7 Feminist Encuentros in the 21st Century

Introduction: Why the Encuentros?

If a movement as large, diverse and heterogenous as Latin American feminism is to be understood by any single phenomenon, it would be the feminist encuentros. The Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounters, or the Encuentros feministas de Latinoamérica y del Caribe (EFLAC), are gatherings in which feminists from across the region come together for three days to share their experiences and to assess the demands, trajectory, and meanings of Latin American feminism. They have convened roughly every three years in rotating host cities, beginning in Bogotá in 1981. The early encuentros were composed mostly of educated, autonomous feminists whose identities were shaped by experiencing patriarchy both from repressive military dictatorships and from male-dominated Leftist opposition parties. As feminism has expanded into popular movements such as the broad-based movimiento de mujeres and become increasingly absorbed by the state and international organizations, the size and character of the encuentros has changed drastically. Much scholarship has been conducted on the changes in Latin American feminism and how those were reflected in the encuentros of the 20th century; this paper seeks to expand that scholarship by analyzing how classic feminist debates have evolved in the 21st century through a close analysis of the ninth through fourteenth encuentros (2002-2017).

The History of Encuentros

To understand the 21st century encuentros, one must understand the history of Latin American feminism from its incipit in the 1970s to its state at the turn of the century. This history has been extensively studied and can be understood from the writings of Álvarez (1998), Sternbach et al. (1992), Álvarez et al. (2002), and Bessis (2014).

Álvarez (1998) identifies five trends that defined Latin American feminism in the 1990s: the multiplication of spaces for feminist action, the selective absorption of feminist demands by the state, the professionalization of feminism, the articulation of increasingly formal networks, and transnationalism. She predicts that power differentials between feminists and the growing internal contradictions resulting from these five trends will be the major challenges for Latin American feminism in the new century.

Sternbach et al. (1992) review the contents and debates of the first five encuentros, which took place 1981-1990, and find that they reflect the trends Álvarez identified. In particular, the authors identify tensions that emerged from what Álvarez called the multiplication of spaces of feminist action. Because feminism was so derided in 1970s Latin America, including within the parties of the opposition Left, the históricas (original feminists) necessarily practiced feminism within small autonomous groups and felt that working with male-dominated organizations, such as parties and the state, was tantamount to anti-feminism. But as feminism was popularized by grassroots organizing efforts, it was selectively absorbed by popular social movements and eventually the state. This “transition from [a] small group of dedicated feminists to a large, board-based, politically heterogenous, multiracial movement” (Sternbach et al. 1992:422) began the tensions between militantes/políticas who supported leftist parties and those who opposed a party system as well as between the históricas and women from the popular movimiento de mujeres. The movimiento refers to poor women who organized to improve the quality of life in their communities but weren’t focused on what the históricas would have termed feminist issues (for example, challenging gender roles). Yet, as feminism expanded, all sorts of women – from the movimiento to political parties to trade unions – began calling themselves and their work feminist. Consequently, the encuentros during this period were replete with questions of: ‘“[j]ust who is a feminist?’”; “‘[j]ust what is a feminist politics?’”; and “‘[i]f all the types of political work represented here are feminist, then what does that mean?”’ (Sternbach et al. 1992:421). These questions seemed to be temporarily resolved at the fifth meeting in San Bernardo (1990), in which many agreed to expand the meaning of feminism, but they would resurface again at the next encuentros.

Álvarez et al. (2002) analyzes the continuation of these tensions in the sixth through eighth encuentros (1993-1999). During this period, the focus of debate shifted away from the movimiento de mujeres to the increasing engagement of feminism with newly liberal-democratic governments. Feminists who believed that working with the state was “a ‘necessary step’ in advancing the feminist transformational agenda” became known as las institucionalizadas, while those who saw it as “a dangerous slippage into or even collusion with ‘global neoliberal patriarchy’” were las autónomas, maintaining the traditional idea of feminist autonomy. Álvarez et al. termed this split the policy-advocacy logic versus identity-solidarity logic (2002:547-548). This debate manifested both in attitudes towards working with governments to achieve policy goals and towards receiving funding from organizations such as USAID and feminist NGOs.

The reason Latin American governments, once hostile to feminism, were increasingly open to cooperating can be explained by the end of many military dictatorships and transitions towards liberal-democratic states in the last decades of the 20th century as well as the increasing legitimization of feminist policy. Besis (2014) tracks that legitimization in international organizations such as the United Nations. In 1975, the UN held its first conference dedicated to women – in Mexico – kicking off the UN decade of women. This was the first time any intergovernmental organization took the “woman question” seriously (Besis 2014:638). As a result of feminist engagement, the UN began to adopt the understanding that “no project could be gender neutral” (2014:638) because if gender wasn’t explicitly addressed, patriarchal assumptions would go unquestioned and end up reinforcing oppression. Since then, every UN-affiliated organization has included gender as a part of its mission statement and the UN Women branch was created. This process legitimized and encouraged women-specific policies for governments in Latin American and across the world.

