Identity, gender and transformative politics : popular women's responses to the Chilean 'transition to democracy'

Abstract

In the 1980s, under conditions of economic austerity and authoritarianism popular women's movements in Latin America assumed new proportions. With suppression of the conventional political arena, a political space was opened providing the opportunity for women to emerge as central social actors, stimulating levels of consciousness and collective identity. As the thesis suggests, to emphasize one dimension of popular women's struggle is to propose a narrow conceptualization of movement emergence and meaning. During the 1980s, observers of women's movements were optimistic pointing not only to the emergence of collective identities, but how women's movement had contributed to a historic breakdown of the public and private spheres. In the 1990s, however, regional processes of "transition and democratization" have been accompanied by movement decline. The present thesis contributes to current debates on popular women's movements by examining the political responses of popular women in the context of the Chilean "transition to democracy". It does so in view of assessing the impact of conjunctural conditions on continued processes of collective identity formation. In doing so, the thesis shows how the process of Chilean "democratization" is contributing to the continued subordination of popular women by means of a neoliberal state social policy which rather than empowering popular women is causing the reduction of their political space. Collaborating in the subordination of popular women are former supporters of popular women's movement are NGOs, the Church and international development communities. Analysis of an NGO sponsored women's project confirms that conjunctural conditions pose particular obstacles to organizing efforts which are concerned with promoting continued processes of identity formation among popular women, limiting possibilities for resurgence. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)