adoption of a series of laws on gender parity
and alternation for all electoral processes, on political harassment against
elected women and on violence against women, among other issues.
In the case of Peru, FEMUCARINAP’s alliance with some key femi-
nist organizations was based on mutual respect for each other’s plat-
form and priorities, and selective support where interests coincided. In
Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca, indigenous women have been involved in
the formulation of state-level women’s political agenda to pressure politi-

cal parties and governmental institutions to integrate women’s demands
and concerns in their agendas. Also, a dialogue between the indigenous
women’s and feminist movements took place at the national level during
the 2011 National Feminist Meeting (Encuentro Nacional Feminista).
There is also collaboration between indigenous women’s groups and
feminist groups in national networks such as the Network for Sexual
and Reproductive Rights in Mexico (Red por los Derechos Sexuales y
Reproductivos en México-DDSer). However, as with the case of Peru,
in Mexico, the collaboration has been mainly one of support from a few
feminist organizations to indigenous women for them to form indepen-
dent organizations.
Indigenous women also benefited from the support of women’s and
feminist organizations in the process of negotiating the inclusion of spe-
cific agendas within mixed-gender organizations. Different actors have
indeed accompanied the organizing processes of indigenous women, pro-
viding them with resources such as workshops on women’s rights and
facilitating their participation to spaces that fostered the creation of net-
works among indigenous women’s groups. This was the case in the col-
laboration between organizations such as Kinal Antzetik and CONAMI in
Mexico and Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristan and rural women’s
organizations that formed the membership of FEMUCARINAP in Peru.
As we can observe from the comparison of the three cases, in Bolivia
the boundaries were principally created in relation to external actors such
as the feminist movement, while in Peru and Mexico the boundaries were
created within the indigenous movement as well as vis-a-vis the feminist
movement. The boundaries indigenous women have created in their
organizing processes have positioned themselves as autonomous political
actors that developed different forms of collaboration with external actors
and brought new agendas to the public sphere.
3 Political Context and Outcomes

The organizational autonomy won by indigenous women brought a recon-
figuration of gender relations within the indigenous movement as well as
the recognition by the feminist movement of the specificity of indigenous
women’s discourse and demands. In order to evaluate the impact indig-
enous women’s organizations have had from a comparative point of view,
CONCLUSION 205
we need to consider the political context and the factors that have influ-
enced the success of the movement in each case.
“Gender parallelism” in Bolivia allowed strong gains for indigenous
women in the context of a strong indigenous movement with the election
of Evo Morales as president in 2005 and the adoption of a radically new
constitution in 2009 that provided for numerous rights and reforms long
claimed by the indigenous movements. The close ties indigenous wom-
en’s organizations had with the MAS, and more specifically the Bartolinas,
gave them direct access to the state and therefore the capacity to push
forward some gender demands. The Bolivian indigenous women’s move-
ment has established itself as representative of the majority of women in
the country and has developed collaborations with the feminist movement
around women’s political and civil rights such as gender parity. Indigenous
women have gained access to positions of power at the local, regional, and
national state levels and in the judicial system. They have also made gains
through the adoption of normative frames to sanction violence against
women and the creation of an integrated system to receive and respond to
reported cases of violence.
The direct access indigenous women have to the state in Bolivia is
dependent on the organizational ties embedded in gender parallelism.
However, it is likely that indigenous women would not have obtained the
same leverage if the MAS were not in power. Indeed, gender parallelism
does not necessarily mean that mixed-gender organizations are open to
promote gender equity. But in a favorable political context for the indig-
enous movement, this organizational form can give women a privileged
access to the state and allow them to gain more legitimacy. Obviously, as
we highlighted, there existed important discrepancies in the access differ-
ent indigenous women’s organizations managed to create for themselves.
Once the MAS was in power, a new dynamics of competition and domina-
tion between different sectors of organized indigenous women settled in.
As discussed previously, in Peru and Mexico, indigenous women have
created national independent organizations. The political context in these
two countries is very different from the one in Bolivia, as in Peru and
Mexico the indigenous movement is not as strong. This affected women’s
capacity to position themselves as legitimate actors and bring about change.
In Mexico, the important waves of mobilization of the indigenous
movement in the 1990s created unprecedented opportunities for indig-
enous women to participate, particularly considering the leadership played
by the Zapatista movement in promoting women’s participation and
demands. However, this did not prevent women from facing obstacles in
integrating their demands within the national indigenous organizations.
At some point, these obstacles turned into incentives to put together an
independent national organization. This took place in a context where
the Zapatista movement had opened spaces to discuss women’s rights,
while at the same time the government used a discourse of incompatibility
between women’s rights and collective rights to discredit the indigenous
movement. Women faced resistance within indigenous organizations that
wanted to present a united voice on indigenous peoples’ collective rights.
This explains in part why indigenous women created an independent space
to formulate a specific discourse on autonomy, thus articulating individual
and collective rights.
The joint efforts of women from different sectors had a favorable impact
on the integration of indigenous women’s specific demands within collec-
tive rights claims. However, if the 1990s opened opportunities for indig-
enous women, the decline of the indigenous movement in the early 2000s
adversely affected their capacity to influence the state and bring about a
change at the policy level. Nonetheless, the autonomy gained by indig-
enous women with the creation of an independent organization allowed
them to create specific collaborations on projects regarding violence against
women. Indigenous women elaborated a program along with a feminist
organization, Kinal Antzetik, and the federal government to create local
organizations of indigenous women who promote women’s sexual and
reproductive health and seek to prevent violence against women.
In the case of Peru, indigenous women have faced different obstacles to
gain legitimacy for their independent organizations within the indigenous
movement. Nonetheless, they succeeded in establishing organizational
autonomy that allows them to create and promote their own agendas.
However, the competition that exists between the two national orga-
nizations representing indigenous women’s interests prevents a greater
collaboration to push common agendas, despite the fact that these orga-
nizations succeeded in closing the gap between the highland and the
Amazon organizing trajectories. The recognition of indigenous women
by the mixed-gender organizations was favored by the role played by these
two organizations in important processes for the consolidation of the
indigenous movement in politics. On the national scene, the negotiations
for the adoption and regulation of the Law on the Right of Indigenous
Peoples to Prior Consultation was facilitated by the formation of the Pact
of Unity, an alliance of indigenous organizations proposed and carried out
CONCLUSION 207
mainly by the ONAMIAP, one of Peru’s independent indigenous women’s

