Sustaining the Struggle, Taking Over the Space: Amazonian Women and the Indigenous Movement in Ecuador

Sempértegui, Andrea

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-83947-5_33

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In their public statements, Mujeres Amazónicas have reaffirmed a collective and historical identity connected to the broader Indigenous Movement and its historical territorial struggle (see Sempértegui, 2022). Even though these leaders' relationships to their Indigenous organizations have not been absent of internal tensions and disputes, Mujeres Amazónicas organized the March for Life with the organizational support of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) (Mujeres Amazónicas del Centro Sur, 2013a).…”

Section: Mujeres Amazónicas' Subjectivity and Political Design As A C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…46ff.). Furthermore, Indigenous women's active participation in the nationwide Indigenous uprisings in 1990 and 1992 demonstrates their crucial historical role in Ecuador's Indigenous Movement (see Coba & Bayón, 2020;García-Torres, 2017;Sempértegui, 2022). For these reasons, Indigenous women's effective and strategic politics against the recent expansion of extractive projects is worthy of careful critical attention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Weaving the Spiderweb: Mujeres Amazónicas and the Design of Anti-Extractive Politics in Ecuador

Sempértegui

2023

SSJ

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This article examines the strategic politics of an Indigenous network called las Mujeres Amazónicas (the Amazonian Women) that is resisting the expansion of extractive projects in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest. It asks, what are the Mujeres Amazónicas’ political strategies to resist extractive occupation and how do they develop and deploy these strategies in their territorial struggle? To answer this question, I analyze how their organizing is characterized by a political design that merges public expressions of resistance – such as mobilizations, protest marches, and other public actions – with communitarian practices that reproduce human and more-than-human life in the Amazon. To illustrate this strategic fusion, the article turns to an image that the Kichwa leader Elvia Dagua wove into an artesanía (handicraft) called la Araña Tejedora (the Weaving Spider). By analyzing Dagua’s artesanía and other self-descriptions of the Mujeres Amazónicas, the article shows how practices of communitarian reproduction are used and transformed by the Amazonian Women, thus enabling their political work and sustaining their lives at the same time. The strategic deployment of reproductive practices reveals how Indigenous women’s cultural and social identities are neither static nor unchangeable. It also illustrates that the Mujeres Amazónicas’ organizing should not be interpreted as a simple example of local politics responding to extractive occupation. By contrast, the article shows how the Mujeres Amazónicas are historical and political subjects with the power to shape the lines of political confrontation vis-à-vis the state and extractive capital, and to build global connections between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of living.

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Section: Mujeres Amazónicas' Subjectivity and Political Design As A C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weaving the Spiderweb: Mujeres Amazónicas and the Design of Anti-Extractive Politics in Ecuador

Sempértegui

2023

SSJ

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“…Challenging extractive politics of neoliberal economy, Kawasak Sacha offers an alternative philosophy and ontology marked by indigenous autonomy and an intimate relationship with nature. Their discourses decolonize the nature-human binary, a Western construction, and emphasize preservation of nature (Sempértegui, 2020). Similarly, a women’s movement in Plachimada, a village in India, led to Coca-Cola shutting down its plant that was not only depleting the water supply in the rural area but also contaminating it.…”

Section: Call To Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politics of Transnational Feminism to Decolonize Feminist Organizational Communication: A Call to Action

Pal

Nieto-Fernandez

2023

Management Communication Quarterly

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We draw upon transnational feminism as a theoretical resource to outline decolonial thinking for feminist organizational communication in this essay. Decolonial perspectives in transnational feminism reinforce antiracist, anticapitalist, and anti-imperial interventions in theory, practice and activism. We argue that the assumptions of neoliberal hegemony and imperial legacy remain largely unchallenged in feminist organizational communication research and call for rigorous examination of global capitalism and its close links with colonization of knowledge to make the project of the empire visible. Our recommendations urge shifting dominant sites of knowledge-making to epistemologies of disenfranchised women and generating insurgent knowledges by carefully forging non-exploitative collaborative relationships with activists and communities of struggle. We hope these agendas offer new imaginings to decolonize imperial legacies, address historical absences and silences, and invigorate social justice orientation in the field.

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a communal and intergenerational dialogue among Indigenous women leaders on decolonial feminist democracy in Ecuador

Gallardo Lastra,

Machoa,

López López

2024

Feminist Review

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In contrast to the dominant paradigm of liberal feminist democracy, which operates from a top-down approach and emphasises individual empowerment, this article explores the alternative framework of radical feminist democracy. This alternative model is grounded in collective action from grassroots movements and aims to centre the voices of subaltern women who have often been marginalised in mainstream discourse that focuses on the role of women in democracy. The primary objective of this article is to contribute to the development of a concept of decolonial feminist democracy that is rooted in specific contexts and experiences, particularly those of subaltern women. It seeks to understand how decolonial democratic values are transmitted intergenerationally, particularly through the relationships between mothers and children. To achieve this, we analyse a significant social protest event in Ecuador: the June 2022 Strike led by the Indigenous movement. Through in-depth interviews with adult and young Indigenous women leaders who played key roles in this mobilisation, the article explores various aspects including gender roles, democratic practices within the Indigenous movement and perspectives on feminism. The findings highlight a form of community democracy and the interconnected struggle against neoliberalism, colonialism, patriarchy and extractivism, which Indigenous women actively engage in both on the streets and within their communities. Furthermore, the research uncovers evidence of the intergenerational transmission of democratic values, particularly the ethos of resistance.

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Sustaining the Struggle, Taking Over the Space: Amazonian Women and the Indigenous Movement in Ecuador

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

Weaving the Spiderweb: Mujeres Amazónicas and the Design of Anti-Extractive Politics in Ecuador

Weaving the Spiderweb: Mujeres Amazónicas and the Design of Anti-Extractive Politics in Ecuador

Politics of Transnational Feminism to Decolonize Feminist Organizational Communication: A Call to Action

a communal and intergenerational dialogue among Indigenous women leaders on decolonial feminist democracy in Ecuador

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