The encuentros of the 20th century, which began an important tradition of feminist gathering, reflect increasing challenges towards maintaining a unified movement. In the 21st century, these challenges have continued as Latin American feminists offer divergent visions of how and with whom to engage.

21st Century Encuentros

Latin American feminists have been met with even more opportunities for state engagement in the 21st century, leading to further institutionalization – and some would say co-optation. This has been a major source of contention in the ninth through fourteenth encuentros (2002-2017), especially in the face of hegemonic neoliberal globalization. A related source of conflict has come from the issue of representation. The feminist movement of the históricas was predominantly white, educated and from South America. Efforts have been made at more recent encuentros to include working class women, indigenous women, Black women, women from Central America, and queer and trans women. While the success of these efforts has varied from encuentro to encuentro, the greater presence of marginalized women has been both a source of growth and dispute. Feminist debates over institutionalization and representation are deeply intertwined given that the most marginalized women are the least likely to be included in institutions and the most hurt by neoliberal globalization.

This section will trace the divergence over issues of institutionalization and representation in the ninth throughout thirteenth encuentros (2002-2014) and the emergence of a desire for and rhetoric supporting internal pluralism at the twelfth (2011), thirteenth (2014), and fourteenth (2017) encuentros.

The ninth encuentro, which took place in Playa Tambor, Costa Rica in 2002, attempted to address feminism’s biggest challenges head-on by centering around the theme of “Active Resistance to Neoliberal Globalization.” Panels included topics such as the transnationalization of patriarchy and capitalism and the global body of resistance (Vargas Valente 2008). However, the few published accounts of this encuentro relate that it overly catered to institutionalized feminists and failed to discuss real strategies of resistance. The central panels were all presented by institutionalized feminists and there was little space allotted to marginalized feminists to speak on how they were being hurt by and resisting neoliberal globalization (Curiel 2003). Vargas Valente (2008) writes that “the discussions about possible strategies vis-a-vis global solidarity movements…were weak” (181, my translation). This was disappointing to autonomist feminists such as Ochy Curiel, who felt that feminism had a lot to offer unevenly successful and male-dominated anti-globalization movements (2003). She writes that the ninth encuentro reflected a sense of inertia and paralysis, in which feminists retreated from addressing pressing issues and instead sought a respite through “individualistic and de-politicized” spiritual and artistic practices (Curiel 2003). Additionally, there were few organized discussions of racism and few indigenous and Black participants, causing her to worry that the movement was “becom[ing] increasingly racist even as rhetoric of diversity allows us to ‘mea culpa’ ourselves” (Curiel 2003). Thus, the ninth encuentro demonstrates a movement stuck between increasingly divergent paths and lacking the will or ability to recognize it.

The tenth encuentro, held in São Paolo, Brazil, confronted racism, colonialism, and institutionalization much more directly than its predecessor, in both planned and unplanned ways. Themed “The Radicalization of Feminism and the Radicalization of Democracy,” it was the first encuentro to directly deal with “questions of racial, ethnic, sexual and generational difference” (Blackwell 2012:724). Structurally, this was achieved by having all participants engage in a series of small break-out sessions, entitled diálogos complejos, where they discussed these differing identities in relation to democratization (Blackwell 2012:724). The diálogo themes included “Feminism and Strategies to Confront Racism,” “Feminism and Ethnocentrism,” “Feminism, Youth and Power,” and “Feminism, Sexuality and Lesbianism” (Vargas Valente 2008:181). The organizers designed these sessions after reading Álvarez et al.’s (2002) article analyzing the conflicts over diversity, inclusion and autonomy in the sixth, seventh and eighth encuentros (Blackwell 2012:724). They benefitted both from the experiences of previous encuentros and from being grounded in the strong tradition of anti-racist movements in Brazilian society. In addition to the encuentro’s structural dimensions, it was also attended by the most Black women of any encuentro to date – some estimate half of participants were Black (Vargas Valente 2008:182)

However, the racism and ethnocentrism of feminism were challenged outside of the planned sessions when one feminist NGO held a workshop on indigenous women’s rights that ended up reinforcing racist and colonial rhetoric. In discussing her human rights work, the lawyer representing the NGO presented indigenous people as backwards savages who were inherently violent towards women (2012:724-728). The indigenous attendees, furious at the way one of the few sessions dedicated to indigenous women had turned out, immediately challenged her. When questioned why the indigenous women she was supposedly helping were not presenting with her, the lawyer replied, “‘because they are not feminists and this is a feminist gathering’” (2012:729). This incident demonstrates that the debate over who counts as a feminist continued to play out in the tenth encuentro. However, an important difference from earlier iterations of this conversation comes from the cultural authority of NGOs, especially those claiming to be feminists. Blackwell writes:

“More than a struggle over racism and representation, this was a process of construction of indigenous subjectivity and a mode of contestation on the uneven terrain of power where NGOs and civil society have been given an increased role in neoliberal governance and the regulation of identities that were once only the purview of the state” (2012:728).