organizations. On the transnational scene, the role of FEMUCARINAP,
the other women’s organization, within the global peasant movement Via
Campesina, created incentives for the national indigenous movement to
accept them and recognize their political relevance, even if not necessarily
for the “good” reasons.
The creation of independent organizations in Peru and Mexico has
clearly given more autonomy to indigenous women to promote their own
agendas. However, it is also important to consider that the political con-
text in Bolivia has been more favorable to indigenous women in gaining
access to the state both as political authorities and through normative
changes. All in all, the organizational forms by themselves do not explain
the level of success or impact that indigenous women have been able to
reach as a social movement. Yet, these forms are not chosen out of a uni-
verse of various options, but rather built in response to the opportunities
created both within the movement and the national political dynamics.
The phenomenon of “gender parallelism” has expanded at a similar
pace to the strengthening of the indigenous movement in national politics
in Bolivia. Bolivian women were indissociably involved in this strengthen-
ing, which both allowed them to create their parallel organizations and
to benefit from the positive balance of power between the indigenous
movement and the state. Hence, they tended to remain within the same
organizational “family” where they were trained as leaders and activists.
Through parallel organizations, indigenous women maintained their
access to the prestige and resources of the male-dominated organization,
while they developed their own voice and position themselves relatively
autonomously in the public sphere.
In contrast, indigenous women’s independent organizations have pri-
marily formed in the context of weak (Peru) or weakening (Mexico)
indigenous movements in national politics. Greater organizational
autonomy was deemed necessary by indigenous women just when the
mixed-gender organizations were not producing satisfactory results. The
very weakness of the latter created space for alternatives that seemed
preferable. In these cases, the access to resources and political repre-
sentation has involved more direct collaborations with some feminist
organizations and international agencies. While a number of differ-
ent organizations created by indigenous women benefited, to different
degrees, from the resources provided by these external actors through
the projects they financed targeting women or the pressure they put on
the leadership of the organizations, the creation of independent organi-

zations in Peru and Mexico benefited particularly from such support. In
these two cases, however, the state remained very far from acceding to
the most important claims of the indigenous movements. This adversely
affected indigenous women’s capacity to generate change in laws and
policies. However, a few state entities recognized the legitimacy of some
indigenous women’s organizations and granted them some participation
in different official fora.
Our comparison shows that in general, indigenous women have built
spaces of their own that both maintain their affiliation with indigenous
organizations and win the right to speak as political subjects. They also
tend to overcome the obstacles faced by male-dominated indigenous
organizations in generating organizations that unite different sectors of
the indigenous movement. In Mexico, indigenous women managed to
create the Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas. In Peru, two
different organizations with membership from all the regions of the coun-
try competed to represent indigenous women, and one of them was the
instigator of and instrumental in bringing forward the Unity Pact between
the main indigenous organizations. In Bolivia, a non-indigenous women’s
NGO converted into a representative organization of the broad women’s
movement which included the main indigenous women’s organizations.
All these initiatives were filled with conflicts and tensions just like any
other in the politics of social movements. Yet they were crucial in position-
ing indigenous women as political actors with the capacity to negotiate,
make alliances, and develop proposals that were phrased so as to appeal to
policy-makers and Congress.
The 20 years or so that it took for indigenous women to build their
organizations and transform existing ones reflect the complexity of politi-
cizing intersectional social positionings within social movements. The
difficult confrontations that many individual women leaders have had to
endure, such risking losing their reputation and/or their partner, resisting
often violent attempts to stop them, are testimony of what was at stake in
breaking through the gender order. At the same time, indigenous women
still face the daunting task of addressing the exclusionary institutions built
to ascertain the political power of white and mestizo elites. In Bolivia,
indigenous women have succeeded in entering the state as high authori-
ties, elected or nominated. But so far this remains very exceptional in
Latin America and indeed throughout the world.
CONCLUSION 209
This comparative study of indigenous movements from an intersec-

tional perspective has focused on the issue of how indigenous women have
become political subjects speaking in their own voice, thus influencing
in a significant manner the organizational shape and discourse of these
movements. Of course, intersectionality as a theoretical and methodologi-
cal tool offers many other possibilities when it comes to studying social
movements. For example, we have not discussed class hierarchies within
indigenous movements, but we showed how class and ethnic differences
between indigenous women and non-indigenous women impacted the
formation of distinct social movements and occasional collaborations.
From the point of view of the activists who are involved in various strug-
gles to defend their communities and who they are, these analytical cat-
egories are embedded in concrete social relations experienced on a daily
basis. We wish to end this book by remembering the famous quote by
Afro-American intellectual and activist Audre Lorde:
As a Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, poet, mother of two including one

boy and member of an interracial couple, I usually find myself part of some
group in which the majority defines me as deviant, difficult, inferior or just
plain ‘wrong’. From my membership in all of these groups I have learned
that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes
and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of
liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies
of oppression (Lorde, 1983).
Reference
Lorde, A. (1983). There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Bulletin: Homophobia and
Education, 14(3–4), 9.
Index
A Alianza de Mujeres Indígenas de

abortion, 69, 182 México y Centroamérica, 130
Acción Democrática Nacional. See Alianza de Organizaciones Agrarias del
National Democratic Action Perú, 174
acculturation, 88, 150 Alianza de Organizaciones Sociales de
ACOBOL, 71 Mujeres por la Revolución
ADEMUC, 152 Intercultural y Unidad, 72
AECID, 170 Álvarez, José Luis, 66
Afro-Bolivian, 39 Amado, Feliciana, 171, 172, 178, 180,
Agencia Española de Cooperación 189, 192
Internacional para el Desarrollo. Amazon region, 143, 158
See AECID Amazonian indigenous peoples (Peru),
agrarian reform 144, 145, 157, 158
Bolivia, 28, 29 Amazonian indigenous women (Peru),
Mexico, 87, 88 168, 173
Peru, 146, 151–3 AMIO, 125–7, 131, 133
Agrupación Política Nacional. See APN AMMOR, 113–15, 117
AIDESEP andino, 147
Mesa de la Mujer Indígena, 177 ANIPA, 99–102, 121–4, 130, 134n4,
Secretaría de la Mujer, 171 199, 201
Women’s Program, 170, 176, 188 ANPE, 174
Alayza, Adelaida, 171, 179, 180, ANPIBAC, 90
184–7, 189 Antazu, Teresita, 169, 174–7, 188,
Alfaro, Santiago, 179 192

