Equal Footing: Greetings from Lima - and recaps from Bolivia!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Greetings from Lima - and recaps from Bolivia!

Eliodora, FEJUVE community leader

James Lerager

Isabel, member of the Colectivo de Mujeres of El Alto

Javier, leader of former political prisoners and exiles during the Banzer dictatorship

Nicole and Pablo

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The Project

Women on the Frontlines:

Resource Wars, Popular Movements, and Gender Dynamics in Bolivia and Ecuador

During the last decade, Bolivia and Ecuador have been marked by “resource wars” in which mass mobilizations have challenged the neoliberal privatization of resources such as water, land, petroleum, and natural gas. In the past two years, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa have been critical of privatization, aligning themselves with the goals of popular movements. Increasingly, national political agendas are set by mobilized popular movements that aim to redirect control over resources from private multinational corporations to alternate forms of local control. For Bolivia and Ecuador, these resource wars thus mark fundamental shifts in concepts of national sovereignty and popular participation in democratic processes.

Yet the specific role of women leaders within these movements has been largely overlooked. How have women leaders shaped the struggles of these popular movements? Internally, does female leadership yield qualitatively distinct decisions about movement governance and strategy? And externally, does the gender of leaders shape interactions with government and the success of demands?

The research project, born out of a collaboration between Macalester College Political Science/Latin American Studies Professor Paul Dosh and student Nicole Kligerman ’10, intends to answer these questions to explore the changing role of women within the political sphere. Our research will primarily be conducted in La Paz/El Alto, Bolivia and Quito, Ecuador.