This introductory essay frames a series of ethnographic studies from a three year research project involving eleven women researchers and different processes of indigenous women’s organizing in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia that aim to secure greater gender justice within communities, organizations and societies. Taken together, the studies examine how indigenous women collectively engage with different forms of legality, and with ideas about (in)justice and (in)security. In particular, the authors explore the ways in which the intersectionality of violence against indigenous women is expressed, reinforced and resisted through resort to legal mechanisms and discourses, deploying different framings which, as we argue below, are both situated and relational. The introductory essay presents the different cases and discusses some of the key theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues for analyzing indigenous women’s mobilization for justice and security in contexts of legal pluralism in Latin America.
(2017) “Introduction: Indigenous women and legal pluralities in Latin America: Demanding justice and security” in Rachel Sieder (ed.) Demanding Justice and Security: Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, NJ: pp.1-25. ISBN: 978-0-8135-8792-9