Latin America, DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-95063-8
212 INDEX
APN, 100 B
ARIC-Democrática, 134n4 Bagua, 142, 144, 172, 177
ARP, 175 Banzer Suárez, Hugo, 31, 35, 44,
Asamblea de Mujeres Indígenas de 56, 57
Oaxaca. See AMIO Barrientos Ortuño, René, 31
Asamblea Nacional Indígena Plural por Bartolinas, 32, 39, 42, 43, 45, 57–64,
la Autonomía. See ANIPA 69–78, 200, 205
Asamblea por la Soberanía de los Berrio Palomo, Lina Rosa, 123, 124
Pueblos. See ASP bilingual education, 89, 144
Asamblea de Pueblos Originarios, 35 Blanco Galdós, Hugo, 151, 153,
Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní, 63 163n11
Asociación de Consejales de Bolivia. Bonfil, Paloma, 7, 126, 127, 129
See ACOBOL boundary making, 11, 13, 201–4
Asociación Departamental de Mujeres Building Our History (Mexico), 111
Campesinas de Puno. See
ADEMUC
Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo C
de la Selva Peruana. See Cabrera, Justa, 59, 63, 64, 69, 74
AIDESEP Calandria, 182
Asociación Mexicana de Mujeres CAMI, 132
Organizadas en Red. See Campaign 500 Years of Indigenous
AMMOR and Popular Resistance, 95. See
Asociación Nacional Agraria. See CNA also Consejo Mexicano 500 Años
Asociación Nacional de Productores de Resistencia India y Popular
Ecológicos del Perú. See ANPE campesino communities, 144. See also
Asociación Nacional de Profesionistas indigenous communities
Indígenas Bilingues. See authorities, 92, 144, 180
ANPIBAC campesino identity
Asociación Regional de Pueblos Bolivia, 39, 40, 57
Indígenas de la Selva Central. See Mexico, 88
ARP Peru, 152
ASP, 35, 36 CAOI, 157, 160, 177–83, 190, 192
Assembly for Peoples’ Sovereignty. See Caracoles, 102–4, 107n8
ASP Carrion, Magdiel, 157
Assembly of the Network of Mixe Casa de la Mujer Campesina, 173
Women (Mexico), 126 Catholic Church
assimilationist policies, 3, 86 Base Ecclesial Communities, 14
Aurora Vivar, 182 liberation theology, 115, 117
Awajun, 158 Cayetano, Hermelinda, 123, 124
ayllu, 5, 40, 42–4, 51n4, 65–6, 74 Cayetano, Tiburcio, 93, 115,
Aymaras, 31, 40, 65, 142, 161 123, 124
Ayoreos, 40 CCI, 88
INDEX 213
CCP, 150–5, 160, 172–4, 177, 180–3, CLOC, 182

185, 189, 194, 195n2, 199 Clubes de Madres, 57
CEAS, 182 CAN, 151–3, 155, 160, 174, 182,
Censo Nacional de Población y 185, 189, 199
Vivienda 2017 (Peru), 190 CNAMIB, 63, 64, 69, 73–6, 78, 200
census-making, 160, 190 CNC, 88, 93
ethnic identity, 190 CNI, 86, 99–102, 104, 107n7, 121–3,
Central Campesina Independiente. See 130, 134n4, 191, 201
CCI CNMCIOB “BS”. See Bartolinas
Central Independiente de Obreros CNPA, 92, 115, 116
Agricolas y Campesinos. See CNPI, 90
CIOAC Coalición de Obreros, Campesinos y
Central Obrera Boliviana. See COB Estudiantes del Istmo. See
Central Única Nacional de Rondas COCEI
Campesinas del Perú (CUNARC), Coari Mamani, Claudia Faustina, 152
161 COB, 32, 33
Centro Amazónico de Antropología y coca eradication, 42, 61
Aplicación Práctica, 177 coca growers
Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora federations, 33, 35, 62
Tristan, 171, 177, 204 identity, 35, 62
Centro para los Derechos de la Mujer unions, 33, 62
Nääxwiin, 122 cocalero. See coca-producers
CG500Años, 97, 98, 123 collective action, 8
CGMI, 125, 133 COCEI, 95
CGTP, 173, 181 COCOPA, 100, 101
chacha warmi, 59, 60, 64, 65 CODIMUJ, 117, 134n2
Chapare valley, 33 COICA, 142, 158
Chávez Alonso, Juan, 107n7 Colectivo Rebeldía, 64, 69
Chiapas, 85, 91–9, 98, 100–4, 107n8, collective kitchens, 169, 192
116, 117, 123, 124, 127–9, 131, collective rights. See rights, collective
132, 134n4, 134n5, 135n7 colonialism, 6, 7
Chiquitanos, 40 colonization, 50
Chirapaq Centro de Culturas colonizers, 1, 43
Indígenas del Perú, 168, 201 federations (Bolivia), 43
Cholo, 146, 147 colonos (Peru), 157
CIDHAL, 116 Comandanta Ramona,118, 123, 134n4
CIDOB, 33, 40, 41, 44, 45, 48, 50, Comandanta Esther, 101, 118
63, 64, 73–6, 200 Comisión Multisectorial, Ministry of
CIESAS, 129 Culture (Peru), 160
CIOAC, 92, 134n4 Comisión Nacional de Pueblos
CIPCA, 64 Andinos, Amazónicos y
climate change, 189, 190 Afroperuanos. See CONAPA
214 INDEX
Comisión para la Concordia y Confederación Nacional Agraria. See

Pacificación. See COCOPA CNA
Comité Episcopal de Acción Social. See Confederación Nacional Campesina.
CEAS See CNC
Comité Pro-Derecho Indígena Confederación Nacional de
Tawantinsuyu, 150 Comunidades Afectadas por la
Comités de Amas de Casa. See Minería. See CONACAMI
Housewives Committees Confederación Nacional de Mujeres
comités de auto-defensa, 152 Campesinas, Indígenas y
Comités del Vaso de Leche, 172 Originarias de Bolivia “Bartolina
comités regional de mujeres, 167 Sisa”(CNMCIOB“BS”). See
COMLATEZIN, 129 Bartolinas
Commission on Indigenous Peoples Confederación Nacional de Mujeres
(Peruvian Congress), 144 Indígenas de Bolivia. See
communal assembly, 56, 61, 151, 191, CNAMIB
192 Confederación Regional de
communal reserves, 159 Comunidades Afectadas por la
complementarity. See gender Minería. See CORECAMI
CONACAMI, 154–7, 160, 163n13, Confederación Sindical de
171, 172, 177–83, 185, 186, Colonizadores de Bolivia. See
188, 190–2, 194, 199. See also CSCIB
CORECAMI Confederación Sindical de
Secretaría de la Mujer, 171, 172, Comunidades Interculturales de
178, 180 Bolivia. See CSCIB
CONAMAQ, 42–5, 48, 50, 65–7, Confederación Sindical de Mujeres de
72–6, 78, 192, 200 Comunidades Interculturales de
dual representation, 67 Bolivia. See CSMCIB
CONAMI, 111–13, 122–5, 127, 129, Conferencia Permanente de los
132, 133, 135n8, 135n9, 201, Pueblos Indígenas del Perú. See
202, 204 COPPIP
CONAP, 156, 159, 164n17, 172, 191 Congreso de Indígenas de Habla
CONAPA, 156 Quechua, 30
Confederación Campesina del Perú. Congress (political institution)
See CCP Bolivia, 28, 37
Confederación de Nacionalidades Mexico, 19
Amazónicas del Perú. See CONAP Consejo de Pueblos Nahuas del Alto
Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas Balsas, 97, 134n4
de Bolivia. See CIDOB Consejo Guerrerense 500 Años de
Confederación General de Resistencia Indígena. See
Trabajadores del Perú, 173, 181 CG500Años
Confederación Indígena del Oriente Consejo Mexicano 500 Años de
de Bolivia. See CIDOB Resistencia India y Popular, 97
INDEX 215
Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas COPPIP, 159, 160

