“Affective states” and “state effects”: gendering the urban revolution in Caracas, Venezuela

• In Event: Etnografía política en Venezuela: virajes, quiebres y continuidades en tiempos de mutación

Abstract

The imbrications between state projects and gender ideologies have long been an object of interest for Latin American feminists (i.e. Dore and Molyneux eds. 2000). Yet, gendering ethnographies of the state, or looking at the gendered nature of “state effects” (Mitchell 2006) remain unchartered territory. By looking at the vital role of women in urban social movements in Caracas my intervention seeks to bring to new light old discussions about women’s political participation. The literature looking at the effects of structural adjustment programs in the region highlights the fact that women became pivotal in needs-based movements, as the extension of their reproductive labor to the public sphere became essential for the survival of populations in economically precarious contexts (for Venezuela see: Sujatha 2007). The underside of these “empowering” effects were seen in women´s “triple shifts” and “poverty of time.” Venezuela`s Bolivarian project offers a shifting political context in which social movements seemingly work, not against, but alongside a revolutionary state project within which women´s “affective labor” has become highly valued symbolically and materially (López 2016). Through an ethnography of a state funded/grassroots-led land occupation and housing project in Caracas I analyze the gendered “state effects” of the Bolivarian Revolution. I argue that this project opens a space for possible transformations but also the perpetuation of contradictions regarding women´s political participation, paying particular attention to their role in building “affective infrastructures” that largely guarantee the durability of such projects.

Author

• Andreina Isabel I Torres Angarita, City University of New York Graduate Center