Feminist Networks: Building Regions in Latin Americaweb.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/FLACSO-ISA BuenosAires 2014/Archi… · 2102 in different Latin American countries, with more than

FEMINIST NETWORKS: BUILDING REGIONS IN LATIN AMERICA

Feminist Networks: Building Regions in Latin America

Almudena Cabezas 1

The article presents a feminist geopolitical practice that seeks to expand regionalism

approach addressing transnational feminist action in Latin America. After a brief

discussion on literature, I analyze the discourses and practices of three feminist Latin

American networks: the Network of Women Transforming the Economy (REMTE),

Latin American Chapter of International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN-LA), and

Marcosur Feminist Articulation (AFM).

I address networks meanings they give to integration to understand how they negotiated

and constructed meaning not without tensions and ambivalences. In this case, the

analysis of the symbolic and the material negotiations among the transnational networks

studied, their encounters and conflicts, show the contribution of feminist transnational

networks to building regions: the progressive redefinition of Latin America and the

emergence and consolidation of South America as a privileged reference for action. The

reflections are based on intensive fieldwork conducted between 2003-2004 and 2010-

2102 in different Latin American countries, with more than 40 feminist activists.

El artículo presenta una práctica geopolítica feminista que busca ampliar la

comprensión del regionalismo analizando la acción feminista transnacional en América

Latina. Tras presentar la literatura sobre el tema se analizan los discursos y prácticas de

tres de las principales redes feministas de América Latina: el Capítulo Latinoamericano

de la Red Internacional de Género y Comercio (IGTN-LA), la Red de Mujeres

Transformando la Economía (REMTE), y la Articulación Feminista Marcosur (AFM).

1 This article will be published by Latin American Policy, all right reserved.

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Se abordan el proceso de construcción de este tipo de redes y los significados que

otorgan a la integración a través de las formas en que negocian y construyen una visión

compartida, no exenta de tensiones y ambivalencias. Las reflexiones se basan en el

trabajo de campo intensivo realizado entre 2002-2004 y 2010-2102 en los diferentes

países de América Latina, con más de 40 activistas.

El análisis de lo simbólico y de las negociaciones de materiales entre las redes

transnacionales estudiadas, sus encuentros y desencuentros, muestra como las redes

transnacionales feministas contribuyen a la construcción regional, son parte inherente de

la redefinición progresiva de América Latina y del surgimiento y consolidación de

Sudamérica y, en especial, del MERCOSUR como una referencia privilegiada para la

acción.

Key Words: transnational networks, feminism, Latin America, regionalism, resistance

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The article presents a feminist geopolitical practice that seeks to expand regionalism

addressing the transnational feminist action in Latin America. I examine transnational

feminist networks and their relationship to the regionalization processes from two

bodies of literature: the new regionalism approach from a critical and feminist

geopolitics and women’s and feminist studies on transnational social movement.

I expose briefly the regionalization process ongoing in Latin America including

reference to free trade negotiations and formal regionalization processes. Then I analyze

discourses and practices of three feminist networks in Latin America: REMTE (Women

Transforming the Economy Network, LA-IGTN and AFM in order to understand their

contribution to regionalism. Then Latin American feminist networks are interpreted as

political spaces where actress starting from different positions negotiates, formally an

informally, the social, cultural and political meaning of regionalism.

Transnational Feminist Networks on Regional Key

The processes of emergence, transformation, building and recreation of the regions are

contingent, consistent and multidimensional. The regionalization is a fluid and diffuse

political phenomenon which gives rise to a variety of speeches that move meanings and

power relations (Jelin, 2003).

The new regionalism approaches underscore the relevance of history, culture

and, the existence of a plurality of actors and strategies that act as promoters or

detractors of the region-building processes (Söderbaum & Shaw, 2003). Some authors

recognize the profound and complex relationships between state and non-state, formal

and informal regionalism to give input to the social in contemporary regional analyzes

(Boas & Marchand, 2003).