del Qullasuyu. See CONAMAQ COPROCAMI, 178
Consejo Nacional de Pueblos CORECAMI, 167, 172
Indígenas. See CNPI Corporatism, 88, 92
Consejos de Buen Gobierno, 103 CPNAB, 97
Constituent Assembly (Bolivia), 27, creole (Criollo), 29
38, 39, 45, 57, 58, 63 CSCIB, 42, 43, 45, 49, 61, 62, 200
constitution (political) CSMCIB, 62, 63, 71, 73, 200
Bolivia, 10, 16, 28, 34, 38 CSUTCB, 32, 33, 35, 41–5, 49,
Mexico, 16 51n4, 57–62, 74–6, 200
Peru, 16, 144, 146 Cumbre de Pueblos Indigenas del
Consulta Nacional (Mexico, Perú, 156
1999),100 CUNARC, 161
Continental Meeting of Indigenous customary law. See indigenous
Women of the Americas, 130, 132 customary law
Continental Summit of Indigenous
Communication on Abya Yala, 75
Continental Summit of Indigenous D
Peoples, 178, 195n4 DDSER, 132, 204
Continental Summit of Indigenous Decentralization, 34, 35, 38, 39, 48,
Women, 178 90, 153
Cooperacción, 155 Democratization, 2, 3, 85, 91
cooperatives (Mexico), 113 DEMUS, 182
Coordinadora Andina de departmental governments (Bolivia),
Organizaciones Indígenas. See 38, 39
CAOI depatriarcalization, 72
Coordinadora de la Mujer, Derechos de las Mujeres en Nuestras
68–72, 76, 77 Costumbres y Tradiciones
Coordinadora de las Organizaciones (workshop), 119
Indígenas de la Cuenca development agencies. See
Amazónica. See COICA international development
Coordinadora Diocesana de Mujeres, agencies and names of agencies
117 Dialogues of San Andres Larráinzar,
Coordinadora Guerrerense de Mujeres 85
Indígenas. See CGMI Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas,
Coordinadora Latinoamericana de 92
Organizaciones del Campo Dirección General de Derechos de los
(CLOC), 153, 182 Pueblos Indígenas, Ministry of
Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Culture (Peru), 161
Indígenas. See CONAMI domestic violence, 115, 172
Coordinadora Nacional Plan de Ayala. Dominguez, Isabel, 57, 59–61, 69, 73
See CNPA dual representation. See CONAMAQ
216 INDEX
E essentialism, 9, 10, 18, 148

economic liberalization. See ethnic identity. See indigenous people,
neoliberalism identity, ethnic
Ecuador, 7, 79n5, 130, 135n8, 157, ethnicity, 2, 4, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14,
178, 182 19n2, 19n5, 29–37, 46, 87–93,
Education, 3, 29, 30, 32, 34, 58, 73, 96, 105, 144–9, 151, 202, 203.
85, 88, 89, 98, 119, 120, 133, See also race
144, 146, 150, 151, 169, 176, European Economic Community, 44
188–90, 193 extractive activities, 36. See also
Ejército Zapatista de Liberación mining; natural gas; natural
Nacional. See EZLN resources
ejidos, 87, 90 EZLN (Mexico), 4, 85, 86, 98–101,
El Campo No Aguanta Más, 107n6 103, 118, 119, 134n3, 134n4.
Elections, 16, 27, 35, 38, 42, 43, 46, See also Zapatista Movement
50, 59, 70, 77, 99, 152, 171, Bases de apoyo, 118
172, 183, 205
Bolivia, 27, 35, 38, 42, 48, 77
electoral gender quotas, 34, 70 F
electoral reform law (Bolivia), 71 FDCP, 152
elites FECAMTROP, 59
Bolivia, 28, 35, 38, 208 FEDECMA, 181
Mexico, 17, 93, 97 Federación Agraria Departamental de
ENAHO, 148, 149 Ayacucho, 181
Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres Federación de Mujeres Aguarunas del
Indígenas del Perú, 178 Alto Marañon. See FEMAAM
Encuentro Nacional de Organizaciones Federación de Mujeres Campesinas
Indígenas, Campesinas y del Trópico de Cochabamba.
Originarias (Bolivia), 45 See FECAMTROP
Encuentro Nacional Feminista Federación de Mujeres Campesinas,
(Mexico), 204 Artesanas, Indígenas, Nativas y
Encuentro Nacional: Mujeres Asalariadas del Perú. See
Avanzando hacia la FEMUCARINAP
Despatriarcalización y la No Federación de Mujeres de Anta. See
Violencia (Bolivia), 70 FEMCA
encuentros de mujeres indígenas Federación de Mujeres del Cusco,
(Bolivia), 75 191
Encuesta Nacional de Hogares. See Federación Departamental
ENAHO de Mujeres Campesinas de Puno.
Enlace Continental de Mujeres See FDCP
Indígenas de las Américas, 130, Federación Departamental
169, 175, 179, 195n4 de Mujeres Campesinas del
Escuelitas Zapatistas, 104 Cusco, 180, 191
INDEX 217
Federación Nacional de Mujeres Frentes de Defensa, 187

