Search

In recent years, many states have incorporated gender perspectives into their foreign policies, and this has become a relevant topic in International Relations. This paper investigates the extent to which the Movimiento al Socialismo (mas) indigenist foreign policy has laid the groundwork for advancing towards the inclusion of a feminist approach in Bolivia’s international agenda. The case study is grounded in decolonial studies and community feminism. The main argument is that Bolivian foreign policy between 2006 and 2022 clearly influenced by Andean indigenous thought and the Buen Vivir cosmovision—provided the programmatic and discursive bases to envision the construction of an international agenda with a gender perspective that includes women and indigenous historical demands within a decolonial and communitarian vision. At the domestic level, Bolivia has promoted women’s inclusion and their claims, but at the international level, it did not generate programmes with a depatriarchalizing discourse. The article shows that a foreign policy based on Andean indigenous beliefs and demands has created an opportunity to integrate marginalised groups into the Foreign Ministry, but this integration has yet to materialise. This research is qualitative in nature, drawing on information from various sources: key informant interviews, archival work, and secondary sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the particular role played by anarchism in early 20th century discussions concerning the Bolivian nation and citizenship. Based on a diverse corpus of documents and extended specialised literature, I will argue that between the 1920s and 1940s the local anarchist movement took part in these debates by rejecting the Creole oligarchy's definition of the nation and proposing one of its own. Ideologically, this intervention meant imagining a different, more inclusive national community made up of racialised and gendered identities. Practically, it implied fighting against internal colonialism, struggling for equal citizenship, and defending the ethnic and gender identity and human dignity of mestizos, cholas, and indigenous people. By reconstructing these debates and some anarchist "ethno‐classist" struggles of the period, I approach the anticolonial orientation of Bolivian anarchism, and more generally, examine a historical experience in which subaltern subjectivities intervened in nation‐building away from a statist, Western and patriarchal path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are the experiences of running for political office affected by the candidate's gender? In order to address why there might be gender imbalances in the election of political representatives, it is imperative to study the process by which they are selected and elected. Latin America is an important region to study because women's representation increased significantly over the past decades due to quota laws. These laws have been introduced as a solution for women's political underrepresentation. However, despite improving women's descriptive representation by increasing the number of women candidates, it is not clear if quotas have an effect on the selection and campaign experiences of women running for office. Drawing from 36 interviews with women and men candidates for national (with quotas) and local (without quotas) elections in Bolivia, this paper offers evidence of gender's prevalence in defining how women and men candidates approach and experience the electoral process differently. Regarding candidates' selection, the presence of quotas increases the demand for women, enhancing the value of their particular background. Yet, parties still retain a gate-keeping role over women's candidacies. When they are not forced to nominate women, they tend to select men and prefer women with trajectories similar to their male counterparts. Moreover, quota laws do not reduce voters' gender bias. Women still walk a thin line between the negative and positive consequences of their gender. On the one hand, because they are women, candidates are perceived as transparent and capable of redistributing goods and administrating the economy. On the other hand, contrary to men, women's leadership is constantly questioned. And, as this paper reveals, they even face backlash that stems from other women's wrongdoings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a shift in cultural and movement discourse in Bolivia, arguing that as neoliberalizing governments and organizations attempted to enforce ‘surgical’ austerity measures, indigenous movements and aligned intellectuals began to focus on internal rather than external threats, naming and attempting to expel the figure of the traitorous intermediary from the national body. By analyzing Jorge Sanjinés’ 1989 drama La Nación Clandestina alongside the writings of Bolivian movement intellectuals, this paper shows how Bolivian cultural representations and movement representatives in the neoliberal era animate the figure of the traitorous intermediary in an attempt to revive an indigenous nation. This discourse of the traitorous intermediary draws on the long history of mestizaje that frames the colonial rape and exploitation of indigenous women as an evidence of women’s betrayal and traitorousness. After demonstrating how, in neoliberalism, women and their demands for gender equality are seen once again as symptoms of selling out the nation, this paper moves to the more recent period, analyzing how Rodrigo Bellott’s 2007 film ¿Quien Mató a la Llamita Blanca? and government responses to lowland indigenous groups over the Villa Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos Highway – playfully stage but ultimately reinforce this tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we outline some of the research results of a larger work which studies the Bolivian migration from a gender perspective, as well as the impact of the institutional practices that determine the transnational experience. In a global scene of restrictive rules concerning the human mobility, we notice how control and dominance strategies are present in ideologies and symbolic mechanisms. Women options in the migration process are trapped through them. We propose to recognize the symbolic and institutional violence that pressures migrants during their migration journey, focusing on understanding the ideological content - sexism and marianism - in which they are based on. We present an analysis of the instrumented ways of applying violence against Bolivian migrant women and its families from the social action practices implemented at origin and destination (transnational perspective). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Whores', 'hookers' and 'prostitutes' are among the many labels used to represent women in the sex industry. As a result, some sex workers develop defence mechanism to cope with this negative labelling. The present study explored the intersecting sources of the 'whore stigma' and its management in the city of Tarija (Bolivia). Work involved the triangulation of (1) an ethnography of sex-related institutions; (2) semi-structured interviews with staff from the sex industry, municipal and health authorities and neighbours who lived close to sex trade establishments; and (3) life narratives of women in sex work and people of the general population conducted over two periods of six months each, in 2001-2002 and 2003. This paper describes the intersectional power differentials (of gender, ethnicity and class) in which 'whore stigma' unfolds in Tarija. It reveals how women in sex work created defence mechanisms to mediate the tension between honour and shame that defined their devalued condition as women, peasants, indigenous persons and sex workers. In conclusion, this article discusses a possible intersectional conceptualisation of the 'whore stigma' within this context and argues for the need for health promotion programmes to engage with these women's coping strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) have not been very successful in gender mainstreaming. This article will show, with examples from the PRSPs of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, how gender issues have been largely ignored in the design, poverty analysis, and policy actions of PRSPs. It will be argued that the reason for this failure is only partially a lack of political will and gender expertise on the side of the governments and PRS teams. Rather, the main reason for the failure of integrating gender in PRSPs is the overall framework of PRSPs, which does not allow for gender mainstreaming in macroeconomic policies. The core of the framework consists of narrowly defined macroeconomic targets and policies, while giving less importance to broader socio-economic objectives and policies. This, in turn, tends to shift gender entirely to a secondary, social concern, rather than being part and parcel of the core of the poverty reduction framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the province of Jujuy, located on the northern border of Argentina and Bolivia, the widespread image of the "Bolivian pregnant woman who crosses the border to give birth on the Argentine side" orders a great deal of the perceptions, views and ideals of many Argentineans. Themes relating to material resources, to rights of citizenship and to meanings and feelings of belonging appear in stories and statements that reject and condemn these women. How are we to interpret the reactions that these women's actions provoke? What fears and anxieties are provoked by such border crossing? This paper shows that Bolivian women who cross the border are seen as a societal disturbance, and embody a double threat to "integrity": to social integrity, understood as a system of regulated inequality, and to national/racial integrity, understood as a holistic ethnic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]