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Moreover feminist geopolitics concern to incorporate real people to maps of

power relations destabilizes binary conceptions of politics, economics and international

relations global / local, center / periphery (Kofman & Young, 1995; Sassen, 2000 &

2003, Staeheli et Al., 2004). Focus on forms of power, identity and subjectivity through

space, that includes but it is not limited to gender positions or geographic locations,

feminist geopolitics address the dimensions of power and identity that contribute to the

formation of people and places as subjects (Grewal & Kaplan 1994). This is a complex

understanding of global economic restructuring since emphasize human agency over

structure through their bottom-up perspective, as well as relational thinking feminism

reveals power structures in society that enable and affect the process of global

restructuring. That is: examining the effects of gender on global restructuring and the

effects of global restructuring on gender (Marchand & Runyan, 2010; Hyndman, 2004;

Marchand 2005; McDonald, 2002; Sassen, 2000 & 2003).

The expansion of female labor force and their growing role in the world

economy (Saseen, 2003), as well the persistence of social and gender inequalities fed

the emergence of women's movements beyond national arenas (Moghadam 2005). In

this sense regional or transnational feminist networks act like a counter representation

spaces (Hyndman & Staeheli 2003; Moghadam, 2005).

To consider regional conditions in which transnational feminist’s networks

acting we must go beyond the regional scale as a context of action (Marchand 2003,

Jelin 2003). For example, when North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA was

signed (1992), the transnational resistance to the treaty was part of the North American

building process and changed the conditions of national movements in Canada (Sparke

,1995), United States (Liebowitz, 2002) and Mexico (Domínguez ,2002),. Local and

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transnational forces are mutually constitutive and shape the dynamics of the feminist

movement (McDonald, 2005).

However, talk on transnational networks is commonplace to refer to associations

of groups and individuals act and interact regardless of -and often in opposition to-

States. Transnational networks and coalitions have become alternative concepts to

construct horizontal relations as a new democratic utopia. Literature on transnational

networks opens avenues to explore formation, action and identity of the networks,

coalitions and, transnational movements and to study the relations between different

spatial scales on regionalization processes (Keck & Sikkink 1998, Smith et al., 1998,

Sikkink 2003, Tarrow 2005).

Here is important to reveal how members of feminist networks see, imagine and

build the region through its practices and discourses and the meanings given to free

trade agreements, integration process, formal practices and discourses on

regionalization. That implies to research on intersections among power, ideas and,

unequal relations between places and people on the move of the reconfigurations made

by regionalization process and free trade agreements.

Free Trade Negotiations and Latin American regionalism

As mentioned before the NAFTA negotiations open a space for transnational

resistance in North America, but the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations

expanded the cycle of protest to hemispheric scale. The emergence of alternative field

from social movement to fight the FTAA had maximum expression in the Hemispheric

Social Alliance (CSA), a huge transnational coalition, nourished by previous

experiences around NAFTA and Common South Market (MERCOSUR). However the

FTAA negotiations are trigger for an unprecedented regional activity (Marchand, 2005)

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that unifies movements, organizations and social networks of huge spatial, demands and

objectives in a continental cycle of protests from 2001 to 2005. There was a frame

alignment process between movements and social organizations to establish the

equivalence among neoliberalization, globalization and United States imperialism,

linked the fighting against free trade with previous protest against Structural Adjustment

Policies in Latin America (Cabezas, 2008).

The HSC launches Against the FTAA Campaign in the World Social Forum –

WSF (Porto Alegre, Brazil 2002). The coalition against the FTAA used successfully the

politics of scale to lobby local, national and regional level and finally getting some

governments from blocking the negotiations. However, the alleged strategic

convergence of social movements shows limitations to implement a fluid and material

handling of gender. This situation obligated to women networks to work hardly on

double advocacy against FTAA and to include feminist demands in the HSA and the

WSF (Conaway, 2013), alternatives spaces where the three networks have develop their

different political strategies.

Three Latin American Feminist Networks: LA-IGTN, REMTE and AFM

Finalizing Twentieth Century transnational coalitions and networks arise with different

spatial and organizational geometry to share information and resources, expand the

impact and spread of their actions and responsiveness to changes. In short, the

transnationalization of feminist networks comes from the reorganization of feminist

movement feed by experiences accumulated in Feminist Encounter of Latin America

and the Caribbean, United Nations Women Conferences and the experience of structural

adjustment on women. Of course, some networks as REPEM emerged in the late 80's,

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however, quantitative and qualitative leap in presence and impact of feminist

transnational networks in Latin America occurs during the 90's (Alvarez, 2000).