Campesinas de Bolivia “Bartolina Fujimori, Alberto, 150, 153, 155
Sisa” (FNMCB”BS”). See
Bartolinas
Federación Regional de Mujeres G
Ashaninkas Nomatsiguengas y Gana Perú, 148, 158
Kakintes. See FREMANK García Linera, Alvaro, 49
Federación Sindical de Mujeres García Naranjo, Aida, 190
Interculturales of Yungas García Pérez, Alan, 142, 144, 158
Chaparé, 62 Gas War, 36
FEMAAM, 172 Gayetano, Rubicela, 122,134n7,
FEMCA, 172 135n7
feminist gender
analyses, 1, 8, 9, 69, 128 alternation, 46
movements/organizations, 9 complementarity, 7, 44, 64, 70, 72,
FEMUCARINAP, 161, 173, 174, 75, 76
177–93, 195, 195n3, 203, 204, dualism, 197, 199, 200
207 dynamics, 5, 7, 87, 198, 203
Fernandez, Cornelia, 62, 63, 73 equity, 46, 77, 114, 117, 119, 168,
FIME, 186 176, 178, 183, 188, 205
FIPI, 95 gender-mixed organizations
Flores, Jenaro, 32, 58 (see mixed-gendered
Fondo de Desarrollo de Naciones organizations)
Unidas para la Mujer. See gendered division of labor, 115
UNIFEM parallelism, 56, 59, 60, 76, 77, 199,
Fondo de Desarrollo para los Pueblos 202, 205, 207
Indígenas, Originarios y parity, 58, 70, 71, 76, 77, 79n3,
Comunidades Campesinas. See 172, 183, 203, 205
Fondo Indígena quotas, 34, 70
Fondo de Población de las Naciones Género y Economía, 182
Unidas. See UNFPA GMO, Seeds, 189
Fondo Indígena, 45, 58 Gómez López, Isabel, 117
Ford Foundation, 170 Gore, Albert Arnold “Al” Jr., 190
foreign investment, 33, 38 grassroots territorial organizations.
Foro Internacional de Mujeres See citizen oversight committees
Indígenas. See FIME group identities. See identities,
FREMANK, 172 collective
FRENAPI, 95 Grupo Parlamentario Indígena, 195n1
Frente Independiente de Pueblos GTZ, 176
Indios. See FIPI Guaranis, 40
Frente Nacional de los Pueblos Indios. Guarayos, 40
See FRENAPI Guatemala, 7, 128, 135n8
218 INDEX
Gueiler Tejada, Lidia, 57 INDEPA, 156

Guerra del Agua. See Water War Indígenas, 30, 40, 45, 55, 57–61,
Guerra del Gas. See Gas War 63–5, 75, 90, 95, 106n3, 112,
Guerrero, 97, 98, 102, 103, 113, 115, 122–8, 130, 141, 143, 144, 148,
116, 123–5, 127–9, 133, 134n4 150, 153, 156–61, 163, 168,
Gutiérrez Romero, Margarita, 127, 169, 173, 175, 178, 179, 184,
134n4 186, 195n4, 200, 201, 208
Gutiérrez, Flora, 126 Indigeneity, 1, 2, 5, 18, 39, 40, 51,
67, 86, 93, 94, 105, 117, 120,
131, 141–3, 145, 147, 148, 154,
H 158, 162, 169, 173, 186, 190,
Health, 58, 73, 98, 103, 115, 120, 126, 197, 198, 201
133, 171, 187–9, 190, 193, 206 indigenismo, 19n1, 88–90, 92, 96
Hernández Meza, Micaela, 127 indigenista, 3, 89, 96, 150, 182
Highland indigenous peoples (Peru), indigeneization of politics, 142
44, 144 indigenous communities, 3, 6, 7, 29,
Highland indigenous women (Peru), 50, 74, 87–90, 94, 102, 128,
28, 29, 144 142, 149, 154, 159, 161, 162,
HIVOS, 178 163n5, 175, 178, 193, 194
Housewives Committees (Bolivia), Indigenous Congress (Bolivia), 29
31, 55 Indigenous Congress (Mexico), 93, 99
Huanca Mendoza, Esperanza, 72 indigenous customary law. See
Huanca, Lourdes, 174, 181, 182, 186, traditional justice systems
187, 193 indigenous peoples, 3, 78. See also
Huancahuari, Juana, 180 indigenous women; Amazonian
Humala Tasso, Ollanta Moisés, 141, indigenous peoples (Peru);
142, 148, 149, 156 Highland indigenous peoples
The Hunger Project-THP, 170 (Peru); lowland indigenous
hydrocarbons. See natural gas; peoples (Bolivia)
petroleum autonomy, 122, 202
discourse, 105
elites, 17, 90, 93, 97
I identity, ethnic, 17, 35, 94, 131,
IBIS Denmark, 157 148, 153
ICCO Holland, 170 leaders, 29, 30, 73, 120, 130,
Identities, 2, 5, 6, 8–11, 13, 14, 50, 144, 162
56, 57, 79n7, 101, 144, 145, movements/organizations, 28, 29,
148, 158, 169, 197 40–50
ILO, 97, 99, 102, 106n3, 142, 148, rights (see rights, indigenous)
149, 157, 162 self-determination, 85–107
International Labour Organization indigenous territories, 33, 39, 47, 48,
Convention 169, 33 65, 142. See also land; rights,
IMF, 31 territorial
INDEX 219
indigenous women. See also feminist; Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria.

gender; ethnicity See INRA
agency, 67–9 Instituto Nacional Indigenista. See INI
and feminism, 72 Instrumento Político para la Soberanía
autonomy, 58, 60, 69 de los Pueblos. See IPSP
competition, 76 Integral Law to Guarantee Women a
demands, 58, 65, 70 Life Free of Violence, 70
discourses, 93, 94 Intercultural, 34, 38, 39, 42, 43,
discrimination, 68, 69 51n2, 66, 72, 178. See also
identities, 56–61 multicultural; pluricultural
leaders, 57–61 international development agencies, 5.
mobilization, 58, 67, 75 See also names of specific agencies
movements/organizations (see also International Forum on Human
mixed-gender organizations); Rights and Indigenous Rights, 95
women-only organizations, 55, International Labour Organization. See
67–71 ILO
oppression, 72, 86 Intersectionality, 8, 9, 11, 209
political participation, 56, 77 IPSP, 36, 37, 42, 43
sub-national organizations
(Mexico), 125
women-only organizations J
(see mixed-gender J’Pas Lumetik, 134n4
organizations) Jolom Mayaetik, 134n4
Indigenous Women’s House project.
See (CAMI)
Indigenous Women’s Rights K
Department (State of Oaxaca, Katarista movement, 28, 57
Mexico), 127 Kinal Antzetik, 123, 124, 129, 204, 206
Indios, 29, 95, 145, 146
INEI, 148, 164n16, 191
Comité Técnico Inter-Institutional L
sobre Estadísticas de La Otra Campaña, 103
Etnicidad, 191 land. See also indigenous, territory
INI, 89, 96 access (Mexico), 28, 30, 34
Inoach, Gil, 175, 176 concentration, 153
INRA Law, 33, 41, 44 distribution, 91, 94
Institutional Revolutionary Party. invasions (Peru), 151–3
See PRI occupations (Mexico), 94
Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo de ownership (Mexico), 87, 97
Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y privatization (Mexico), 97
Afroperuanos. See INDEPA redistribution, 33, 91, 152
Instituto Nacional de Estadística e reform (see agrarian reform)
Informatica. See INEI titles, 61, 114
220 INDEX
Landeo, Liliam, 179 March for Land, Territory and Natural

