12 EFLAC 30 years of feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean: cutting loose, getting real & reconnecting.

May 5, 2011

Prologue

This document draws on the dialogues, dreams, hopes and agreements of the participants in the Methodological and Thematic Commission of the 12th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting (EFLAC, after the meeting's title in Spanish). It is also a reflection of proposals, comments and suggestions from many feminists in our region.

We face the enormous, but happy, task of commemorating 30 years since the First Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting, when we established November 25 as the International Day Against Violence Against Women.

From this perspective, we have drafted a document that has been enriched and filled with shared sentiments, and later, we incorporated the results from a regional consultation on the issues of central interest during these 30 years of feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean, producing six versions of this text in the process.

The meeting held in Bogota by the Methodological and Thematic Commission was a significant moment for the development of this document. At this event, we agreed on the methodological framework of the actions of desatar (untying or "cutting loose") desnudar (uncovering or "getting real") and reanudar (and re-tying or "reconnecting"), as the following text explains.

The draft of this document was sent to many feminists in different countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and to feminists from many different social backgrounds in Colombia. Their comments and suggestions were incorporated into this final document that contains the meaning, methodology and contents of our 12th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting.

In this fashion, a polyphonic dialogue has been held, and we hope that we have captured the words, vibrations, feelings and desires, expectations and proposals of those who took part in drafting this document from the many different places and ways of experiencing feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

This paper--and other documents that will circulate--were written keeping in mind the interests expressed in the regional consultation and propose to encourage dialogue and discussion, theoretical/methodological/strategic production, and construction/deconstruction of feminist knowledge and the meaning of feminism in this corporal and historic geography. In this fashion, we open the 12th Meeting, which is already underway in this sense, with multiple expressions and contributions from feminists participating of their own accord.

Cutting Loose, Getting Real and Reconnecting

The title of the 12th EFLAC, 30 anos de feminismo Latinoamericano y del Caribe: Desatar, desnudar y reanudar (30 Years of Feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Cutting Loose, Getting Real and Reconnecting) (1) proposes to review the path that we have already tread in order to cut loose the knots with which we have bound ourselves, to reconnect by taking up the discussions and dialogues that we have abandoned, getting real by literally baring it all: our bodies, minds and the political stakes for a decent, free and independent life for women. We hope that this political exercise will allow us to think collectively about the horizon of feminist struggles in the region.

The Meeting returns to Colombia after three decades, and this Commission believes that this event provides the perfect opportunity to evaluate our efforts, taking full advantage of the capacity for reflection of the feminist movement, as well as the movement's increasing pluralism, to explore together the routes that will allow us to move forward. Our starting point is our physical place in the world: Latin America and the Caribbean, which is by far an insignificant factor, rather, it marks our perspective and our political position in the context of global feminism.

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From this geographical place and political standpoint, we once again invoke the well-known words that have inspired us in other moments to act together: desatar, desnudar and reanudar. They invoke knots, networks, tangles and new beginnings, and so we want to make clear how we are using them and how they will guide the development of this Meeting politically, methodologically and strategically.

To begin, we want to start from an understanding of "knots" as described by Julieta Kirkwood (1986): "... knots can be undone following the reverse of their trajectory, carefully ... using the thread behind to discover their size and meaning or they can be cut with scissors or swords to immediately conquer whatever is being disputed. And there I believe we find the first brutal divergence between knowledge and power ..."

In this regard, our proposal to untie the knots, to discover them and then to reconnect them intends to create a scenario for debate in which we can present our arguments, listen to one another and exchange ideas that allow us to recognize individual and collective powers that transverse our relationships and that have allowed us to grow as feminists and as a movement but also to evaluate the efforts of feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean. We propose that the individual and collective power of feminism in the region inspires individual and collective knowledge that allows us to recognize one another and mobilize. We will explore these ideas here.