The LA-IGTN, REMTE and AFM are transnational spaces with a strong

regional –Latin American- character. Although they are quite different in organization,

functions and objectives they share a temporal frame of creation instead they have

different discourses and practices. Before to address the meaning of regionalism to

them, let is go to a brief introduction of their history, beginning with the less known of

them: the LA- IGTN Chapter (McDonald, 2005). Its activity is crucial to understand the

meanings of regionalism and the resistance to free trade in Latin America because its

aim to give visibility to the impacts of free trade and integration agreements on women

and also place the trade on the feminist and women agenda1.

Created on a Free Trade Impact of Women Workshop (Granade, December,

1999) by global networks as Development Alternative with Women for a New ERA

(DAWN), Women Environment and Development (WEDO) and Women in

Development in Europe (WIDE), the IGTN is a world network formed by regional

chapters and professional women with a history in the NGOs and academic spaces, the

world of gender. The global coordination of IGTN was in the Center of Concern

(Washington), who also coordinates the North American Chapter (Canada, United

States and Mexico), while the Latin American Coordination was located in Brazil,

which in 2005 became global coordinator to balance North-South relations, so now the

Latin American coordination is based between Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

LA-IGTN was formed by women with experiences on research, advocacy and/or

training in regional scope (personal interview, Buenos Aires, 2004). They are embedded

in networks of women who are already established and try to bring a new look on trade

and gender that lack other groups. The first focal points of the LA-IGTN were Brazil,

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Chile, Mexico and Uruguay (1999) but soon the network expands to Argentina (2000)

and Colombia (2001). Its priority was develop a new perspective on trade and gender

lacking by other groups, taking the FTAA negotiations and MERCOSUR as core focus

(Rodríguez, 2002). There is by a labor division coordinated by objectives on research

(Uruguay), advocacy (Brazilian) and training (Argentinean)2.

During the interviews the network appeared as a professionalized one with labor

relations between the global network and focal points by subside projects or contracts

between them. It solves part of the financing of the network and set away the voluntary

work as a strategy to consolidate the network. The informal talks with some members

shown the network expansion performed taking into account the expertise of the

candidates and trust and amity built on previous experience of political activism,

persecution and exile. This practice creates strong bonds of trust but also slows down

the introduction of new and young women to the network, which does not occur until

2005 with the addition of Guatemala as lat focal point.

Thus, although LA- IGTN operated with minimal organization the existence of a

stable, independent structure of a social base as well the high specialization in trade and

gender, make it a perfect advocacy network as defined by Keck and Sikkink (1998). As

specialists in double advocacy –gender on trade issues and trade in gender issues, the

members of this network joint with other sectors of civil society. The LA-IGTN joint

the Women's Committee of the HSC with REMTE and some of its members participate

in the AFM too.

REMTE was established in 1997 by women organizations from Peru, Mexico,

Chile, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Colombia and expands to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Brazil,

Venezuela and Ecuador during the next year. It was created as a forum for analysis,

exchange, mobilization and negotiation that seeks to contribute to economic ownership

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by women and the construction of political, economic, human, equitable and sustainable

to improve the quality of life of woman, especially to most impoverished and excluded

of them3.

The network is formed by organizations working on the consequences of

structural adjustment policies for woman that formalized their ties in a workshop

celebrated in Lima (October, 1997), as stated by one of its founders: “The founding act

is more like a close, rather than a start, that is ... We close a period to begin a new one”

(personal interview, Lima, October 2003). So, REMTE is a regional umbrella network

by national networks or assemblies which also operate as network or other bias, a

profile of grassroots women with a preference on direct action, but also incorporate

strategies for research, advocacy and training.

REMTE focus on economic justice and women's social, economic and cultural

rights implies the relevance of the FTTA negotiations, but it refuse to participate on free

trade or WTO negotiations and its work was carried mainly to press national

governments. The first action that triggers the network was a comparative research on

women’s employment (REMTE, 2001), workshop Feminist Alternatives to Economy

(Québec 2001) and the “Manifiesto de las Mujeres Andinas ante la V Ronda de

Negociaciones del TLC con Estados Unidos” (Guayaquil, October 2004) .4

The strength of REMTE is on the number to achieve their visibility because its

ability to mobilize a large numbers of women. The strategy will be direct political

protest through marches, rallies, day strike and so on to reverse the neoliberal model

that marginalizes and excludes women, and participate on mixed groups to meet with

other social movements to get cross ownership of women's agenda, even partial. The

network joints the WSF and Social Forum of the Americas (FSA) secretaries, the

CLOC/Via Campesina, Women's International Democratic Federation, Jubilee South,

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and could be seen as a Latin American branch of the World March of Women (WMW),

the bigger women network in the world5.

