Feminist Geographies in Latin America: Epistemological
Challenges and the Decoloniality of Knowledge
Joseli Maria Silva, Marcio Jose Ornat, Liz Mason-Deese
Journal of Latin American Geography, Volume 19, Number 1, January 2020,
pp. 269-277 (Article)
Published by University of Texas Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2020.0004
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/744029
Access provided at 30 Dec 2019 16:23 GMT from Vanderbilt University Library
Feminist Geographies in Latin America:
Epistemological Challenges and the
Decoloniality of Knowledge¹
Joseli Maria Silva
Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa
Marcio Jose Ornat
Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa
Translated by Liz Mason-Deese
Independent researcher, translator, and activist
introduction feminist latin america and the growth of
This paper analyzes the growth of gender gender studies in geographical sciences
studies in Latin America, despite facing resis- It seems impossible to accommodate the
tance in the scientific field and from the plurality of Latin American feminist move-
advance of conservative policies on the conti- ments in a single narrative of development.
nent. It also addresses the challenges that A diverse range of related elements make
feminist research faces in colonized spaces. up the particularities of temporal spaces for
To develop our argument, we draw on the each country on this huge and varied conti-
scholarship of feminist researchers in Brazil, nent. However, Blay and Avelar (2019) argue
Mexico, and Argentina, such as Veleda da that political struggles against military dicta-
Silva and Lan (2007), Silva and Vieira (2014), torship are a common element of different
Silva, César and Pinto (2015), Colombara countries in the region and that women’s
(2016), Lan (2016), Veleda da Silva (2016), involvement in this experience is an import-
Ibarra-García and Escamilla-Herrera (2016), ant ingredient of the Latin American femi-
Zaragocin-Carvajal, Moreano-Venegas, and nist movement. Women’s experience during
Álvarez-Velasco (2018), and Silva and Ornat the periods of dictatorship exposed male
(2019). This paper also examines the difficul- privileges, even inside leftist parties, and
ties that Latin American feminist geographies demonstrated the need to create specific
face in establishing their own foundations organizations that could address gender and
in a globalized world where the geopoli- power relations. Women’s organizing was
tics of global knowledge of geography is important in processes of democratization
increasingly structured by the epistemolog- across Latin America, primarily in the late
ical centralization of the Anglophone north- 1970s and 1980s, which brought demands for
ern hemisphere. sexual, civil, political, economic, and legal
rights into the public arena.
JOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY 19(1), 269–277
Journal of Latin American Geography
Despite the long history and plurality of phy in Latin America was gradually perme-
feminist movements, the visibility of women’s ated by research on gender and sexuality,
protests and demands has been facilitated by demonstrating marked growth in countries
increased access to the internet and social such as Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, as
media. Multitudes have used public space as well as the appearance of young researchers
never before, bringing together women from in Ecuador, Colombia, and Chile. Veleda da
different social classes, religions, races, sexual Silva and Lan (2007) highlighted this trend,
orientations, marital statuses, and so on. In but certainly the advance was much greater
these recent feminist episodes, there is a new than expected, as Lan confirms (2016).
generation of women, as well as young men, Brazil has the largest concentration of
who have taken up a gender agenda and have gender and sexuality studies in Latin Amer-
been reflecting upon the construction of ica, due to the size of its population and the
structures of male privilege. number of graduate programs in the coun-
The so-called “feminist waves” that try. According to Silva and Ornat (2019), the
have been occupying public spaces since growth of this field in the country has been
2016, such as the marches against femicide greatly influenced by supportive policies
(#NiUnaMenos) and campaign to decriminal- created during the Workers’ Party govern-
ize abortion (#NiñasNoMadres) in Argentina, ment. Additionally, according to Silva, César,
protests against sexual harassment at Chilean and Pinto (2015), researchers who came to
universities that temporarily paralyzed thir- call themselves feminists contested the unity
ty-five education institutions in the coun- of geography, enabled specific epistemologi-
try, and Brazilian women’s protests against cal and methodological paths, and thus the
the extreme right candidate Jair Bolsonaro development of feminist interventions across
(#EleNão) demonstrate that it is no longer the discipline, such as the creation of the
possible to silence women’s demands. Public Revista Latino-America de Geografia e Gênero
spaces have been taken over by women’s (Latin American Journal of Geography and
bodies and, at the same time, women’s bodies Gender) in 2009 and the creation of regular
have become spaces of struggles, creat- meetings of the Latin American Seminar on
ing urban landscapes that Latin American Geography, Gender, and Sexualities, begin-
geographical sciences have had to negotiate, ning in 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, then Porto
especially with younger generations. Velho (2014), Mexico City (2017), and most
The traditional disregard for the produc- recently in Tandil, Argentina (2019).
tion of feminist geographies over the past The description offered by Silva and
forty years, and the silence regarding gender Ornat (2019) of the expansion of feminist
privileges in approaches to space by the hege- geographies in Brazil shows a major shift in
monic currents in Latin American geogra- regards to the rhythm of work that had been
phy, became impossible to maintain due to carried out before the 2000s. These authors
women’s explicit and material geographicity reported that 97 percent of the total 238 arti-
in recent years. The scientific field of geogra- cles produced in the field were published
270
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after 2000. However, some articles involv- and, although there are no events specifi-
ing geography and women had already been cally focused on gender, the topic is being
published in the 1980s, such as work by Silva increasingly inserted into academic debates.
