Encountering Latin American and Caribbean Feminisms

In what follows we explore the key axes of debate that produced coalition and controversy consensus and conflict encuentros and desencuentros among the diverse currents of the Latin American feminisms at the first seven of these regional events--Bogota Colombia (1981); Lima Peru (1983); Bertioga Brazil (1985); Taxco Mexico (1987); San Bernardo Argentina (1990); Costa del Sol El Salvador (1993); and Cartagena Chile (1996). The story we tell examines core movement debates as they have been enacted at each of the Encuentros paying particular attention to those held in the 1990s. Coalitions conflicts and controversies emerging in specific national or subregional contexts we argue have been restaged and sometimes rescripted in these transnational arenas. Debates and tensions unfolding through the Encuentros in turn have often been reenacted in local and national movement spheres--thus highlighting the mutual constitution of the national and the transnational. We explore three themes around which these debates have pivoted: 1) shifting conceptions of movement "autonomy" and feminisms relationship to the larger womens movement and to other actors in civil and political society the state and international institutions; 2) controversies generated by the movements recurrent "crises of inclusion" and "crises of expansion"; and 3) debates centered on differences inequalities and power imbalances among women in general and among feminists in particular. (excerpt)