Although Latin American IGTN and REMTE are quite different as organization

and by activities they joint the Women Committee of HSA as a vocabulary and a set of

strategies to accomplish their objectives, while the AFM never participated in the HSA.

The AFM is defined as a political space or stream to created feminist political opinion

and to make actions, as a member said: the AFM is a space to think strategies, not a

network, because many organizations called as network are not really such (personal

interview, Montevideo 2004). The, the AFM created a flexible network structure where

membership could be personal or national (for example, the National Paraguayan

Women Coordination), NGOs or other national or regional networks, as REPEM6. In

this way AFM provides a grid of variable geometry because members operated ad hoc

forming clusters by short-term political goals and contingent demands. The diversity of

belongings is a key element to produce dialogue, political and strategic thinking.

Moreover, membership also differs between the organizers group and those

organizations or persons who adhere to proposals or particular actions.

The AFM was created in a seminar held at the headquarters of Everyday Women

(Nairobi, 2000) and its headquarters placed in Cotidiano Mujer (Montevideo), and it

was still in institutionalization process in 2003 when its Charter of Principles was

published. However, the apparent lack of structure did not stop its recognition among

women and feminist organizations in Latin American because some members are

fundamental nodes of Latin American feminism and have strong links in Europe, South

West, and Asia, especially by DAWN participation on the network. However, the AFM

gained visibility when the Campaign against Fundamentalisms launched in the WSF

(2002), focused on religious dogmatism and the neoliberal agenda as two streams or

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connected universes to restrict women’s human rights. The WSF was the privileged

space for its action and to coordinate the feminist presence on World Social Forum, the

AFM launched the METAFOROS and Feminist Dialogues (Conaway, 2008).

Although there were treated separately, the AFM try to joined the right of

women to control their bodies and economic and social rights in the WSF. The focus on

sexuality is clear in the "Against fundamentalism, your mouth is critical" a question not

included by REMTE as we can see hereinafter.

Resistance to Free Trade on Latin American Feminist Transnational Networks

REMTE is a regional network formed by ten national networks - that brings a

large contingent of grassroots organizations-, with a national membership and a strong

bias to massive mobilization. Meanwhile, the IGTN-LAC is organized by country focal

points and is mostly spread among Southern Cone countries, being the typical case of a

transnational advocacy network highly professionalized. Last, the AFM constitutes a

school of thought shaped by NGOs, transnational networks, national organizations and,

individual members that moves around the creation of alternative feminist knowledge.

These three networks share the diagnosis that free trade agreements are not good

for Latin Americans mainly to woman but they stress different causalities to explain it.

For example, the FTTA negotiations were an enlargement of imperialism to REMTE

because is a threat to state sovereignty, while to the IGTN it was an obstacle to the

development of Latin American countries that would increase social inequalities, and

AFM stressed market fundamentalism is a limitation for citizenship and democracy. Try

to delve into the frameworks in which networks members register these meanings of

free trade allow us to understand their political differences.

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The formal meaning handled by REMTE about free trade agreements refers to a

story about the nation-State in which national sovereignty is on danger, especially clear

with the FTAA a "new type of instrument with implications for the whole economy,

states and the life of people in the region: economically and geopolitically, the free

trade compromises development, sovereignty, democracy and the real future of our

countries" (Leon, 2002). There was opposition to FTAA because it was against national

constitutions, citizenship and international human rights’ treaties. In this sense, REMTE

has a modern discourse on sovereignty that contrast with the discourse of IGTN-LAC

on FTTA. As a thematic network on gender and trade its members had a speech

organized primarily around stages of integration process.

If the FTAA was not a real integration process the network demanded introduce

new issues to generate a real integration: "For the whole civil society, including

women's movement and feminist the FTAA involves threats, but also open opportunities

and stimulates challenge to debate and question the proposed development and the type

of integration economy we want" (personal interview in Buenos Aires, April 2004).

