Freshman Seminar
Women in Social Movements in Latin America
FRSEM 493-001
Spring-2016
Prof. Pamela Calla Room: 404 (KJCC)
Thursday, 2;00-4:30
212-998-3645 Office hours: Monday
2:00-4:00
347 324 7605
This seminar will explore women’s political agency and emancipatory thought and action in diverse social movements throughout Latin America. We will locate this agency and characterize the thought and actions of women within social movements in various national contexts. We will look at the rising transnationalism of the movements under scrutiny. We will see the diverse shapes and forms that these movements took and immerse ourselves in the specific historical, political and cultural context where they sprang up. We will focus on indigenous and other popular sectors as well as middle class movements concentrating on the ways in which women brought new meanings and vitality to the diverse forms of struggle of these movements.
A central consideration in this exploration is the historical relation between movements and states and the “gendered logics” that enter in the confrontations and negotiations between the two. This will allow us to weave women’s individual and collective agendas in relation to their own notions of political and democratic gains and inclusion and attainment (or not) of economic, cultural, racial and gender justice vis-à-vis themselves, their organizations, and the state in each country examined. Here, we will focus on the usefulness of testimony, documentaries and exhibits, as ways to convey the multiple voices, sites, positionings and context where women wage their struggles vis-à-vis the state.
A very important question throughout the semester and at each phase of our exploration is the way in which women in social movements in Latin America have embraced (or not) feminist stances and positions. The seminar will thus look at women’s political agency in a tense and productive dialogue with diverse and emergent feminist currents “glocally”.
Evaluation:
Attendance is crucial for the successful performance of the student in this Freshman Honors Seminar. Students will be responsible for one 3-page response paper due March 3; one 5-page response paper due April 7, and a final 12-page paper (dates TBA). There will be individual presentations as discussion triggers of one article per student in class. Students will meet with the professor prior to their presentations.
Absences are only for documented medical reason or other emergency, with only one or two such absences allowed before the final grade is lowered
15 % for attendance and participation
15 % for short presentation in class (TBA)
15% for 2-page response paper (March 3)
20 % for 5-page response paper (April 7)
35 % for final 12-page paper (TBA)
Books to be purchased:
Domitila Chungara, Let Me Speak! Testimony of Domitila, a Woman of the Bolivian Mines. Moema Viezzer (Author), Victoria Ortiz (Translator)
Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala
Elisabeth Burgos-Debray (Editor), Ann Wright (Translator)
Documentaries:
Colombia: “We Women Warriors”
Chile: “Allende”
Peru: “A Woman’s womb”
El Salvador: “Maria’s Story”
Bolivia: “Even the Rain”
Week 1, Jan. 28: Introduction
Week 2, Feb. 4 1) Writing Workshop// 2) Women in Social Movements: Framing the discussion
1) First part: Writing workshop (60’)
2) Second part:
Greg Grandin, “Introduction” In Empire’s Workshop.
Nancy Fraser (2009) "Mapping the Feminist Imagination: From Redistribution to Recognition to Representation" In Scales of Justice. Reimagining Political Space in a Globalized World.
Karen Kampwirth. 2004. Introduction. Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas
Week 3, Feb. 11: From Democratic Socialism to Dictatorship: Women’s Struggles in Chile throughout 1970’s
Temma Kaplan. 2004. Prologue, Chapter 1 and 2. Taking Back the Streets: Women, Youth, and Direct Democracy (online Bobst)
Movie: “Allende” Patricio Guzman
Week 4 and 5, Feb. 18 and 25: From Dictatorship to Democracy: “Wives” and the Politics of Difference and Equality in Bolivia throughout the 70’s
June Nash. 1984. Introduction and Chapter 5. We eat the mines and the mines eat us.
Domitila Chungara, Let Me Speak!: Testimony of Domitila, a Woman of the Bolivian Mines. Moema Viezzer (Author), Victoria Ortiz (Translator)
Jocelyn Olcott. “Cold War Conflicts and Cheap Cabaret. Sexual Politics at the 1975 United Nations International Women’s Year Conference” Paper presented at the NYHWG.
