Artivism: How Women with Disabilities Challenge State Violence in Bolivia

• In Event: Feminist Methods

Abstract

In this article, I explore how art becomes artivism when feminism, disability justice, and activism are part of the conversation. I present artivism as a feminist praxis that demands scholarly attention, particularly within feminist‑of‑color disability studies. Anchored in an Andean tradition of Rivera Cusicanqui’s sociology of the image as a decolonizing praxis, I treat visual art not as illustration but as sociological evidence, material that reveals how women with disabilities theorize violence, embodiment, and state neglect. I accompanied the art production insights with activists and artists to understand what they want to express and observe how this matters for women's identities in the movement.
As women with disabilities in Bolivia continue to confront neoliberal austerity, patriarchal norms, and ableist violence, their activism through art, also known as Artivism, offers a blueprint for transnational feminist movements committed to visibility, accountability, and collective care. In this sense, the images at the center of this article are more than representations; they are acts of resistance, archives of survival, and invitations to imagine feminist futures grounded in disability justice. 
Women with disabilities in Bolivia use art not only as a political tactic but as a feminist method of producing knowledge about violence, embodiment, and state neglect. I propose that the collaborative practices of feminist anti-ableist organizations such as Las FemiDiskas demonstrate how art becomes disability data justice, generating community-based evidence where state institutions fail to count, protect, or even acknowledge the existence of women with disabilities. This work illustrates that feminist resistance in a post-pandemic context requires not only political mobilization but also creative practices that heal, connect, and transform our research relations.
 Drawing on 600 hours of participatory action research and ethnographic collaboration, I analyze activism through art produced by feminists with disabilities and allies in a post‑pandemic context, as well as the socio‑political conditions that shaped its creation. This work illuminates how women with disabilities mobilize art to document harm, challenge ableist and sexist structures, and build counter‑archives where state data fails. This article contributes to feminist‑of‑color disability studies by theorizing artivism as a decolonial, transnational feminist methodology that generates new forms of evidence, political memory, and collective resistance.

Author

• Iblin Edelweiss Murillo Lafuente, University of Florida