According to the diagnosis the IGTN launched an advocacy strategy to reform the

FTAA; the traditional developmental discourse of the Economic Commission for Latin

American and Caribbean (ECLAC) resonated here (IGTN, 2001). By contrast, to the

AFM economic fundamentalism limited citizenship and extend a model that excludes

people, as one member stated: “Democracy and citizenship are not going with free

trade, the liberal model. Notice, the look of citizenship is rather complicated: you are

more citizens when you have more access to consumption, but more consumer

citizenship does not equal to more democracy. This is a fundamental threat to our

democracies, apart from the level of exclusion and poverty" (personal interviewed in

Lima, October 2003).

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AFM, LA-IGTN and REMTE were chosen because their feminism awareness on

women’s rights, feminism, globalizations and integration process. They share and

compete for single spaces on Latin American feminist social movement. In this sense, it

will be relevant to know about the perception that has each other and how they perform

in the HSA and WSF. As we said REMTE and IGTN-LAC joint the Women's

Committee of the HSC as a counterweight to their own in Latin American region, but

REMTE members considered that IGTN did not participate in mass protest and its was

more involved in global issues with the WTO, as one of them said "(...) we organized

with the Gender and Trade Network, not the Marcosur [AFM], [with the] Gender and

Trade Network, in the Cancun Forum. We were together in Cancun in the Women's

Caucus, but again when the forces were mobilizing there were us. Then we appear with

the banners, we do the mobilizations" (personal interview in Bogotá, November 2003).

While IGTN is shown as a researcher network dealing with trade, gender and world

issues but detached from the women's movement they work together in the HSA while

REMTE never work with the AFM because: “It has to do… I want to relate a little with

this fracture. It is a personal opinion, if I share with many people and… (silence), it is

(silence),… as a division within the feminist movement from: the clever, those with the

vanguard, are Marcosur [AFM], and all that (silence), which give a little more line,

and somehow the popular feminists, who are the March of Women [World March of

Women], which are those that are stuck in mixed groups, etcetera. It is a purely

personal opinion (personal interview, Lima, October 2003).

It must to say that the labor division is corroborated by the impressions of AFM

member interviewed about REMTE. Although some member tries to minimize

differences between them as "different agenda", the truth is that REMTE traditional left

leadership of social movements and political party’s style is not welcome by the AFM.

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This tension is also evident analyzing how IGTN-LA sees REMTE and AFM. In a very

polite description, a member of IGTN noted that REMTE is a network "more in the

Andean region" while the AFM “had greater development in the Southern Cone”

(personal interview, Buenos Aires, 2004). Besides this geographical criterion other

LA.IGTN member identified REMTE "with bases [popular] experiences and a very

different political alignment”, while with the AFM “there is a high political

identification” (personal interview, Montevideo, March 2004).

These narratives mark differences in the networks as political subjects. REMTE

is located near the leading forms of traditional social movements that emphasize the

distributive and national side, while AFM face a dynamic representation of primarily

political and feminist identity. Moreover, the field of identification with gender

practicing of IGTN-LAC occupies an ambiguous space and, maybe their highly

professional and handled of academic speech allows it to share with both. For example,

beginning from opposite strategy about FTAA, IGTN-LAC converged with REMTE to

avoid FTTA negotiations even though its political identification is closer to the AFM.

When they realized that FTTA pursues "the extraction of natural resources, attacks on

the democratic system, the use of low-cost labor force, militarization and disregard of

human rights" (IGTN, 2002), the IGTN-LAC demand to stop FTAA negotiations and to

regulate their economies and protect the communities biological and agricultural

resources.

This small talk shows how practices and discourses within transnational

networks are not perennial and how they are modified in interaction with other actors or

by a change in the circumstances (Jelin, 2003). However, REMTE and IGTN joint

together to spread and disseminate gender demands and trade relations but the

assessment that their members interviewed did over Women’s Committee and the HSA

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are quite different. To a REMTE member the HSC was instrumental because they

worked with other social movements: "We did realized there was really a process to do

with others, can not you do alone, because it is also our responsibility, not our only

responsibility (...)We are not the only ones we have to give the answers, not us alone.

We have to do with others", but a LA-IGTN member minimized the relevance of the

HSC: "It is a fluctuating space and it only has little effectiveness on the points that sets

the official agenda of FTAA process, and passes at times and most flourishing times

which not much happens"7.

