Today we gave a presentation at Macalester as part of the Pi Sigma Alpha lecture series. We were well-dressed, and just moments before we were about to begin, a voice bellowed from the corridor: "Nicole! You look like a Republican!"
Always good to have David Seitz at an event.
Speaking for about 35 minutes, Nicole and I briefly summarized our model of Complementary Collaboration, showed Jaime's photos and told anecdotes about four popular movements in Quito and El Alto, and presented our academic argument about women's inclusion on the executive councils of these movements. We had a full house and received another 30 minutes of good questions and comments, as well as suggestions for the future direction of our research. Our various anecdotes about interviewing a vampire, being briefly imprisoned, and getting kicked out of a restaurant while interviewing one of Ecuador's national political officials were well received. So were the cookies.
It was great for me to be able to share our work with my friends, who have heard tangential anecdotes about my experiences but hadn't heard too much about all the data we've collected and the specifics about our case studies. Oh, bridging connections between worlds! I also liked the juxtaposition between looking like a Daughter of the American Revolution and simultaneously talking about the twin beasts of neoliberalism and privatization. What would Sarah Palin say?!
On Halloween afternoon, we presented our initial research findings at the North Central Council of Latin Americanists conference, held at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Pictured with us are Fiorella Ormeño Incio and Brendan Duke, who also presented papers at the conference. We had some good drama leading up to our talk, because two days beforehand I lost my voice! Erik Larson called it a public service. Up until about an hour before our talk, we didn't know if Nicole was going to have to do the whole talk by herself, but my voice returned and we put on a good show, complete with a Halloween-themed handout of our causal argument. Our paper was titled "Presence, Status, Respect, Voice: Gender Dynamics and Anti-Privatization Movements in Bolivia and Ecuador." NCCLA was a small conference, so it was easy to get to know a number of people as you saw the same faces at most of the panels over the course of two days. By contrast, when we present the final version of our work in Rio de Janeiro in June, there will be over 5,000 people at the Latin American Studies Association conference. It was a lot of fun for me to present at this conference with Nicole, and also have a current student (Fiorella) and former student (Brendan) presenting as well. And Brendan won the Student Research Award for best conference paper! Probably the most disappointing part of the conference was not wearing costumes. Nicole had high hopes that we would buy bunny ears and/or a knife-through-the-head headband on the way to the conference, but this plan never materialized. The most memorable line from our talk was when Nicole philosophically asked the audience: "Do retrograde patriarchal thugs pay a price for their misogyny?"
We spent Halloween eating leftover candy and discussing Obama and different birthing practices. Not quite Trick or Treating, but still a good time. After listening to Brendan's excellent presentation on Saturday morning, we ate Afghan food in Madison (they were setting up for the huge Halloween party) and headed back to St Paul. On the way back, we stopped for some authentic Wisconsin ice-cream (it's a tradition to stuff our faces with high-calorie deliciousness after working).
Numbers indicate which weeks each will participate. Color indicates color font of posts.
Paul Dosh, professor (1-9, purple) Nicole Kligerman, student (1-9, green) César Flores, scholar (1-2, 5, 7-8) James Lerager, photographer (4-8) Jesús Valencia, activist (5-7, blue) Andrea Galdames, teacher (6-9) Araminta Dosh Galdames, adventurer (6-9)
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.
Research Itinerary
June 9-22: La Paz/El Alto, Bolivia June 23-28: Sucre, Bolivia June 28-July 5: La Paz/El Alto July 5: Puno, Peru July 6-11: Lima, Peru July 12: Piura/Tablazo Norte, Peru July 13-14: traveling to Quito July 14-August 11: Quito, Ecuador
Our Supporters
This project is made possible by the generous support of a Wallace International Research Grant, a Summer Faculty-Student Research grant from Macalester College, and an Associated Colleges of the Midwest grant for innovative faculty-student collaborations.
Today we gave a presentation at Macalester as part of the Pi Sigma Alpha lecture series. We were well-dressed, and just moments before we were about to begin, a voice bellowed from the corridor: "Nicole! You look like a Republican!"