language Resources (Bolivia), 44
linguistic diversity, 144 March for Popular Sovereignty,
official, 41 Territory and Natural Resources
Law 2631 on Constitutional Reform (Bolivia), 44–5
(Bolivia), 45 March for Territory and Dignity
Law against Political Violence and (Bolivia), 41
Harassment Against Women Marcha del Color de la Tierra
(Bolivia), 71 (Mexico), 101
Law on Administrative Marcha por la Dignidad Indígena. See
Decentralization (Bolivia), 34 Marcha del Color de la Tierra
Law on Indigenous Rights and Mariátegui, José Carlos, 151
Culture (Mexico), 86, 101, 102 Marka, 40, 42, 65, 72
Law on Mother Earth and Integral Mártinez Solano, Felicitas, 124
Development to Live Well MAS (Bolivia), 5, 27
(Bolivia), 78 Maseualsiuamej Mosenyoltchicauanij,
Law on Popular Participation 116
(Bolivia), 34 Meentzen, Angela,175
Law on Sexual and Reproductive Meetzen, Kathe, vi
Rights (Bolivia), 71 Mejia de Morales, Lucila, 58
Law on the Right to Prior Mennonites, 40
Consultation of Indigenous or Merino, Felipa, 62, 69
Native Peoples (Peru), 148 Mesa de la Mujer Indígena. See
Leguía y Salcedo, Augusto Bernardino, AIDESEP
163n5 Mesa Gisbert, Carlos Diego, 71
Lero, Toribia, 65–7, 73, 74 Mestizaje, 2, 88–90, 96
Ley COCOPA, 100 Mestizos, 88, 132, 150
Liberation Theology. See Catholic Mexican identity, 88
Church Mexican Revolution, 88, 91
Literacy, 188 Mexican Society Pro Women’s Rights.
local government, 42 See Semillas
López Pérez, Cecilia, 118 Mexicanization, 89
lowland indigenous people (Bolivia), migration, Bolivia, 33, 42. See also
28, 33, 40, 41, 43–6, 50 colonization (Bolivia)
Lucha Indígena, 153, 163n11 Miloslavich, Diana, 171
Mining, 30, 31, 33, 36, 39, 55–7, 62,
75, 142, 149, 154–6
M Ministry of Autonomy (Bolivia),
MacArthur Foundation, 129 52n5
Mama T’allas, 65, 66 Ministry of Culture (Peru), 72, 149,
Marcavillaca, Marisa, 189, 191, 193, 194 160, 161
INDEX 221
Ministry of Ethnic and Indigenous National Encounter of Indigenous

Affairs (Bolivia), 34 Women “Construyendo Nuestra
mixed-gender organizations, 77, 112, Historia” (Mexico), 123
113, 116, 117, 122, 125, 126, National Feminist Encounter, 133
128, 133, 161, 168–70, 172, National Indigenous Assembly of
174, 178, 181, 184–6, 188, 194, Autonomy. See ANIPA
195, 197, 199–202, 204–7 National Indigenous Forum, 100
MNI, 90 National Mining Association, 149
MNR, 29, 30 National Revolution (Bolivia, 1952), 29
Montalvo Reynoso, Rosa, 169 Nationalist Party, 148, 195n1
Morales Ayma, Evo, 27 Nationalization, 36, 58
Morales Bermúdez Cerruti, Francisco, Native
151 Bolivia, 33, 39, 40, 57, 59, 75
Mother Earth (Pachamama), Peru, 146, 148, 157, 159, 173
78, 189 native communities (Peru), 146,
Mothers’ Clubs, 57, 169 157, 159
Movimiento al Socialismo. See MAS natural gas, 36, 38, 142
Movimiento Nacional Indígena. See Nayap Kinin, Eduardo, 158
MNI neoliberalism, 2, 50, 98, 103, 104, 153
Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario. NGOs, 5, 14, 15, 17, 18, 41, 52n5,
See MNR 61, 64, 68, 100, 120, 129, 143,
Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac 155, 157, 159, 170, 171, 173,
Amaru. See MRTA 177, 179, 181, 182. See also
MRTA, 152 names of specific NGOs
Mujeres Olvidadas del Rincón Mixe, Noche Sihuame Zanze Tajome, 116
134n4 North American Free Trade
Mujeres para el Diálogo,116 Agreement. See NAFTA
Multiculturalism, 3, 4, 96, 97. See also Nunta, Rocilda, 176, 177, 185, 188
intercultural; pluriethnic
municipal government, 34, 35,
39, 151 O
Oaxaca, 75, 94, 102, 103, 106n3,
111, 113, 122, 123, 125–30,
N 132, 133, 134n4, 204
NAFTA, 91 Ojeda, Rosa, 187
National Assembly of Indigenous ONAMIAP, 160, 173, 174, 183–92,
Peoples and Organizations, 95 195, 201, 207
National Congress of Peru’s ONU Mujeres, 187
Indigenous Andean and Organización Intereclesiástica para la
Amazonian Women, 184 Cooperación al Desarrollo. See
National Democratic Action, 35 ICCO
222 INDEX
Organización Nacional de Mujeres political process model, 8, 12, 198

