•  
  •  
 

Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

Abstract

This qualitative research paper investigates how race, gender, and political agency intersect in the lived experiences of Peruvian Indigenous and Mestizé women as they engage in political organizing and protest. This paper focuses on their roles, perspectives, and experiences during the 2022–2023 popular uprisings in Peru, highlighting the unique challenges and contributions of these women in a period of intense social and political upheaval. This paper first uncovers what catalyzed these movements into action, particularly after the impeachment of Peru’s former President, Pedro Castillo. Then this paper will explore race and gender construction in Peru, through pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial contexts. This paper also engages with literature that expose the importance of everyday resistance for Indigenous women, the power of grief, important frameworks like Mestiza Consciousness and Communitarian feminism that situate a dialogue between Chicana and Indigenous feminist scholarships. Additionally, this paper explores my postitionality as a researcher and positions the testimonies of the women interviewed as interlocutors, as active agents of their own lived experience. The findings conclude that Indigenous and Mestizé women are actively engaging in reclaiming their indigenous identities, alongside with rematriating political spaces of resistance. Their struggle is tied to their indigenous cultural values as they center land within their struggle. Additionally, these women feel empowered as they build political consciousness within these spaces and become agents of change for their communities.

Author Biography

Isabella Benjamin-Quintana (she/they) is an American Studies major with a double minor in Political Science and Spanish. She would like to thank her family and mentors for supporting her throughout this research. She would also like to thank all the women who offered their valuable time to be interviewed. I want to acknowledge the patience, care, and vulnerability they shared with me as they recounted their lived experience in Peru’s political uprisings.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download

Share

COinS