Abya Yalas Indigenous and

Aboriginal Women: International

Agenda of Integration and Solidarity
Lady Katherine Galeano Snchez and Meike Werner

Today, the claims of Abya Yalas indigenous and aboriginal women are positioned within
Latin Americas indigenous agenda. This article analyzes the processes of emergence,
articulation, consolidation, and integration of Abya Yalas indigenous and aboriginal
women into the Continental Indigenous Womens Summit Meeting of Abya Yala, which
has been held twice in the Americas, in Puno, Peru, in 2009 and in La Mara Piendam,
Colombia, in 2013. Through these summits, the specific claims of indigenous women have
reached the international indigenous agenda and feminist and womens movements,
promoting their autonomy. The article also examines the actors that favored the process of
emergence, how the first and second summit meetings were held, and debates and
selection of the topics. It addresses the challenges of this autonomous space managed and
constituted by indigenous and aboriginal women of the continent.
Hoy las demandas de mujeres indgenas y originarias de Abya Yala se colocan dentro de
la agenda indgena de Amrica Latina. Este artculo analiza los procesos de emergencia,
articulacin, consolidacin e integracin de las mujeres indgenas y aborgenes del Abya
Yala hacia la Cumbre Continental de Mujeres Indgenas del Abya Yala, la cual se ha
realizado en dos ocasiones en las Amricas, en 2009 en Puno, Per y en 2013 en La Mara
Piendam, Colombia. A travs de estas cumbres, las demandas especficas de las mujeres
indgenas han llegado a la agenda indgena internacional y a los movimientos feministas
y de mujeres, promoviendo su autonoma. Este artculo estudia a los actores de ambos
sexos que favorecieron el proceso de emergencia de la Cumbre de Abya Yala, los caminos
que llevaron a los dos encuentros y cmo se seleccionaron los tpicos debatidos. Tambin
reflexiona sobre los retos que enfrenta este espacio autnomo, gestionado por mujeres
indgenas y aborgenes del continente.
Key words: indigenous and aboriginal women, ABYA YALA, networking integration, solidarity,
CCMI
On the one hand, organized indigenous women have joined their voices in the
national indigenous movement to condemn economic oppression and racism that
mark indigenous peoples insertion in the national project. Simultaneously, these
women are developing their own political discourse and practice, parting from a
culturally situated gender perspective that comes to question sexism and indigenous organizations essentialism, as well as hegemonic feminisms ethnocentrism. (Hernndez, 2001)

Latin American PolicyVolume 5, Number 2Pages 265278

2014 Policy Studies Organization. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Introduction

he organization of Abya Yala1 indigenous women is marked by the paradox

of a dual struggle, one in the mixed indigenous movement and another in
hegemonic2 feminism. Indigenous women have always been present in the
indigenous movements, but recently, they are more visible as political actors at
national and regional levels. Over the last two decades, they have achieved their
own spaces inside the indigenous movements and created their own organizations and womens networks. Even though they articulate as womensome of
them even as indigenous feministstheir relationship with hegemonic feminism
is characterized by tensions because they question its ability to include the
different perspectives of all women (Mndez, 2009).
The visibility and participation of indigenous women in the political arena has
been possible due to various factors, such as the growing access to higher education, the increasing organizational strength of indigenous people, and the
contact with international cooperation and nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) that work with a gender perspective (Flores, 2009). Indigenous womens
motives for organizing and participation in political spaces may vary in different
countries, depending on the context in which they live and on their claims.
Taking into account this diversity,3 indigenous women have been consolidating
an agenda of common interest rights as indigenous women in the framework of
collective rights. The current model of development affects indigenous people
through extractive industries in the territories, violence against women, and a
lack of access to ordinary and proper justice. There is also a problem with topics
of cosmovision and identity. Organizational processes are marked by a constant
struggle and negotiation because discourses about the complementarity of
gender roles (Mndez, 2009) still have an influence, and the argument
that womens claims for gender equality, the struggle for their rights, and the
differentiation between men and women could cause conflicts and tensions
inside the communities still persists (Mesa de Trabajo Mujer y Conflicto
Armando, 2003).
Andrea Pequeo (2009) affirms that the topic of gender4 and indigenous
womens realities was absent in the Latin American indigenous movements
articulation as a political force that emerged at the end of the 20th century, when
agendas centered on identities and ethnic diversities were created. In the opinion
of this author, these omissions are subject to a process of change regarding a
multiplicity of interests and leaderships of indigenous women. There may be a
kind of emergence of indigenous women as political actors, even though they
have always struggled in indigenous movements. Pequeo identifies the visibility of the struggles that indigenous women have begun inside indigenous movements to gain proper spaces as one of the axles of change projected in regional
and international indigenous agendas.
One of these spaces is the Continental Indigenous Womens Summit Meeting
of Abya Yala (CCMI), which has taken place in 2009 and 2013, and which aims at
constructing international agendas of integration and solidarity in view of the
absence of favorable public policies for indigenous women (II-CCMI, 2013).
Indigenous and aboriginal women of the continent who are part of national and
plurinational organizations of Abya Yala took these opportunities to discuss the
situation of indigenous womens rights.