In other words, the state was once responsible for defining and regulating indigenous identities, and it frequently wielded that power to deprive indigenous people of their rights. With the emergence of feminist NGOs and the newly legitimized use of gender equality as a measurement of progress – which began with the UN decade for women – feminist NGOs now have the cultural authority to characterize a group as backwards and immoral. Blackwell (2012) criticized this “depoliticized use of gender as a technocratic language of modernity meant to limit rather than extend women’s ability to seek justice” (2012:730). While this was a terrible moment for the twelve indigenous attendees (Vargas Valente 2008:182), it also motivated them to organize an Indigenous Caucus, read a declaration to the entire conference at the final plenary, and return in far greater numbers at the next encuentro in Mexico City (Blackwell 2012:729-730).

The tenth encuentro had another significant moment of deciding who to include as a feminist when all participants voted at the final session on whether to include trans women in the encuentros. There was much contention, but in the end, three fourths of those present voted to include trans women who identified as feminists (Vargas Valente 2008:182-183). Thus, in terms of both gender and race, the tenth encuentro’s direct confrontation of internal debate enabled much-needed progress forward. This created space for marginalized women to express their relationship with and understanding of feminism.

While the tenth encuentro made progress in addressing grievances by centering marginalized feminists, it was not enough to counteract the longer-term trend of institutionalization. This was worrying to many autonomist feminists who saw feminism as increasingly supporting oppressive patriarchal institutions. The eleventh encuentro in Mexico City (2009) was funded tens of thousands of dollars by feminist NGOs and private foundations (Falquet 2014:51). Many autonomists saw this as compromising feminist goals, and indeed convened for their own encuentro days before the general meeting (Falquet 2014). The autonomists produced a document condemning “the consequences of neoliberalism in the lives of millions of women and poor people” and declared: “It is not our business to make the state work well! We build community, we build movements” (Encuentro Feminista Autónomo 2022). The autonomists by and large decided not to attend the general meeting or attended it in protest form (Falquet 2014:49). The few published articles about the eleventh encuentro focus on the autonomists; this seems to be a sign of the movement further fracturing. However, the lack of scholarship makes it difficult to draw conclusions.

There is likewise little written about the twelfth encuentro in Bogotá in 2011, although it appears to have been similarly fractured. There were two encuentros again, with autonomous feminists meeting before the general meeting. Claudia Anzorena, who attended both encuentros, described the autonomous meeting of 200 participants as younger and more radical while the general meeting of 1,500 participants was heterogenous, institutionalized, well-funded from NGOs such as Global Fund for Women and Mama Cash, and visibly connected to the military (Martín 2011). This is primarily because the encuentro took place at a hotel that was owned by retired military officers and was simultaneously hosting an event with the president of Colombia. There were several military units within the hotel, leading Anzorena to declare that “…I have even been to other Latin American countries such as Guatemala where there is more military presence on the streets, but you don’t see that inside hotels” (Martín 2011, my translation). Many feminists protested an official dinner, yelling “get your rosaries out of our ovaries” at the president and top clergy members (Martín 2011, my translation). While there clearly still existed a divide between the institutionalized and autonomist feminists, as evidenced by the separate encuentros, the general participants’ protest of their proximity to top government, clergy and military leaders demonstrated that there was a limit to the amount of institutionalization most feminists were comfortable with. This perhaps served as a moment of reflection for the encuentro organizers and attendees to assess how close their relationships had become with the state and whether they wanted to continue heading in that direction.

At the thirteenth encuentro, held in Lima, Peru in 2014, it seemed that there was an increased desire for unity among feminists. Domínguez (2015) writes favorably of the plenary sessions and round table discussions, saying that they made space for debate. The most notable conflict came at the end over whether to host the next encuentro in Bolivia or Uruguay. Julieta Paredes suggested Bolivia as a way to recognize and honor indigenous feminisms, but she was countered by another Bolivian participant who replied that Bolivia was not yet ready to host an encuentro. When the final vote was announced in favor of Uruguay, Paredes decided that she would hold the first Abyayala Indigenous Feminist Encuentro in Bolivia. This proclamation caused many in the crowd to start chanting “un solo encuentro,” meaning “only one encuentro” (Domínguez 2015). Their call suggests that, after so much splitting up, participants wanted to return to having one big meeting. While many were still displeased with the general encuentros, the larger call for unity reflects a growing awareness of the destructive possibilities of separatism.