Indígenas Andinas y Amazónicas pongueaje, 30
del Perú. See ONAMIAP Popular Assembly (Bolivia), 31
originario. See native, Bolivia PRD, 100, 102, 103
OTBs. See citizen oversight PRI, 87, 89, 92, 102
committees Propuesta de Ley de Convocatoria a la
The Other Campaign. See La Otra Asamblea Constituyente (Bolivia),
Campaña 45
OXFAM America, 44, 154, 157, 159,
177, 179, 190
Q
Q’alla Hualla Nation, 72
P Quechua, 28, 30, 40, 42, 49, 60, 62–5,
Pacto de Unidad 73, 148, 154, 163n6, 172, 200
Bolivia (see Unity Pact, Bolivia)
Peru (see Unity Pact, Peru)
Palacín Quispe, Miguel, 157 R
PAN, 102 race. See ethnicity
Partido Acción Nacional. See PAN racism, 3, 19n5, 143, 146
Partido de la Revolución Democrática. Raffo, Elvira,171, 176–8
See PRD Red de Mujeres Mixes. See RMM
Paternalism, 29, 60, 193 Red Nacional de Asesoras y
peasant communities, 88, 145, 146, Promotoras Rurales, 113–14
148, 152, 167, 190, 191 Red Nacional de Mujeres Rurales, 171
peasants. See also campesinos Red por los Derechos Sexuales y
identity and self-identification, 148 Reproductivos en México-DDSer.
leaders (Peru), 32, 35, 69, 71, 152, See DDSER
182 Regional Meeting of Zapotec and
mobilizations, 35, 58, 91 Chatinas Women, (Mexico), 126
movements/organizations, 32, 55–7 reindigenization. See indigenization
unions, 61, 145, 150, 152, 153 reproductive health, 120, 171,
Pérez Gutiérrez, Zenaida, 127 187, 206
Pérez, Dalí Angel, 115 rights
Permanent Workshop, 168–70, 172, 173 collective, 6, 29, 39, 49, 75, 78, 85,
Petroleum, 38, 75 86, 93, 97, 98, 102, 105, 120,
Pizango Chota, Alberto, 158 121, 131, 163n5, 177, 206
Pluriethnic, 99. See also multicultural community, 159
plurinationalism, plurinational state, 4 cultural, 39, 96
Policía Comunitaria de Guerrero, 103 economic, 85, 98
Political Instrument for Peoples’ gender perspective, 39, 116, 121
Sovereignty. See IPSP indigenous, 85, 86, 93, 95, 97, 99,
political parties, 4, 18, 32, 50, 101–3, 106, 121, 126, 133,
101–03, 188, 204 154, 173
INDEX 223
indigenous women’s, 119, 127, Shining Path, 150, 152

129, 132, 168, 170, 173, 186, Sisa, Bartolina, 32, 45, 55,
199, 200 57–61, 200
individual, 32, 89, 102, 120, 128, social movements, actors, 2, 7–11
131, 144, 193 Spanish International Cooperation, 63
territorial, 28, 41, 44, 45, 102, Special Coca Eradication Forces, 61.
154, 162, 188–90, 195 See also coca eradication
women’s, 7, 14, 67, 68, 70, 85, state repression (government
102, 104, 112, 114, 116, 117, repression), 7, 33, 49, 73, 92
119–22, 126–32, 135n7, 155, structural adjustment policies (SAPS).
168, 170, 171, 173, 175, 177, See neoliberalism
186, 199, 200, 202–4, 206 Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos,
Rights and Democracy Canada, 170 119
Rivera Zea, Tarcila, 168, 169 Suarez, Yenny
RMM, 126 Summit of Indigenous Peoples of
Robles Hernández, Sofía, 116, 122, Peru, 159
126, 127, 130, 134n4 SUNARP, 164n14
rondas campesinas (Peru), 151, 152, Supa Huaman, Hilaria, 195n1
161, 172 Superintendencia Nacional de
Rondas femeninas, 172 Registros Públicos. See SUNARP
Ruíz García, Samuel, 94 Suyu, 65, 72
rural communities (Mexico), 40, 89, Swedish Cooperative Centre. See We
90, 117, 162n4 Effect
Rural Workers United Confederation
of Bolivia. See CSUTCB
T
Taller de Historia Oral Andina-
S THOA, 44
Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 90 Taller Permanente de Mujeres
San Andres Agreements on Indigenous Indígenas Andinas y Amazónicas
Rights and Culture, 99, 101 del Perú, 168, 173
Sánchez de Lozada, Gonzalo, 33, 34, Tata, 30, 65, 66, 107n7, 200
36, 42 Taxes, 45, 58
Sánchez Néstor, Martha, 13, 98, 111, TCOs, 33
112, 118, 120, 121, 123–5, 127, territorial conflicts. See also indigenous
134n4 territories; land, conflicts
Secretaries of Indigenous Issues territorial rights, 28, 41, 44, 45, 102,
(Bolivia), 30 154, 162, 188–90, 195. See
Sedac-Covac, 134n4 rights, territorial
Semillas, 129 Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional
SER (Mexico), 95, 126 Isiboro-Secure. See TIPNIS
Servicios del Pueblo Mixe. See SER Tiburcio Cayetano, Hermelinda, 93,
(Mexico) 115, 123, 124
224 INDEX
Tierras Communitarias de Origen. See unions,

TCOs Bolivia, 5, 32, 33, 55, 152
TIPNIS, 48–50, 69, 73, 74, 76, 78 Mexico, 5, 96
Tiwanaku Manifesto (1973),28, 32, 35 Peru, 145, 150, 152
Toledo Manrique, Alejandro Unit on Depatriarcalization, Ministry of
Celestino, 156 Cultures and Tourism (Bolivia), 72
Tosepan Titataniske, 116 United Nations, 98, 157
traditional justice systems. See United States, 10, 31, 42, 61,
indigenous customary law 63, 190
Tucno Ccahuana, Alejandra, 181 Unity Pact, Bolivia, 45, 208
Tupac Amaru, 150, 152 Unity Pact, Peru, 156, 160, 208
Tupac Katari, 55 universal suffrage
Bolivia, 28, 29
Peru, 146
U UNORCA, 93, 113–15, 117, 199
UCIZONI, 95, 122, 128, 134n4, Uriona, Katia, 68, 72
134–5n7
Ugarte, Carmen, 154, 167, 180, 191
Ugarte, Yeni, 172, 183, 189 V
UGOCM, 88 Vaso de Leche. See Comités del vaso
UN Women, 129 de leche
UNAM, 129 Vega Sillo, Elisa, 72
UNAY, 174 Velasco Alvarado, Juan Francisco, 11
UNCA, 161 Vélez Manuel, Estela, 122
UNFPA, 170, 186 Véliz, Alejo, 35
UNIFEM, 170 Via Campesina, 153, 182, 207
Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de Vice-Ministry of Interculturality,
la Zona Norte del Istmo. See Ministry of Culture (Peru), 149
UCIZONI Vice-Ministry on Decolonization,
Unión de Mujeres Campesinas de Xilitla Ministry of Cultures and Tourism
Union de Nacionalidades Asháninkas y (Bolivia), 72
Yaneshas. See UNAY Vice-Ministry on Equal Opportunity
Unión General de Obreros y (Bolivia), 71
Campesinos de México. See Vila Pihue, Gladys, 173
UGOCM Villaran de la Puente, Susana, 190
Unión Nacional de Comunidades Villarroel López, Gualberto, 30
Aymaras. See UNCA Villarroel, Aida, 60, 61
Unión Nacional de Organizaciones violence against indigenous women.
Regionales Campesinas See domestic violence
Autónomas. See UNORCA Vittor, Luis, 141, 154, 177, 178
INDEX 225
W Yaqui, 96
War of the Pacific, 150 You are not alone (march, Mexico),
Water War, 36 98
We Effect, 61 Yungas valley, 33, 62
Whites, 31, 88
Women’s International Conference in
Beijing, 129, 130, 135n8 Z
women’s organizations/movements, Zanzekan Tinemi, 116
non–indigenous, 7, 39, 64, 68, Zapata, Emiliano, 92
70, 76, 77, 131, 174, 208 Zapatista movement, 85, 86,
Women’s Revolutionary Law, 118, 119 94, 96, 98–105, 111,
women’s rights. See rights, women’s 117–21, 123, 128, 130, 132,
women, mestizo, 15 133, 201, 205, 206. See also
World Bank, 5 EZLN
Zapatista Peoples’ Meeting with
the Peoples of the World
Y (2007), 104
Yanantin, 60, 64 Zapotec, 2, 126
Yanesha, 158, 174 Zurita Vargas, Leonilda, 60