(1984) and Dantas (1987), analyzing women’s Likewise, both authors indicate that the
work in rural production. In the 1990s, a publication of articles is dispersed in differ-
focus on women and labor still prevailed (e.g., ent scientific journals that present a thematic
Rossini, 1998), but there were also initiatives diversity in regards to the relations between
to start epistemological debates (e.g. Veleda gender and space, usually involving issues
da Silva, 1998). In the first decade of the of women in dynamics of violence, mobil-
2000s, fifty-nine articles were published, and ity, labor, politics, and education. In their
between 2000 and 2015, 172 more articles analyses, both authors present an optimistic
appeared in scientific journals in this field. outlook for growth in this area, but they also
The analysis of the expansion of geogra- call attention to the need for a theoretical
phies of sexualities in Brazil demonstrates deepening that is specific to feminist geogra-
a similar trend as feminist geographies, phies, to sustain the future of this approach
however, with fewer total articles (Silva & in the face of an academic environment that
Vieira, 2014). The first four articles appeared is hostile to gender studies.
in the 1990s and were all authored by Miguel Ibarra-García and Escamilla-Herrera
Ângelo Ribeiro, focusing on areas of prostitu- (2016) show that the development of perspec-
tion in Rio de Janeiro and their relation with tives on gender, feminism, and sexualities in
tourism. Between 2000 and 2009, six articles Mexico, as in other countries, increased in
were published, highlighting a significant the second decade of the 2000s. Emphasiz-
focus on travestis, prejudice, and the appro- ing recently produced theses and disserta-
priation of territories. Between 2010 and 2015, tions, these authors point to an important
sixty-six articles were published, meaning diversity of themes in the research carried
that in sum, 94.7 percent of the geographical out in Mexico. According to them, the most
scientific production addressing sexualities prominent areas of focus are violence against
was published after 2000. women, social movements, and environmen-
Analyses of the expansion of the field of tal disasters. Studies have also been elabo-
feminist and gender geographies in Argen- rated about gay sexualities, although they
tina indicate that, similar to the Brazilian case, are still incipient, while there is an emerging
most of the scientific production in this area focus on analyzing the body as a spatial scale.
is recent (Colombara, 2017; Lan, 2016). Both Since 2015 the “Congreso Internacional sobre
authors report the lack of studies and scien- Género y Espacio” (International Congress
tific publications addressing sexualities in the on Gender and Space), has been organized
field of geography in Argentina. Lan (2016) regularly, promoting the visibility of this field
argues that production related to women within the discipline of geography in Mexico.
and gender is scattered throughout several Zaragocin-Carvajal, Moreano-Venegas,
academic geography events in the country and Álvarez-Velasco (2018) show that there
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Journal of Latin American Geography
is an important movement of feminist work the interactions involved in process of inves-
analyzing the struggles of Indigenous peoples tigation.
in defense of their territories in Colombia, Scientific practice capable of making visi-
Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Guatemala. ble the subjects produced as invisible in geog-
These works have enriched the conceptual raphy is only possible when we understand
debate in geography and argued for the insep- that invisibility is not by chance, but rather
arability of the body-territory when analyz- is produced by the power of tradition of the
ing modes of life that cannot be understood theoretical and methodological elements that
by a Eurocentric logic. delimit a certain world view and what ques-
However, feminist scientific produc- tions can be formulated about a given spatial
tion in Latin American geography is still reality. If we agree that it is the confrontation
marginalized in regards to the geopolitics of of geographical imaginations in different
networks of scientific prestige of universi- positions of power that creates the game of
ties and vehicles of scientific production in the visibility/invisibility of subjects in geog-
Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. Despite their raphy, it is possible to question the rules
analytical power, feminist geographies are established by specific geographic commu-
too frequently rendered invisible in the disci- nities that legitimate some geographicities
plinary field of Latin American geography. and not others (Silva, 2009; Silva, Ornat, &
Chimin Junior, 2017).
the challenges of feminist geographies Recognizing the principle of power rela-
produced in colonized spaces tions and the dynamics of the research-
Adding gender, masculinities, or femininities er’s positionality in feminist investigation
onto certain spatial analysis is not enough produced in colonized countries implies a
for research to be considered feminist. Femi- series of reflexive practices about the inter-
nist geography does not have that status a nalization of the empire’s gaze in ourselves
priori, but rather is constituted as feminist and in research practice. According to Walsh
in the process of scientific doing, through a (2015), feminist geography produced in
commitment to transforming the social order Latin America has the challenge of contest-
and promoting gender justice. Ackerley and ing a Eurocentric basis of research training
True (2010) reflect on four interdependent and education and the colonizing patterns
principles of feminist scientific practice that that structure the hierarchy of knowledges
must constantly be taken into account: the between human groups.
