Entangled Sciences of Gender, Sexuality, Race: Latin American Issues

Session Submission Type: Traditional (Closed) Panel

Abstract

The miscegenation policies that the Spanish and Portuguese introduced into the Americas in the Sixteenth Century established more hierarchical and rigid categories of gender, sexuality, and race than had existed earlier. These new, pre-Darwinian, sciences of race, sexuality and gender were complexly entangled with each other from the beginning. Some Latin American scholars, such as philosopher Maria Lugones, have argued that they still have powerful effects today, while others, such as social scientists Silvia Cucicanqui, Mara Viveros, and Marilise Matos have argued for a more complex understanding of the intersectionality that the categories of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity have in the region. This panel invites papers that ask: In what ways has this colonial scientific legacy persisted? In what ways has it been revised? How do Latin American feminists, both in Latin America and in the North, discuss this issue? How has it shaped (or not) STS methodological projects in Latin America? What role have such discussions played in democratizing projects? How has it influenced conceptions of gender as an analytic category, as well as theories of ethnicity, race, and cultural diversity in Latin America?

Sub Unit

• 4S Annual Meeting

Chairs

• Tania Pérez-Bustos, National University of Colombia

• Sandra Harding, University Of California Los Angeles (Ucla)

• Manuela Fernandez Pinto, Universidad de los Andes

Discussant

• Raoni Rajão, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)

Individual Presentations

• The Warm and the Cold: Decolonizing Medical Space in Plurinational Bolivia - Gabriela Morales

• Doubly Disadvantaged: The Recruitment of Diverse Subjects for Clinical Trials in Latin America - Manuela Fernandez Pinto, Universidad de los Andes

• One World or Many? Gender, Sexuality and Race Issues - Sandra Harding, University Of California Los Angeles (Ucla)

• HPV vaccine in Carmen de Bolívar (Colombia): crisis, rumors and nonsense - Zandra Pedraza, Universidad de los Andes