In Our Own Voices: Reproductive Health Radio Programming in the Peruvian Amazon

Abstract

This article examines the political and social implications of broadening public discourse and facilitating a collective mediated space in which gendered inequities, interests, and identities are debated via the feminist reproductive health radio program Bienvenida Salud! The article describes the mediascape in rural and indigenous Peruvian Amazonian communities and the ways in which feminist reproductive rights discourse has been introduced and interpreted in communities that have limited exposure to global feminism. By analyzing the reception and listening practices among the Bienvenida Salud! audience, the authors explore arguments about the limits and possibilities of participatory media to effect social change. Finally, the article examines the capacity of Amazonian women to use alternative media to voice their traditionally ignored reproductive health priorities, goals, and practices, and in so doing, critically assesses the potential of participatory media interventions to influence the discourses of global feminism and population planning.