Nominally there is a clear positioning behind the choice of women label in

REMTE and the choice of feminist label in AFM. A priori we could place the latter in a

vertex of a continuum in which the most outstanding reference for the construction of

their collective identity is feminism, which places problems arising from the positioning

and performance of women in societies shaped by patterns that legitimized their

subordination, exclusion and marginalization in politics, economics and culture. By the

other side of the vertex, the collective identity of REMTE members has built around

sisterhood of women in solidarity mixed group. This is clear when the issues relating to

sexual and reproductive rights were poorly addressed by REMTE or IGTN-LAC while

the AFM has not paid much attention to trade issues. An AFM member stated: ''So ...

Now, in this context, there are different emphases. There is, perhaps I will story, to see

... The struggles for integration in Latin America and to confront the FTAA and the

WTO, what not ... It is a shared struggle. But there are different emphases. There are

people doing the fight against the FTAA is fundamental militancy, and there they do

from feminist struggle as fundamental to talk or guide some kind of strategies in these

movements” (personal interview in Lima, October 2003). Then, a REMTE member

affirmed: "However, with pure theory does not do things, is not it? Do advocacy in

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United Nations and in all areas and conferences as possible. But it is also important to

strengthen the internal motions, motion economics of women, who begin to take the

issue of labor, problems of women in food security, women's issues in the agriculture"

(personal interview in Lima, October 2003).

However, conceptions of feminism are not univocal, nor the identity of women

refers to identical marks in every time and places. The speeches contain references to

the class and gender identity and a priori the AFM and REMTE represent two opposite

ways of understand feminism within a continuum, with the LA-IGTN stress on gender

situated it in a transitive position between them to the need to incorporate the look of

women in macroeconomic issues and the claim that these have left out feminist

approach, despite being central to women. Here to know the performance of the three

networks in the WSF could be help us to understand this question.

AFM and REMTE joint the WSF International Council but there was necessary

to give a strong fight to be assumed, a question that is not new for women (Conway,

2012). However from the beginning the insertion into the WSF were controversial

between both, specially regard sexual and reproductive rights. As a REMTE member

stated: “I criticized the abortion issue to be treated, for example, I seemed that it was

not the most important issue that should be treated in the WSF and certain people they

were raised. I felt I had to connect more with other economic, because that what

interests you is not stay with you. You have to mobilize and sensitize other people who

connected to political level, connecting with other positions on the economic and global

geopolitics issues. And we can treat those things [sexual and reproductive rights] in

other spaces or make a space before or after, but to others you have to sell other things.

So the World March has been so successful in the WSF, clear” (personal interview in

Lima, October 2003).

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Beyond this as I stated lines above networks discourse are not perennial. The

incorporation of new members to REMTE - the Economics and Feminism Brazil

Network- allowed the diffusion of new issues. For example, REMTE assumed the

relationship between military control and control of bodies near to sexual rights: "The

FTAA reinforces the subordinate position of our countries in the international division

of labor, unequal terms of trade and unfair market and international guarantees to

foreign investors over public goods. Women lose rights in the world of work, lost with

the increase prices of privatized utilities and the marketization of their bodies,

stimulated by the unbridled pursuit of dollars” (REMTE, 2005). Moreover, REMTE

started to be part of the South-South Dialogue an international coalition aimed to

strength the full citizenship of people discriminated because of their sexual orientation.

In AFM case, there is a displacement to incorporate labor demand of domestic

women workers and migrations over time, as well as race and indigenous by time.

Moreover, there is a space of flux between them occupied by some members of the LA-

IGTN that share with REMTE in HSC and with the AFM. It does not mean a discursive

convergence framework of meaning between so different networks as are REMTE and

AFM, but it is noted that interaction produces changes. In this case, we sow some

speeches will permeate the social space of regional activism of women's and feminist

movements.

Latin American Feminist Networks building regions

I have not yet delved into the forms in which the women interviewed assume the

identity of the network and their sense of regional space, and the importance they attach

to these issues. REMTE and LA-IGT are Latin American networks. REMTE member

underlined the importance of language to justify not to be a hemispherical network, an

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American’s one. As told by one of its founders, they decided to be just Latin American

to strengthen the capacities of women's organizations from the South. In a short talk a

member of REMTE called for the importance of the WMW whilst marked the need to

maintain a regional identity: "Our network is Latin American, not continental. It is Latin

American. We have a strong link with the Canadians, but decided on 97 they were

interested in launching the March [WMW], but we had interest in dealing with them

the March, it seemed interesting, but we reaffirm interest as region (...) Then we saw,

that... that it was the vision: we are not as large or as small, but we also maintain a

specific identity, because also with Canada since NAFTA…But no, we wanted a Latin

American identity” (personal interview, Bogota 2004). She said the incorporation of

Brazilian organization was not a linguistic problem trying to emphasize they do not

work in English although they joint the WMW with women from all over the world.