(Crossing Boundaries of Gender and Politics in the Global South) Stéphanie Rousseau, Anahi Morales Hudon (Auth.)-Indigenous Women’s Movements in Latin America_ Gender and Ethnicity in Peru, Mexico, An

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(Crossing Boundaries of Gender and Politics in the Global South) Stéphanie Rousseau, Anahi Morales Hudon (Auth.)-Indigenous Women’s Movements in Latin America_ Gender and Ethnicity in Peru, Mexico, An

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CROSSING BOUNDARIES OF GENDER AND POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Stéphanie Rousseau and

• Cross traditional disciplinary boundaries to make innovative contri-

More information about this series at

Crossing Boundaries of Gender and Politics in the Global South

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959497

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover illustration: © REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

Our acknowledgments need to be presented in different sections, as we

who support indigenous organizations and who accepted to share their

Research Council, the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société

1 Indigenous Women’s Movements: An Intersectional

2 Indigenous Movements Merge into Party and

3 Indigenous Women Transform the Politics of

Part II Mexico 83

4 Indigenous Self-Determination: From National

5 Indigenous Women’s Struggle for Autonomy 111

Part III Peru 139

6 The “Exceptional Case” No Longer So Exceptional 141

7 Indigenous Women Strengthen the Indigenous Movement 167

Indigenous Women’s Movements:

Studying indigenous women’s movements requires going beyond certain

© The Author(s) 2017 1

context of independent nation-states through different laws and social

1 Indigenous Movements in Latin America

have also facilitated the formation of transcommunity networks that were

Indigenous movements have been shown to impact the reshaping of

i­ndigenous movements are interested in the factors explaining the greater

2 Indigenous Women and Gender Dynamics

Throughout this fascinating and abundant literature, gender dynamics

the creation of a second generation of movements that did not ­necessarily

Indigenous politics is indeed not devoid of traps and challenges for

­erspective, indigenous women’s strategies and obstacles to create

3 How We Study Indigenous Women’s

not ­necessarily defined by their direct relationship to the formal sphere of

3.1 An Intersectional Analysis of Social Movements

­ erspective is the connection between multiple social positionings and the

in the representation of group identities carried by indigenous movement

3.2 Explaining the Emergence of Indigenous Women’s

3.2.1  pening/Closing of Social Movements to Indigenous Women’s

State. The emergence of indigenous movements throughout the Americas

in integrating women’s interests in the movement’s agenda and discourse,

3.2.2 Boundary-Making Within Gender-Mixed Organizations

3.2.3 Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Movement Identity

develop about themselves as collective actors. In the way they ­position

3.2.4 Role of External Actors

to ­participate in productive projects and discussion spaces. Women’s

4 Our Case Comparison

the mid-1990s onward. However, the Zapatistas have retreated to the

that they p­ ursue cannot simply or only be the creation of autonomous

produce their authenticity constantly and that, therefore, indigeneity does

past decades; second chapter is on the specific trajectory of indigenous

Da Silva, C. T. (2012). Indigenismo como ideologia e prática de dominação:

Lammel & J. Ruvalcaba Mercado (Eds.), Adaptation, violence et révolte au

Indigenous Movements Merge into

© The Author(s) 2017 27

This political era can be understood as a new phase in the construction

1 Race/Ethnicity in Twentieth-Century Bolivia

and articulate the struggles of indigenous sectors. The collective identity

leader Jenaro Flores launched the Tiwanaku Manifesto in 1973, which

As of 1985, different waves of neoliberal reforms were adopted, s­ tarting

In addition to land and territory issues, a series of constitutional and

1 Indigenous Women’s Movements: An Intersectional

2 Indigenous Movements Merge into Party and

3 Indigenous Women Transform the Politics of

Part II Mexico 83

4 Indigenous Self-Determination: From National

5 Indigenous Women’s Struggle for Autonomy 111

Part III Peru 139

6 The “Exceptional Case” No Longer So Exceptional 141

7 Indigenous Women Strengthen the Indigenous Movement 167

indigenous movements are interested in the factors explaining the greater

the creation of a second generation of movements that did not necessarily

erspective, indigenous women’s strategies and obstacles to create

not necessarily defined by their direct relationship to the formal sphere of

erspective is the connection between multiple social positionings and the

3.2.1 pening/Closing of Social Movements to Indigenous Women’s

3.2.2 Boundary-Making Within Gender-Mixed Organizations

3.2.3 Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Movement Identity

develop about themselves as collective actors. In the way they position

3.2.4 Role of External Actors

to participate in productive projects and discussion spaces. Women’s

that they p ursue cannot simply or only be the creation of autonomous

As of 1985, different waves of neoliberal reforms were adopted, s tarting

luricultural (1994) to being plurinational and community-centered while

first general assembly attended by approximately 200 women, where the

c oordinating spaces such as the Coordinadora de la Mujer, as well as the

between indigenous peoples and the government. This process repre-