Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Latin America has been the backdrop of colonial extraction, military dictatorships and armed conflicts, while it has also been characterised by its strong social movements, political organising and solidarity.Although these phenomena are gendered, diverse and intersectional gendered experiences have been insufficiently recognised in academic research.This article introduces a collection that questions mainstream understandings of how gendered violence against cisgender women and other feminised bodies, including people with diverse gender identities, expressions and sexual orientations in Latin America can be understood, and what we can learn from resistance against gendered violence.Latin America is a region where conflict and resistance have historically been intertwined.While it has been the backdrop for colonial extraction, military dictatorships and armed conflicts, it has also been characterised by its strong social movements, political organising and solidarity.Although most armed conflicts in the region have now formally been resolved, violence continues to be widespread.In Guatemala, for instance, political violence and criminal violence have become intertwined, characterised by the surge of criminal gangs and deep-rooted corruption, while powerful elites are dismantling the rule of law.Drug-trafficking, paramilitary and guerrilla groups continue to cause insecurity in Colombia.Large numbers of migrants try to escape extreme poverty, political instability and criminal violence, especially in Central America and Venezuela.Large-scale agro-industrial projects have caused environmental devastation and social conflicts throughout the continent.All these forms of violence affect the development and security of entire communities.However, they have a differentiated impact on people depending on intertwined power relations defined by gender, ethnicity, class, age and sexuality (Viveros 2016).International portrayals of the region have long paid insufficient attention to how gendered power relations, intersecting with structural inequalities defined by class, sexuality or ethnicity, materialise as part of the causes and impacts of violence.A more complex, intersectional lens is needed to understand the full experience of violence of diverse groups of cisgender heterosexual women and people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, or asexual (LGBTQIA+) (Kappler and Lemay-Hébert 2019).
Source: Third World Quarterly
Authors: Tatiana Sanchez Parra, Sanne Weber
Institutions: University of Edinburgh, Radboud University Nijmegen
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Award: G2416021082
OpenAlex ID: W4392466532