Melissa Crane Draper (2008) “Workers, Leaders and Mothers: Bolivian Women in a Globalizing World” In Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization. J. Shultz and M. Draper Eds. University of California Press
You tube about Domitila Chungara
Movie: Las Hermanas de las Bartolinas
Complementary:
Book and video: Maria Lagos, Introduction, Chapters 1, 2 and 11. In Al Rojo Vivo y a Puro Golpe
Week 6, March 3: What the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo started in Argentina: A generational struggle
Temma Kaplan, Making Spectacles of themselves in Argentina. Chapters 4 and 5. Taking Back the Streets
Diane Taylor. HIJOS. In The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press
Video: Scratches
Week 7, March 10: /Armed Struggles and the Gender of Revolutions: Central America and Cuba
Karen Kampwirth. 2004. Chapter 5. Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas
Jocelyn Viterna (2006) Chapters 1, 3 and 8. In Women in War. The Micro Processes of Movilization in El Salvador.
Movie: Maria’s Story
SPRING RECESS
Week 8 and 9, March 24 and 31: The politics of difference, equality and justice in the Central American Wars
Movie: Granito
Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala
Elisabeth Burgos-Debray (Editor), Ann Wright (Translator)
Victoria Sanford, FromI, Rigobertato the Commissioning of Truth: Maya Women and the Reshaping of Guatemalan History. Cultural Critique - 47, Winter 2001, pp. 16-53
Daniel Hernandez, Angel’s of Memory, Guatemala Exhibit.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/angels-watch-over-memories-of-war/?_r=0
Video: Trial of Rios Montt
Week 10: April 7: Beijing, neoliberalism and reproductive and sexual Politics
Movie: A Woman’s womb
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/4623/A-Woman-s-Womb
Margarita Huayua, Ethnic cleansing in Peru: "Family planning" under Fujimori
Manuscript (Draft).
Carlos Ivan Degregory, Video: University of Santa Barbara
Week 11, April 14: Indigeneity, Feminisms and Intercultural Paradigms in tension
Documentary: We Women Warriors
Aida Hernandez “Between feminist ethnocentricity and ethnic essentialism: The Zapatista’s demands and the National Women’s Movement” Gender and Cultural Politics in Chiapas University of Texas Press 2006 Speed, Shannon Hernandez Castillo, Aida Stephen, Lynne (Eds.)
Franco, Jean. (2010) “Moving from Subalternity: Indigenous Women from Guatemala and Mexico” In Reflections on the History of an Idea. Can the Subaltern Speak? R. Morris Ed.
Angela Ixkic Bastian Duarte "From the Margins of Latin American Feminism: Indigenous and Lesbian Feminisms". Signs, Vol 38, No 1 (Autum, 2012) Presenter: Victoria A.
Week 12, April 21: Resources, territoriality and extraction: Gender/Race/Class considerations
Jim Shultz (2008) “The Cochabamba Water Revolt and its Aftermath” In Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization. J.Shultz and M. Draper Eds. University of California Press
Nina Laurie,Gender Water Networks: Femininity and Masculinity in Water Politics in Bolivia.International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 35, Issue 1, pages 172-188, January 2011.
Movie: Even the Rain
http://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/assets/boell.de/images/download_de/internationalepolitik/gip4.pdf
Week 13, April 28: Constitutional Reforms, Inter-legality and gender: Territory, state and/or communal justice
Rachel Sieder and Teresa Sierra. 2010. Indigenous Women’s Access to Justice in Latin America. CMI Working Paper.
Stephanie Russeau. “Indigenous and Feminist Movements at the Constituent Assembly in Bolivia” Latin America Research Review Vol 46, No 2, 2011 LASA
Week 14, May 5: Communal and anticolonial feminisms
Julieta Paredes. 2010. Hilando Fino. Translated by Margareth Cerrullo
Writing Tutor:
(TBA)
Free peer tutoring and academic coaching, one-to-one sessions, group reviews, workshops, and more!!
University Learning Center
www.nyu.edu/ulc
ULC@Academic Resource Center, 18 Washington Place, Lower Level
ULC@UHall, 110 East 14th Street, top of stairs by UHall Commons