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SOCIAL MOVEMENTS GEOG 3812 - WEEK 15

GEOG 3812

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

▸ Last week of new material!

▸ Overview of Social Movements

▸ Focus: Feminist Movement in Mexico

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

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KEY TERM: SOCIAL MOVEMENT

▸ Organized effort to pursue political goals from outside of formal state (e.g. political parties, institutions) and economic (e.g. unions, class) spheres.

▸ May later win support from political parties or state institutions.

▸ Can begin with class-based demands but often expand to include other forms of solidarity (e.g. Afro-descendents, Indigenous Peoples, women).

▸ How to they identify and pursue goals?

▸ How do movements move?

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“NEW” SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

▸ “Old Social Movements”

▸ Organized around class (e.g. peasants, workers).

▸ Often linked to political parties.

▸ Pursued change through transformation of state policies and institutions.

▸ “New Social Movements”

▸ Mobilize around “identities” such as Indigenous Peoples, women.

▸ May or may not directly engage state institutions, political parties.

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EXAMPLES: MEXICO

▸ ‘Old’

▸ Zapata (1910s).

▸ Cananea (Labor strike).

▸ ‘New’

▸ Student movement, 1960s

▸ Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), 1994 - present.

▸ Ni Una Más/Fourth-wave feminist movement, 2000s - present.

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EZLN

▸ Armed uprising launched January 1, 1994 (same day that NAFTA entered into force).

▸ Mobilize Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Tojolobal Maya communities in Chiapas.

▸ Emphasis on building autonomy in communities aligned with the movement (caracoles).

▸ Alliances with other Indigenous Peoples through National Indigenous Congress.

▸ Alliances with students, workers, urban Mexicans. Comandanta Ramona

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EZLN

▸ Lower case “r” revolution - struggle along multiple axes.

▸ Diverse strategies, forms of participation.

▸ Seeks transformation beyond the State.

▸ New forms of politics.

▸ “A revolution that makes revolution possible.”

“NI UNA MUERTE MÁS”

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FEMINIST MOVEMENTS IN MEXICO

▸ Long history, diversity of approaches.

▸ “Fourth wave”, ca. 2008.

▸ Response to gender violence (feminicide, harassment, assault).

▸ Focus on economic inequalities.

▸ Expanded definition of work.

▸ “Social” reproduction/“house work”

▸ “Care work.”

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POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE GENDER INEQUALITY

DRUG WAR/ MILITARIZATION

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POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE GENDER INEQUALITY

DRUG WAR/ MILITARIZATION

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GENDER IN MEXICO

▸ Disparities in access to work, pay once hired.

▸ Women more likely to live in poverty than men.

▸ Discouraged from political participation.

▸ Right to vote in 1953.

▸ Differential access to education.

▸ Reproductive rights

▸ Abortion rights limited to a few states.

▸ Access to birth control limited.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN MEXICO (2020)

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CARIBBEAN (2020)

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GENDER IN MEXICO

▸ Class differences

▸ “Rich women can do whatever they want.”

▸ Access for poorer women far more difficult, especially when race (Indigenous) and location (rural) are considered.

▸ And race…

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GENDER IN MEXICO

▸ 2 out of 3 women over 15 have experienced some kind of violence in their lives.

▸ 78.6% of victims do not report abuse to police.

▸ 47% of all women over 15 in a relationship experience domestic violence.

▸ 3 in 5 women migrants moving through Mexico experience sexual assault (estimate, Amnesty International).

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POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE GENDER INEQUALITY

DRUG WAR/ MILITARIZATION

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NAFTA & NEOLIBERALISM

▸ Cuts to price supports for food.

▸ Increased emphasis on credit (borrowing money).

▸ Catholic Church allowed to formally re-enter politics for the first time since 1917; immediately launches campaign against reproductive rights.

▸ Cuts to healthcare access, especially for women in poor or rural areas.

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NAFTA & NEOLIBERALISM

▸ “Transnational households”

▸ Male migration pushed women to take on more work in household, communities, work places.

▸ Remittances.

▸ Women both pushed to seek work and continue task of managing households.

▸ “Domestic” work in cities.

▸ Maquiladoras.

▸ Migration.

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KEY TERM: SOCIAL REPRODUCTION

▸ Work done to produce basic conditions for life.

▸ How does a social system reproduce itself?

▸ Essential to economic production.

▸ Typically “unpaid” and gendered as “women’s work.”

▸ Everyone works.

▸ Whether or not they are paid, and how much shapes social hierarchies.

▸ “Placing life at the center” of analysis, politics.