The reference to the English use appeared to be introduce to distinguish REMTE from

LA-IGTN. However, the spatial distribution of the later set traditional geopolitical

representation between North America and Latin America, and both regarding

Caribbean region. When I asked to one LA-IGTN member about the hemispheric space

the answer was straightforward: "It does not work” and she explained: “I was not

referring to the work of my network or women, but to the social and political relations

in general” (personal interview, Madrid, 2007). The Latin American region is the

framework for social action, but she marked differences inside this wide region, a

reference to REMTE as more Andean network were salient when she stated: There were

not communication problems with Brazilian because Brazilian understand Spanish and

women of the Southern Cone understand much Portuguese, which does not happen with

women of the Andes, which have traditionally been more alien to the processes taking

place in Brazil" (personal interview, Montevideo 2004).

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Here is recognition of new regional identification by the IGTN and AFM

members that allows us to understand the vision of MERCOSUR and its extension to

South America as a desirable regional reality, and emerging representation to counter-

balance the United States domination on the Americas: "(...) for us MERCOSUR, our

aspiration is ... Look, when we say the FTAA and other alternative American

integration, MERCOSUR is a bit of an aspiration that is actually transformed into a

process of integration, and increasingly more so. And besides, the MERCOSUR covers,

including all South American countries. Because really ... well South America share

similar realities, with all the differences, but their position in relation to the hegemonic

power of the United States, share different situations and even these are not the same

from Panama to the North" (personal interview, Buenos Aires, 2004).

In this sense, IGTN women indicate that now South American integration and no

more Latin American integration is desirable, without forgetting the regional specificity

of the Southern Cone, one again differenced from the Andean region, so: “Southern

Cone can not be studied with the same analytical schemes elsewhere, imposed from

outside, such as the feminization of poverty. Not surprisingly in the Southern Cone

women have accumulated practical experience working for many years. A long history

of contacts of friends, working together, trust…" (personal interview, Buenos Aires,

2004).

Furthermore, the AFM according to one of its founders emerges as a completely

Latin American space but it is looking to go further in its efforts to embrace the global

South, as a concrete geopolitical entity in the global scene. Although the idea is born

from the AFM under the Global South, the wordplay in Spanish between Marcosur y

Mercosur (frame-South and market-South) allows us to think in a clear regional bias

here. Moreover, when the leftish rulers in Southern Cone countries went beyond

19


neoliberal open regionalism women from the AFM and LA-IGTN were involved in the

Mercosur Women's Forum8.

The re-definition of regional identity was in process linked to changes in the

practices of legal and formal regionalization process. Before the emergence of

UNASUR, during the first stages of the South American Summits, a REMTE member

looked favorably to the MERCOSUR but she also raised some misgivings because: "…

until we see all this sympathy Lula proposed a strengthening of South America (...) But

can also be a proposal that does not address other representatives, put people in the

Andean region, or people from Central America or Mexico. Here, there are little things

that are complex" (Bogotá, 2004).

Although the work on transnational networks facilitates the identification of

common goals is a fact that even some traditional components survive in the collective

imaginary. The regional Latin American identification appear as limited to a discursive

evocation of defense, an imagined community against third parties like against the

FTTA. The practice to build regions seems to be arduous and we found the emergence

of new regional identifications in the three networks studies, where Southern Cone and

South American take relevance in women narratives.

Final Words on Feminist Transnational Networks Contribution to Regionalism

Representations of regions are always in change and were be very fruitful in

Latin America last decade. From an imaginary of Latin American union to the

UNASUR there was integration frenzy. So it is pertinent to ask how the networks

studied catering regionalization processes and how conceive the regional. As we have

seen IGTN and REMTE are embedded in the free trade negotiations since they were

created and the AFM was not. However, confirming the importance and specificity of

20


the Southern Cone the AFM strategies seek to consolidate a field of regional actors for

advocacy in 2005 aimed to consolidate the Mercosur Women Specialized Network (Red

Especializada de la Mujer), prioritizing research on the employment situation of women

in order to coordinate state and regional actions. Here is clear how the AFM assumes

that feminism must address poverty of women, the democratization of land and access

of women to the right, namely, the demands of redistribution.

