Addressed to a description and analysis of the self-identifieation of peasant women in the Peruvian peasant confederations, this paper analyses how peasant women negotiate over gender-specific interests within the unions. Women's mobilisation in these unions is part of the rapidly expanding political participation of both rural and urban women in Latin America, a process which is increasingly well documented. Both the politicisation of previously unpolitical spheres (e.g. Barrig, 1986; Rivera, 1987a; Nash and Safa, 1980; Blondet, 1988; Ardaya, 1985; Machado, 1988), and increasing mobilisation in unions and political parties (e.g. Jelin, 1987; Jaquette, 1974, 1989; Leon, 1987; Izquierda Unida, 1985; Nash and Safa, 1980; Chaney, 1979; Andreas, 1985) are found. The literature on expanding female participation often argues that women are new political actors, and that their activism is one based on the elaboration of gender-specific interests and style of politics. Here I wish to examine one example (that of Peruvian peasant women) to investigate the ways in which women conceptualise their participation in peasant unions and to highlight the complexity of a notion such as 'gender-specific interests'. Female peasant leaders' participation, which dates only from the early 1980s on any notable scale (Andreas, 1985), generates various different explanations of gender-specific interests. My analysis differs from previous writing on Latin American women's political mobilisation in that it departs from an assumption of the multiplicity and unfixedness of political identities, a phenomenon which was first discussed in relation to Western politics (e.g. Laclau and Mouffe, 1985, 1987; Geras, 1987), but which has become increasingly important in our understanding of Latin American social movements (e.g. Slater, 1985; Gledhill, 1988; Redclift, 1988). According to this approach, interests and identities are not subsumed within purely class parameters and the mobilisa? tion of individuals takes place in relation to any number of interests which they hold, through their ethnic identity, gender, location, family position and so on. In this article, the dimensions of gender identity within political mobilisation are focused upon. In the Peruvian peasant confederations, what conceptions of gender relations exist? What opportunities do these conceptions give to women for increasing their participation and/or raising their profile in the confederations? In the analysis of female peasant leaders'