Desatar (untying or "cutting loose")

We understand that knots "are not static, nor rigid; they contain multiple entrances and exits, especially now, when it seems as if the movement is at a crucial juncture with regard to a change in logic in the face of current paradigmatic transformations that still have not been assimilated in all their complexity" (Olea and Vargas, 1998: 140).

The knots to which we refer are political. They find their origin in the oppressive system that we call patriarchy, which is constituted by and in turn conditioned by class exploitation, racism, heterosexism and colonialism. Our knots are the structural and organizing nucleus of an unjust society that includes the domination of women. These knots have been consolidated over time through the abusive exercise of the power of might and the accumulation of resources in the hands of a few.

They have been made visible and challenged by the feminist movement in their various forms, and yet, they remain with us to this day. They are matters still key for changing women's lives, and they divide or separate us, according to the concepts, strategies or resources that each region, country, network, organization or individual feminist considers most appropriate or essential.

According to Julieta Kirkwood, knots "make reference to the form of growth--neither gentle nor harmonious--of the movement. We can rush to resolve them, trying to eliminate them with a single sword stroke, like Alexander the Great when faced with the Gordian Knot, and thereby end the quest and the discussion. We could also attempt to untangle them, separating the threads, looking for the beginning, following the threads as they intertwine, revealing their reorganization through feminist knots, working towards a feminist politics" (Olea and Vargas, 1998: 139).

For Latin American and Caribbean feminism, knots have never been restraints. They have been catalysts, motors and/or the impulse of our political action. They are also questions that have been formulated, for which answers have been sought, critical issues that still demand our attention today. And thus, time and again, we return to them to continue to transform our political practices.

Desatar (untying or "cutting loose") in the 12th EFLAC has the same meaning as loosen, unbind, release or set free, first using the tools of memory, its construction and reconstruction, being told through different voices and perspectives and then using the tools of evaluation, reviewing our many gains but also the difficult challenges and setbacks that we have experienced throughout the region.

Desnudar (uncovering or "getting real")

Reconstructing memory and undertaking an evaluation implies baring it all or desnudar. In a literal sense, it means uncovering our bodies, revealing our own skin, not covering them with clothing that sometimes prevents us from identifying our bodies and ourselves clearly. With this strategy, we hope to critically address our political practices, individually and collectively, recognizing our failures, as well as our collective triumphs.

Feminism exists and takes action in local and region contexts that likewise influence the way that feminism acts as well as its objectives. Latin American and Caribbean feminism is plural and diverse; it expresses our differences and multiplicity and also intends to be ethical, democratic and pacifist, and to express solidarity. Also, like any other social and political movement, there is power, inequality and conflict in feminism, and that is why we have created languages, symbols and signs that allow us to understand one another and fight together, even though overuse may have left them bereft of meaning or content.

Let's strip bare the patriarchy, capitalism, racism, colonialism, the abuse of power, the heterosexual mandate, abortion, violence in all forms, the hegemonic and arbitrary imposition of sex/gender over our bodies and inequality among women. Let us cast off the worn-out clothing of all these concepts. Let's dive deep into democracy and autonomy. Let's renew or reaffirm their political meaning in our struggle today.

This is a new opportunity to position ourselves and our feminist struggles in this spatial and temporal context: we need to rethink and share ideas and arguments about the differences in feminist subjectivities and, in this regard, about the plurality and diversity of the political subject of feminism.

Reanudar (re-tying or "reconnecting"): What Comes Next

Amalia Fischer reminds us that: "The Latin American feminist movement has identified itself in all its multiplicity as a rhizome, in which there are no universal truths nor single unity. Latin American feminism has no center; it is not hierarchical, despite the tree-like structures that attempt to consolidate within the movement. Relationships, both within the movement and outside it and the actions of the movement are extremely complex because, in addition to being multiple, a plurality of ways of thinking, acting and being in the world are expressed within it. These interconnected cross-sections and plateaus that the feminist movement experiences are subjected to order-disorder-order ..." (Amalia Fischer, 1998).

