Indigenous Feminism and Its Experience-Based Approach to Women’s Empowerment

Abstract

This chapter explores the work of two Guatemalan women's organizations, Actoras de Cambio and Kaqla, which have structural change to the situation of women's oppression as their long-term goal, but which incorporate elements from an experience-based approach into their efforts to bring these changes about. These organizations use conventional awareness-raising efforts in the public domain and experience-based personal counseling of groups of women in a complementary way. Both Actoras and Kaqla were created in response to the violence perpetrated against indigenous women during the armed conflict. Because of the fundamentally different nature of experience-based and rights-based approaches, absolute claims about their comparative efficiency are hard to sustain. The work of Actoras de Cambio and Kaqla deviates from the approach of most feminist organizations in Guatemala and Nicaragua. This chapter argues that an experience-based approach rooted in indigenous culture fits the social movement paradigm better than it fits the psychotherapeutic framework.Keywords: Actoras de Cambio; armed conflict; experience-based approach; Guatemala; indigenous feminism; Kaqla; Nicaragua; rights-based approach; women's empowerment