Abstract
In this article, Breny Mendoza examines and critically discusses María Lugones’ concept of the “coloniality of gender.” Lugones’ influential thesis asserts that the binarity of gender was introduced in the colonies as part of colonial rule and displaced previously predominant egalitarian systems of gender relations. As Mendoza outlines, this thesis has been challenged in recent years by Latin American and indigenous feminisms (such as the Argentinean anthropologist Rita Segato, and indigenous feminists from countries such as Bolivia, Guatemala, and Mexico). In light of these new perspectives, Mendoza expounds and acknowledges Lugones’ ideas, while also pointing out their pitfalls and limitations, since such an approach can lead to a romanticisation of pre-colonial orders, presenting them as the “absolute other” of colonial violence. In contrast, drawing on the analysis by Bolivian Aymara feminist Julieta Paredes, Mendoza argues that the imposition of gender can only be understood as an “entanglement of patriarchies.” Finally, Mendoza applies these discussions to issues surrounding sexualised violence, i.e., feminicide, in Latin America proving them to provide a fruitful framework for understanding and addressing these current forms of violence.
Literatur
Afonja, S. (2005), Gender and Feminism in African Development Discourse, Bloomington, Ind., URL: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simi-Afonja/publication/268395215_GENDER_AND_FEMINISM_IN_AFRICAN_DEVELOPMENT_DISCOURSE/links/5b6438ff458515298ce153c7/GENDER-AND-FEMINISM-IN-AFRICAN-DEVELOPMENT-DISCOURSE.pdf (24.9.2023).Search in Google Scholar
Bakare-Yusuf, B. (2003), Yorubas Don’t Do Gender: A Critical Review of Oyeronke Oyewumi’s The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, in: African Identities 1.1, 119–140.Search in Google Scholar
Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional [EZLM] (1993), Ley Revolucionaria de Mujeres, in: El Despertador Mexicano 1 (Dezember), URL: http://palabra.ezln.org.mx/comunicados/1994/1993_12_g.htm (27.2.2024).Search in Google Scholar
Grzinic, M. (2009), From Biopolitics to Necropolitics and the Institution of Contemporary Art, in: dies. (Hg.), Pavilion #14. Biopolitics, Necropolitics and De-Coloniality, 9–93.Search in Google Scholar
Hernández Castillo, R. A. (2008), Introducción: Descentrando el feminism. Lecciones aprendidas de la luchas de las mujeres indígenas de América Latina, in: dies. (Hg.), Etnografías e historias de resistencia: mujeres indígenas, procesos organizativos, y nuevas identidades políticas, Mexiko-Stadt, 15–44.Search in Google Scholar
Jimenez, R., u. Alvites, L. M. (2011), La cultura ancestral andina como desarrollo histórico inédito: el caso de las mujeres. Apuntes para la descolonización epistemológica de su estudio, URL: http://www.sustentabilidades.usach.cl/sites/sustentable/files/paginas/04-04.pdf (24.9.2023).Search in Google Scholar
Lugones, M. (2007), Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System, in: Hypatia 22.1, 186–209.10.1353/hyp.2006.0067Search in Google Scholar
Lugones, M. (2010), Toward a Decolonial Feminism, in: Hypatia 25.4, 742–759.10.1111/j.1527-2001.2010.01137.xSearch in Google Scholar
Lugones, M. (2008), The Coloniality of Gender, in: Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise, URL: https://globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/sites/globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/v2d2_Lugones.pdf (24.9.2023).Search in Google Scholar
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007), On the Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the development of a concept, in: Cultural Studies 21.2, 240–270.10.1080/09502380601162548Search in Google Scholar
Mendoza, B. (2014), La cuestión de la colonialidad de género (2012), in: dies., Ensayos de crítica feminista en nuestra América, Mexiko-Stadt, 45–71.Search in Google Scholar
Oyewumi, O. (1997), The Invention of Women. Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, Minneapolis.Search in Google Scholar
Paredes, J. (2008), Hilando Fino. Desde el feminismo comunitario, La Paz.Search in Google Scholar
Quijano, A. (2000), Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America, in: Nepantla: Views from South 1.3, 533–580.Search in Google Scholar
Segato, R. (2001), The Factor of Gender in the Yoruba Transnational Religious World, Brasilia, URL: http://pds25.egloos.com/pds/201211/26/71/Serie289empdf.pdf (24.9.2023)Search in Google Scholar
Segato, R. L. (2011), Género y colonialidad: en busca de claves de lectura y de un vocabulario estratégico descolonial, in: Bidaseca, K., u. Vazquez Laba, V. (Hg), Feminismos y Poscolonialidad. Descolonizando el feminismo desde y en América Latina, Buenos Aires, 17–48.Search in Google Scholar
Strongman, R. (2002), Syncretic Religion and Dissident Sexualities, in: Cruz-Malavé, A. u. Manalansan IV, M. F. (Hg.), Queer Globalizations. Citizenship and the afterlife of colonialism, New York, 176–192.10.18574/nyu/9780814790182.003.0014Search in Google Scholar
Vieira Powers, K. (2000), Andeans and Spaniards in the Contact Zone. A Gendered Collision, in: The American Indian Quarterly 24.4, 511–536.10.1353/aiq.2000.0025Search in Google Scholar
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
