The Eighth Encuentro
Beckman, Ericka
In November 1999, feminists from throughout the region convened in Juan Dolio, Dominican Republic, for the Eighth Latin American and Feminist Encuentro. Since 1981, feminists have attended these...
...The Eighth Encuentro 1. See Sonia Alvarez, "Latin American Feminisms 'Go Global': Trends of the 1990s and Challenges for the New Millenium," in Sonia Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino and Arturo Escobar (eds...
...Solidarity also requires communication...
...This was achieved, in part, through a spirit of reconciliation and a strong focus on Debates over po the movement, the lines of class strikingly u "temiine" values and bodily expression...
...In response to the intense racism and persecution faced by Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, Dominican feminists issued statements and collected signatures to protest the massive deportation of Haitian immigrants...
...But perhaps the only minimum point of agreement arrived at was the need to examine more closely the relationships between feminist organizing and institutions...
...Since 1981, feminists have attended these meetings to share experiences and debate the most pressing issues facing the regional movement...
...In the end, the aut6nomas' combative style and personal attacks prevented more productive discussion of issues that seemed to be of concern to most feminists...
...At one of the plenary sessions, a Haitian woman remarked that "solidarity is not built with good intentions...
...Insisting that a more radical, grassroots feminist politics has lost its critical edge under the insidious rubric of "gender," "democracy" and "civil society," these women advocated a strategy of political and financial autonomy, disobedience and noncooperation with respect to neoliberal, anti-democratic institutions...
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...however, the Dominican organizers' almost exclusive focus on the body, along with an essentialist celebration of "feminine" values ostensibly shared by all women, worked to suppress difference and dissent within the movement...
...Participants agreed that "old" forms of domination such as patriarchy, capitalism and racism remained in place, while neoliberalism was identi- fied almost unanimously as the "newest" form of domi- nation faced by people-especially women-in the Amer- icas today...
...Arguing that a more radical feminist political agenda has been replaced by policies "with a gender perspective," some voiced the concern that femi- nists are acting as "advisors" in the neoliberal microman- agement of social problems...
...These incidents highlighted the ongoing attempt to make the Encuentros more inclusive spaces, and made visible the obstacles to this process...
...To their credit, however, "autonomous" feminists voiced critiques no one else had been willing to make...
...The Dominican organizers of the Eighth Encuentro sought to avoid such lines of political division...
...cally charged--and certainly most divisive-in Encuentro history...
...Debate has raged on within feminist circles since the now infamous Cartagena Encuentro...
...After a decade of increasingly difficult and painful debates over feminist strategizing in a neoliberal world, feminists convened in the Dominican Republic to come up with a "minimum common denominator" that might unite them in a common political struggle...
...The celebration of the "diversity" of the feminist movement at the Eighth Encuentro might have also pushed debate regarding the very real differences among various groups of Latin American women...
...just what the relationship between the two should be, however, is still a highly contentious issue...
...Feminists at the Eighth Encuentro echoed-in a some- what muted manner-the critiques heard at the previous Encuentro, held in the seaside resort of Cartagena, Chile in 1996...
...The organiz- ers seemed to create a space in which to share life experi- ences and build feminist camaraderie rather than a forum in which to further the political debate begun in Cartage- na...
...Some also criticized the ways in which feminist movements had been coopted by gender equity agendas...
...Likewise, women from English-speaking countries reminded participants that "the Caribbean is not all His- panic," identifying a commonly held, but rarely discussed, assumption...
...Whether a strategic attempt at "reconciliation" after the painful debates waged in Cartagena or a reflection of the Dominican organizers' particular brand of cultural feminism, the organization of the Eighth Encuentro served to push political debate around "institutionalization" and "autonomy" into the background...
...At this meeting, self-named "autonomous" feminists argued that the mushrooming of policy-oriented, project-driven feminist "institutions" had rendered feminist practice complicit with neoliberalism...
...Of course, the recognition that women's bodies, life experiences and personal relationships are intrinsically political is a basic feminist observation...
...In ref- erence to the microenterprise projects popular with lend- ing agencies, another group argued that feminists should not accept "the lie of 'local power,' which only spreads poverty around," and proposed that feminists work to design economic alternatives to neoliberalism...
...Dominican and Haitian women became one of the most politicized issues at the Encuentro...
...At the same time, ongoing debates regarding the internal power relations within the move- ment, especially along the lines of class and race, remain strikingly unresolved...
...Others identified funding agencies as a new form of domination and recognized that the rules of financing dictated that one no longer speak of feminism, but a rather depoliticized variant of "gender," which inevitably stands in for "women...
...Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures: Re-visioning Latin American Social Movements (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998), pp...
...Despite the select appropriation of feminist demands by states and international funding agencies, feminists at the Encuentro recognized that neoliberal economic and politi- cal arrangements have exacerbated the feminization of poverty across the region...
...However, many feminists were making similar arguments, although in a different language from the "autonomous" sector...
...After accusing the organizers of racism for their oversight, a group of Haitian feminists were ready to walk out of the Encuentro until roaring applause from the rest of the participants convinced them to stay...
...While recognizing some of their points as valid, most feminists were not willing to accept the Manichean division between "autonomy" and "institutionalization...
...Everyone seemed to agree that policy-focused NGOs cannot replace grassroots social movements...
...While everyone was to discuss the same major themes, ten working groups were organized around different "methodologies," including theater, massage therapy, poetry, "desbloqueo energ~tico," collage and dance...
...At the same time, however, a group of Haitian women felt marginalized from the Encuentro proceedings because of a lack of adequate translation services...
...These scathing critiques were, not surprisingly, heard with anger and disbelief by most feminists at the Cartagena Encuentro...
...The "autonomous" sector was responding to the trend away from grassroots feminist organizing, and toward partici- pation in more professionalized, institutional arenas such as NGOs and state-run women's agencies throughout the 1990s...
...At times, however, it seemed as though this sector's goal was to publicly humiliate certain members of the "institutionalized" sector, as evidenced when the Bolivian group Mujeres Creando raised a banner reading "Patriarchy is dressed as a power-hungry woman" while a prominent Peruvian feminist delivered her position paper...
...Using terms like "fragmentation," "decaffeination" and "depoliticization" feminists repeatedly expressed unease regarding the state of their movements...
...The relationship between resolved...
...Marked by acrimonious discussion between so- called "autonomous" and "institutionalized" feminist sec- tors, the Cartagena meeting was perhaps the most politiEricka Beckman is a PhD student in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at Stanford University She has done research on the Chilean women's movement as a Fuibright Scholar...
...Thus, the autonomous sector pushed for a criticalalthough sometimes overly personalized-assessment of the "NGO-ization" of feminist politics...
...They correctly pointed out that not all NGOs were engaged in the same activities or wield equal power, and that there were different degrees of "institutionalization...
...This Encuentro was marked by the strong presence of Afro-Caribbean women (a group historically absent from the Encuentros), women from the non-Hispanic Caribbean and Latinas living in the United States, For the first wer relations in time, the name Latin Ameri- can and Caribbean Feminist especially along Encuentro became an accu- rate description, and not and race, remain merely an inclusive gesture...
...1 Uncompromising in their critique of feminists they identified as "gender technocrats," who churn out state-funded reports "with a gender perspective," act as consultants for the World Bank, and represent "Latin American women" at international conferences, the "autonomous" feminists argued that an elite corps of women had sold out feminism to a reformist agenda...
...The few autonomas present at the Eighth Encuentro criticized the "amnesia" suffered by feminists regarding the events at the previous Encuentro, and reiterated their critiques...
Vol. 34 • March 2001 • No. 5