The fourteenth encuentro, which took place in Montevideo, Uruguay in 2017, reflected that sentiment by framing itself around a rhetoric of internal diversity and plurality. The conference was themed “Diversas pero no dispersas,” meaning “diverse but not dispersed.” According to one of the conference organizers, Lilián Celiberti, they wanted to recognize that “we are at a moment where feminisms are multiple, plural, that we contain many differences within ourselves…if we want to grow our movements we have to be plural, singular thought does not work, it’s plurality that creates our richness” (“14 Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe,” my translation). The framing was complemented by panels such as “Names of Feminism,” which critiqued the “heteronormative, academic and institutional” brand of feminism by asking why so many people felt the need to modify their type of feminism – “Black feminism,” “popular feminism,” “lesbian feminism,” etc. (Korol 2017). While these are only the structural elements of the conference and there has not been anything published about how the participants reacted, the deliberate framing of the encuentro around diversity reflects an increasing interest in acknowledging internal tensions and folding them into a unified movement.

The fifteenth encuentro, scheduled to be held in San Salvador, El Salvador in 2020, has been rescheduled for 2023 due to the coronavirus pandemic (“Con rebelde alegría rumbo al 15 EFLAC”).

The Trajectory of Feminism

Scholarship on the ninth through fourteenth encuentros (2002-2017), although sparse, provides a picture of how feminism has evolved over the course of the century. The ninth through eleventh encuentros (2002-2009) reflect an intensification of the tensions already present among feminists in the 1980s and 90s, especially regarding the question of institutionalization. These tensions are exacerbated by the development of neoliberal globalization. The failure of the encuentro meetings to satisfactorily address deep doubts about institutionalization and the harms of globalization resulted in autonomist feminists declaring separate meetings during the eleventh (2009) and twelfth (2011) encuentros. However, the twelfth (2011) and thirteenth (2014) encuentros evidence moments of reflection that, in the future, could be retroactively characterized as turning points. The close proximity of feminists to national patriarchal leaders at the twelfth encuentro and the call for unity at the thirteenth informed the politics of the fourteenth (2017), which attempted to make space for autonomists and create unity by centering around a theme of diversity. These developments set an important tone, but it remains to be seen whether they will alter the trajectory of feminism.

Singular thought is not conducive to building strong movements, as affirmed by Lilián Celiberti and others who have been involved in or studied the encuentros. In the ‘90s, Sternbach et al. (1992) offered similar advice to feminists about their divisions at the time, reminding them that “the feminist movement and the movimiento de mujeres, though too often perceived as diametrically opposed, have…reinforced, strengthened, and supported each other” (1992:432-433). This applies to autonomist and institutionalized feminists today; however, they can only create true solidarity by opening their visions and agendas to each other. Autonomists must embrace the greater strength of the mainstream and institutionalized feminist movement rather than seek to distance themselves from it; it offers numerous starting points for transformative organizing. Institutionalized feminists must incorporate the radical understandings of autonomists to keep attendant to their consciences as they navigate the difficult world of politics. The autonomists’ greatest gift is their rejection of oppressive power in all forms, which means they recognize when feminists are becoming that power themselves. By doing so, autonomists create space for the most marginalized groups within feminism to form their own visions for the future. These visions are not exclusive to working-class or Black or indigenous or lesbian or trans women; they should serve as the guiding light for everybody. As Chandra Mohanty writes, “[i]f we pay attention to and think from the space of some of the most disenfranchised communities of women in the world, we are most likely to envision a just and democratic society capable of treating all its citizens fairly” (2002:510). A feminism that continues to privilege las institucionalizadas creates a world where marginalized women are further excluded, while a feminism that centers the anti-capitalist understandings and practices emerging from poorest and most marginalized women will create a world that is just for everyone. The stakes are particularly high in the encuentros, which set the tone for feminism across Latin America.

Conclusion

This paper traced the development of debates in the feminist encuentros from 2009-2017 and highlighted the challenges and possibilities towards creating a unified, rich, and meaningful feminist movement. More recent encuentros have shifted towards a greater appreciation of diversity; however, that can only go so far without recognizing the underlying issues causing divisions. The movement will be strengthened if it can incorporate all its various aspects within an understanding that appreciates difference but is ultimately centered around a transformative vision emerging from the experience of the most marginalized.

Increased scholarly attention towards the encuentros may help drive this point home to participants. However, it is important to study the encuentros of the 21st century even outside of the context of feminism and Latin America. Social movements across the world are struggling with the effects of neoliberal globalization and facing difficulties with co-optation. The feminist encuentros offer a unique opportunity to study how a large-scale movement has and is navigating these challenges over an expansive period of time. There is much to be learned for organizers and scholars across the globe, and understanding how movements function in an increasingly globalized world will only become more important with the passage of time.