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SOCIAL REPRODUCTION

▸ Care work both in and out of the home.

▸ Children.

▸ Elderly.

▸ Meals.

▸ Neoliberal cuts to social programs that support these activities.

▸ Price supports for food.

▸ Healthcare.

▸ Childcare.

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POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE GENDER INEQUALITY

DRUG WAR/ MILITARIZATION

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FEM(IN)ICDE

▸ Anyone brutalized or killed by virtue of being feminized.

▸ Initially concentrated near Juárez — the city with the largest concentration of maquilas.

▸ Has since spread throughout Mexico (and elsewhere in Latin America).

▸ Includes broad spectrum of feminized bodies, including trans women.

▸ 2019: 10 feminicides reported each day (average)

▸ up from 7/day in 2017.

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POLITICAL ECONOMIC CHANGE GENDER INEQUALITY

DRUG WAR/ MILITARIZATION

FEMINICIDE

https://feminicidiosmx.crowdmap.com/main?l=en_US

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FEM(IN)ICDE

▸ “Ni una muerte más”/“Not one more woman dead” (Susana Chavéz, 1974-2011).

▸ “Ni una menos”/“Not one woman less.”

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CRIMINALIZATION OF PROTEST

▸ Environmental issues — development projects, pollution.

▸ Human Rights - anti-feminicide, opposition to violence.

▸ Disappearances

▸ Death

▸ Torture.

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TRANSNATIONALISM

▸ #NiUnaMenos (“Not one woman less), Argentina 2015.

▸ #VivasNosQuremos.

▸ Protests in Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Spain, Brazil.

▸ First International Women’s Strike, March 8, 2017.

▸ Every March 8 since.

▸ 2020: participation in 50+ countries globally.

▸ All emphasize systematic gender inequality; feminicide is the worst symptom.

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UN DIA SIN NOSOTRAS: A FEMINIST STRIKE ▸ Links together all the different places that women’s work is done.

▸ Demands include some or all of the following:

1. End to all forms of gender violence (discrimination, pay inequalities, racism, harassment and assault).

2. Right to work & dignity.

3. Recognition of indispensability of care work.

4. Clean water, safe shelter and transportation.

5. Access to education.

6. Access to health care/reproductive rights.

7. Basic protection for human rights.

8. Right to asylum.

9. LGBTQA+ rights.

10.Environmental justice (anti-extractivism)

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MEXICO

▸ 8 March protests have become increasingly intense.

▸ Wall around National Palace, other protest sites to keep protesters out.

▸ Social media facilitating exchange of information between groups on a Latin America, Europe, and the US.

▸ Frustration over lack of response to demands, escalating numbers of feminicides.

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MEXICO

▸ Growing number of women in politics.

▸ Requirements for gender parity in many state institutions.

▸ Coalition of Left parties currently dominant nationally have denounced protesters as provocateurs manipulated by “foreign” interests.

▸ President Andres Manuel Lopéz Obrador has supported at least one politician accused of sexual assault.

Claudia Sheinbaum, Mayor of Mexico City with Pres. Lopéz Obrador

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A SOCIAL MOVEMENT? ▸ No leaders.

▸ Most organizing done by collectives.

▸ Protests, organizing dominated by women in the 20s and 30s.

▸ Creativity of protests

▸ Art & theater.

▸ Research.

▸ Mutual aid.

▸ Barricades.

▸ Occupation of state offices.

CONCLUSION

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CONCLUSION

▸ More than the saving of individual lives.

▸ Demonstrations show vulnerability is widely shared.

▸ Does not end violence so much as show “persistence in a condition of vulnerability that proves to be its own kind of strength” (Butler 2020, p. 201).

▸ Parallels with migrant caravans?

▸ Solidarity.

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CONCLUSION

▸ Links throughout region, and into other regions.

▸ Points of connection change from place to place.

▸ Feminicide, abortion bans, harassment all symptoms of a larger, shared problem.

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REFLECTION PAPER

▸ Choose 1:

▸ Media accounts, particularly in the US, tend to focus on feminicide as a crime problem. What approach do protesters in Mexico (and elsewhere) take? How does that differ from media coverage of feminicide?

▸ OR

▸ On your own, find an article from a news media site* that addresses one of the topics or themes from this lecture. Use lecture materials to analyze the article, paying particular attention to how the problem of gender violence and the protests are represented or portrayed. Be sure to include a complete citation for the article.

▸ *News media can include any mainstream media outlet, from newspapers to TV or radio. You may use a Spanish-language site that meets the same criteria.