It is in this non-linear route of order-disorder-order that we propose a Meeting of memory and evaluation, of baring it all and enjoying ourselves, but also of political analysis and of reconnecting with actions and strategies, together as a region, to the extent possible, but also recognizing those efforts that can only take place in specific places and/or as the result of specific efforts. Once again, we acknowledge that the strength of feminism is not only in its collective nature but also in its individualism: the feminist subject that creates, recreates and reconstructs her relationship with her peers in opportunities like the EFLACs.

This meeting wants to reconnect--symbolically, because we have never actually abandoned it--with the idea that "the meetings are not just opportunities for launching strategies publicly, for realpolitik, they are also opportunities for exchanging experiences, opinions, identifying problems and evaluating different practices that have been developed as well as proposing and linking tasks and projects for the future" (Amalia Fischer, 1998: 123).

By reanudar we mean to re-start, to begin again, to take up once more that which we desire to promote collectively, but also to recognize, to follow up on, to continue all that the feminist movement in Latin America and the Caribbean has achieved and transformed, finally, to renovate and reestablish our connections, commitments and strategies.

"The feminist meetings have been opportunities for the deterritorialization of masculine domination because: everyone participates as an individual; the meetings are the creation of an existential territory that one way or another attempts to collectively deconstruction masculine domination, based on the creation of a space for thought-action ..." (Amalia Fischer, 1998: 123).

In this new opportunity for thought and action, we are not interested in finalizing debates, radically outlining the issues or achieving some hoped for or desired ending for the Meeting beyond getting together once again.

In Sum....

Desatar and desnudar have something in common: both strategies help encourage our discussion of memory. The prefix "des" is a form of denial or inversion of the meaning of things, which reminds us that we have to search for and rediscover to find new meanings. And in reanudar, the prefix "re" points us to returning, to taking up once again our proposals as feminists. The two first elements generate reflection based on the past while the final one points to thinking about and building the future.

In the end--just as we feminists have learned throughout our history of struggle--our proposal is that in order to analyze and transform reality, we must propose a thematic and methodological strategy that is plural and diverse. We do not want to get stuck in oppositions or dilemmas, rather we want to be able to perceive and draw from multiple nuances.

An initial exercise of regional consultation through the application of nearly 70 surveys gave us a list of issues that deserve space and time in this meeting: citizenship, democracy and the need for a secular State; sexualities, racism, bodies and subjectivities; economic systems, poverty and globalization. Some of those surveyed expressed interest in discussing the relationship of feminism with other social movements, relations within the feminism itself and autonomy of feminist practices from the State and international cooperation. In this 12th EFLAC, we will cut loose, get real and reconnect with all of these issues.

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In the end, this Meeting hopes to be the scene of a celebration, commemorating the 30 years since Latin American and Caribbean feminists established November 25 as the International Day Against Violence Against Women, a historic achievement that today is part of many public agendas around the world and an iconic example of the impact that we can have together on the routes of feminism in our region.

A final note: The Methodological and Thematic Commission produced this background paper with the support and reflections of many feminists in Colombia and the region. It is the beginning of a series of provocations that we hope to generate from this commission. We feel that the methodology and the issues of debate are intrinsically linked (which is why we combined two commissions into one) and it is impossible to rethink the methodology for the meeting if the issues that we will discuss do not accompany this reflection. Desatar, desnudar and reanudar are the methodological foundation for our dialogue and from these perspectives/verbs we have constructed thematic provocations that will be introduced in the wake of this document. And from these verbs and points of view, we are building the methodological provocations that will later be circulated. They are separate documents that have been divided due to the constraints of time, however, we still think of the thematic and the methodological as intrinsically linked.

(1.) A note from the translator: Those readers who are fluent in both languages but choose to read the English translation will have already observed that the English-language title of the 12th EFLAC uses idiomatic expression to capture as best it can the philosophy behind the meeting. A literal translation--"Untying, Stripping and Reconnecting" --has unfortunate and probably unintentional BDSM implications and, therefore, was discarded as a useful resolution. Care has been taken to reflect the meaning of the Spanish-language title as explained in this essay, while presenting the English version in parallel to avoid confusion.