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Changing Consciousness of Gender Role in Movements: Women’s Active Participation in Bolivia

Sat, April 29, 8:00 to 9:45am, TBA

Abstract

Why have women emerged as crucial actors of movements in Bolivia? How were the role and presence of women changed in movements?
In Bolivia, there were two major social movements: the Water War (2000) and the Gas War (2003). These movements were successful in that these achieved the movement’s goal to change the governmental political decision.
While these movements share many similar aspects, such as people fought over natural resources and achieved movement’s goal, it exposes a major difference, which is on the presence of women. Only in the Gas War, women had played an important role not only as participants but also as administrators of the movement. Previous literature have explained that men had realized that they needed women’s assistance and then women could participate in the movement.
Grounded on previous literature, this paper assumes that the interaction of women and men had changed the women’s consciousness, and women were enlightened that they were important in the movement. In contrast that women tended to think themselves as “powerless” in the Water War (2000), women had realized that they could play an important role like men in movements. This changing consciousness of women had affected the movements’ fate.
In order to explore the process of changing women’s and men’s consciousness of the Gas War this paper utilizes fieldwork data obtained from 2009 to 2014. And by applying discourse analysis of the statement of movement’s organization and newspaper, this paper reveals how women changed their consciousness in the Gas War.

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