strength of the epistemological tradition Following feminist principles in regards
of the field that shapes our world view, the to the positionality of the researcher in
frontiers and limits established by the scien- geographic practice in colonized countries
tific community of what belongs or not to means thinking about the strength of the
geography, the power involved in relations epistemological traditional delimiting the
of scientific practice, and the positionality conceptual foundation from the perspective
of the researchers in their multiple roles in of the masculine, which also operates based
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on whiteness. It means taking into account create antiracist scientific and pedagogical
the frontiers and limits established by a practices. This is not a simple process, nor a
scientific field that operates to make women linear path, but a perspective to be pursued
invisible and obscures the geographies of with awareness of our human limitations as
nonwhite people. The power relations and operators in scientific fields. Walsh (2015)
multiple dimensions involved in the position discusses these difficulties, saying that we
of a Latin American researcher constantly must act starting from the cracks in the power
question the coloniality perpetuated in one’s in the epistemologies that have been inter-
own being, methodological practices, and nalized in all of us through our university
theoretical choices (Quijano, 2000). education, which is why the decolonization
Ultimately, our argument is that Latin of power and of being is so difficult—it goes
American feminist geography must commit against how we ourselves were constructed.
itself to deconstructing the colonial founda- Decolonial thought has challenged
tions of a discipline that, despite being Latin Eurocentric feminism by bringing into the
American, also operates with a coloniality of conversation the organization of women in
knowledge. Thus, feminist geographies that communities whose understanding of the
have long recognized the need for an inter- world is incomprehensible to modern West-
sectional analysis of gender, class, race, and ern thought (e.g. Lugones, 2008; Espino-
other elements of oppression, must continue sa-Miñoso, 2014; Segato, 2014). Additionally,
working to make themselves definitively anti- Paredes-Carvajal (2017) has pointed to the
racist. limitations of academic feminism for under-
If we accept the idea that race is a social standing the spatial reality of communities
construction that operates politically to of Indigenous peoples, developing “commu-
sustain Western hierarchies, as Quijano nitarian feminism” as an alternative. Pare-
(2000) argues, it is also necessary to under- des-Carvajal raises the issue of the limits of
stand how racism takes place in colonized science in the production of knowledges that
spaces such as Latin America. The historical were rejected by the field, pointing to the
traces of colonial subjugation of Indigenous fragility of the academic world’s confidence
populations that mark the spatial constitu- in locally produced and validated methodol-
tion of Latin American countries organize ogies, incorporating the idea of the geopol-
specific forms of racism through a colonizing itics of knowledges (Mignolo, 2000, 2003;
instrument that divides, opposes, and creates Kulpa & Silva, 2016).
hierarchies between groups that share the In Curiel’s (2009) view, the decolonization
same territories and national states. of Latin American feminism lies in the ability
If, as feminist geographers, we consider to overcome the binary between theory and
that all knowledge is situated (Rose, 1997), it activism that is at the heart of the power rela-
is not enough to note the power relations that tions of knowledge production and wealth
operate in the constitution of the scientific appropriation. Usually, theory and activ-
field through reflexivity, but rather, we must ism are regarded as distinct or hierarchi-
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Journal of Latin American Geography
cally valued. Theory is conceived as pure and final considerations
neutral knowledge, while activism is seen as The analysis carried out in this text demon-
a knowledge that is contaminated by subjec- strates that feminist geographies are conquer-
tivities and emotions. Curiel (2009) points ing spaces of enunciation because they
to this way of conceiving the hierarchiza- recognize the importance of a scientific prac-
tion of knowledges as a contradiction of the tice that is also political and they promote
very conception of feminist thought that both social struggles as well as those over
critiques dualities in theory but, in practice, the dynamics of geopolitical organization
ends up reinforcing a dualistic vision that in the geographic scientific field. Despite
is essentially the same as that sustained by the progress that has been made, the growth
the modern and masculine epistemological of extreme right-wing parties and religious
vision. Another important warning sign for fundamentalist groups, which tend to suffo-
decolonizing Latin American feminist scien- cate the prospects for future achievements,
tific production can be seen by recognizing must be taken into account. This neoliberal
the multiplicity of struggles of Latin Ameri- and conservative advance makes it all the
can women that does not exactly correspond more necessary for Latin American femi-
to feminist models imagined by the academy. nist geographies to incorporate decolonial
ideas and build knowledges of liberation and
human solidarity.
notes
1 The original Portuguese version of this essay is published in this issue, vol. 19, no. 1, pp.
163–171.
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