These are main objectives to REMTE from its beginnings (León, 2001) for his

involvement in the CLOC / Via Campesina and WMW actions, which have turned to

food sovereignty a fundamental demand of rural women in Latin America. LA-works

IGTN food sovereignty within Mercosur’s Meeting on Family Farming (REAF).

However, LA-IGTN member assumed that we are still far from women's movements to

understand the importance of regional spaces because these processes are not yet in the

daily plans. This is a core question because the practices and discourses analyzed come

from women involved in regional negotiations that appear as subjects rooted in national

context with regular transnational activities. As Conway stated (2013) they appear to be

largely urban and middle or upper class women.

In this sense, the members of transnational networks are educated cosmopolitan

women. To finalized I desire to share the visions on regionalism from black, popular

and indigenous women from Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil y Peru gathered in a meeting

celebrate in Quito (2010) to design a regional agreement to cooperate among them9.

Three women from Ecuador stated different visions of the formal regionalization

process. The first one said: “Yes, we influence the Andean Parliament, but it remains a

very distant to most of us figure, in addition to lack of resources we feel overwhelmed

by the magnitude of this institution vs. small organizations like our women”; the second

report to have direct experience on bi-national projects in water management within the

21


CAN, in the South of Ecuador and northern Peru10; and the last one, without noted was

sums up the boomerang mechanism that nurtured the politics of scales (Cabezas, 2012a)

described how women from the Ecuador's northern border works with displaced

Colombian women that watch to the Andean Parliament as resource to get laws they

could not get by blockade in their domestic space.

In this sense, stories from the meeting show relevant accounts of the informal

regionalization processes. The region is not an empty vessel but it is where experience

and meaning are manifested because people and societies produce and reproduce the

regions (Passi, 2003), as the narrative of a Brazilian women in this workshop show:

“Although we can always scare we're actually in the regional, the Peoples Summit, the

WMW; other spaces, regional ones; and, in fact, already networks… There is a regional

context that we need to shore up, and it's where we are participating directly in some

cases consciously and in others unconsciously”.

Despite the differences features among LA-IGTN, REMTE and AFM and as it

shown before regionalism may not have the same meaning to Afrocolombian rural

women from REMTE than for a white urban Uruguayan woman from the AFM, neither

this meaning will be similar between a Peruvian or Brazilian woman joint the same

network. However, conflict, dialogue and interaction among women in these networks

give content to regional spaces in permanent redefinition. This ongoing political process

produces spaces for convergence and a greater legitimacy of feminist demands in order

to seek so far elusive women rights.

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1 The website on the LA-IGTN in Internet is: http://www.generoycomercio.org/ 2 The Internet site of LA-IGTN has training materials, research and specialty items, and the convening of seminars, workshops, conferences, and actions, as well the Bulletins newspapers published in several languages. 3 The website of REMTE is: http://movimientos.org/es/remte 4 More information about REMTE activities are in Dominguez and Bidegain article’s in this LAMP special number. 5 References on WMW are in ALAI (2013). 6 It is possible to know the complex composition of the AFM visiting their website http://www.mujeresdelsur-afm.org.uy 7 It is must be noted that these assessments were produced at different time: first conversation took place in October 2003, before WTO Summit in Miami, while the second one took place in Buenos Aires in June 2004, when the failure of negotiations for the FTAA was just evident. 8 The LA-IGTN has developed gender indicators on the members of Mercosur in which includes Chile and Bolivia as associate members; in Internet: http://www.generoycomercio.org/indicadores/Informe_resumen_de_indicadores.pdf 9 The meeting was celebrating to prepare as a participative diagnosis to design a Regional Agreement to Intermon Oxfam–AECID, directed by me and Eveling Carrazco from Nicaragua a researchers. 10 SOCICAN

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http://www.generoycomercio.org/

http://movimientos.org/es/remte

http://www.mujeresdelsur-afm.org.uy/

http://www.generoycomercio.org/indicadores/Informe_resumen_de_indicadores.pdf

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