Indigenous Women's Organizations and the Political Discourses of Indigenous Rights and Gender Equity in Peru

Abstract

In the past three decades, as the Peruvian state has expanded services to remote areas, its professionals have approached indigenous women in a variety of conventional and novel ways. The Catholic Church and Evangelical denominations are also present in these areas, asking women to participate in religious activities. Political parties, feminists, development activists and indigenous rights organizations have been promoting the creation of women's organizations and the emergence of female social and political leadership. Independently of their understanding and respect for the cultural particularities of the communities, all these agents have been convinced that they have to produce changes in the lives of women, and that they have something to give them. This essay explores the ways in which such discourses and practices are received by indigenous women in Andean and Amazonian communities. Special attention is paid to the ways in which ideas about rights, social change and development are appropriated and reinterpreted by women who experience everyday racism and exclusion and, at the same time, are seen as responsible for preserving their cultural traditions.

Keywords:

• Indigenous women
• Peru
• identity politics
• gender equity
• development policy

Notes

Notes

[1] From an historical perspective, the work of Mallon (1995) and Thurner (1997) are also illustrative of this strategy.

[2] The international context as described by Brysk (2000) includes the UN declaration of the Decade of Indigenous Peoples, the project for the declaration of Indigenous Rights, and the Declaration for the Universal Declaration for Linguistic rights in Barcelona in 1996.

[3] The process skillfully sketched by Veronica Schild (1998, pp. 94–95) for the case of Chile is a good example.

[4] I refer to experiences as an observer in diverse meetings and from interviews with women from Ayacucho, Apurimac, Huancavelica, and Cusco in the highlands, and from Junin, Ucayali and Amazonas in the lowlands, between 1998 and 2003.

[5] With 759,000 square km, close to 300,000 people self-identified as indigenous, and a population density of 4.1 per square km, the Peruvian Amazon has 13 per cent of the total Amazon rainforest (second after Brazil with 67.79 per cent).

[6] Graham (2004) reports a similar case for Brazilian indigenous organizations.

[7] See http://www.oxfamamerica.org/partners/AIDESEP-COICA_partner

[8] Claudio de Moura, an officer of the Brazilian Government, NGO consultant and World Bank professional, wrote an insider's version of this complex situation.

[9] The development of policies oriented to promote indigenous rights has deserved particular attention regarding this process (Bebbington et al., 2004; Calla, 2004; Hale, 2002; Laurie & Bonnett, 2002; Laurie, Andolina, & Radcliffe, 2005; Sieder, 2005).

[10] Fragment kindly translated by Nelly Paucar from Quechua into Spanish.

[11] I was informed of this ‘norm’ by two mestizo teachers attending meetings in both Ayacucho and Amazonas. They both had to wear traditional ethnic dress as a requirement for attending the meetings.

[12] I have also heard council women complain about one very important issue in local criollo and mestizo ways of doing politics. Many times, local political issues are dealt with among men in drinking sessions in city or town bars, from which rural women are usually excluded.