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This article analyzes indigenous and aboriginal womens processes of emergence, articulation, consolidation, and integration in Abya Yala that led to the
formation of CCMI. It examines the actors that favored the process of emergence,
the proceedings of the first and second summit meetings, debates and selection
of the topics, and the challenges it faces.

Indigenous Women between Femin(ism) and Feminisms

Indigenous womens relationship with feminisms is marked by tension and
constructs. Whereas hegemonic, liberal, and ethnocentric feminism has represented indigenous and aboriginal women (along with other third world
women) as the other of other, the subaltern, victims of a universal patriarchy
in a rescue rhetoric (Bidaseca, 2010), other feminisms such as black feminism,
Chicano feminism, postcolonial feminism and more recently, decolonial feminism, appear as proposals that analyze the interconnection of power in postcolonial societies, articulating categories such as race, class, sex, and sexuality from
political practices where interesting theories have emerged not just in feminism
but in social sciences as a whole (Curiel, 2007, p. 100). The other women are in
Asia and Latin America, are of African descent, and are migrants from the global
south.
Chandra Mohanty (2008) analyzes how hegemonic feminism, using as a referent the western woman, produces the image of an average third world woman
who is basically a victim of male violence, of the colonial process, and of the
economic development process. She criticizes the way western feminism constructs this third world woman from academic discourse and production that
takes into account the interests of western feminism and constitutes a political
practice based on colonial power structures, operating as a colonial discourse.
She considers it important for third world women feminisms to criticize
western feminism, a project of deconstruction, and then create their own
project, one of construction.
Decolonial feminism criticizes hegemonic feminisms ethnocentrism and proposes a rereading of Latin American history, resignifying local experiences and
resistance of women in terms of sexual diversity. This Latin American movement
agglutinates the ideas of thinkers, intellectuals as well as feminist and lesbian
feminist activists of African and indigenous descent, poor mestizas and some
white academics committed to the subaltern en Latin America renamed Abya
Yala (Espinosa, 2012). As Espinosa mentions, there are various indigenous
women who form part of this movement or have made important contributions
to the construction of decolonial feminism, among them communal feminists
such as Julieta Paredes and Lorena Cabnal, Aymara sociologist Silvia Rivera
Cusincanqui, feminist philosopher Gladys Tzul Tzul, Guatemalan anthropologist
Aura Cumes, and many others.
Mara Lugones (2008) suggests calling this proposal, which interconnects intersectional frames of analysis with Anbal Quijanos concept of coloniality of
power, decolonial feminism. She analyzes the ways in which race, class,
gender, and sexuality are interconnected, trying to understand mens indifference regarding violence against women of color, victims of the coloniality of
power and coloniality of gender, a product of the modern colonial gender

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system. Following anthropologic studies of the Yoruba society and American

indigenous people organized along gynecocratic structures, the author shows
that, in precolonial societies, gender did not necessarily constitute a principal
organizing force before western colonization, when relationships were broken in
the process of conquest and colony.
Understood as a binary hierarchical construction, gender is a colonial imposition and a violent instrument of domination that meant subordination and
inferiorization for nonwhite women. This modern gender system cannot be
understood without the coloniality of power because the classification of population in terms of race is a necessary condition for its possibility (Lugones, 2008,
p. 93, authors translation).
Lugones identifies a visible or clear side of the gender system that
hegemonically defines gender and gender relations of white women and men in
a modern sense, situating women as weak and in a subordinate position, where
compulsive heterosexuality is imposed. In contrast to this, the invisible or dark
side of the violent modern colonial gender system reduced precolonial gender
identities constituted beyond biologic dimorphism to animality, forced sexual
relationships with the white conquerors, and included intense labor exploitation,
inferiorizing nonwhite women and taking away their power. Lugones purpose
in analyzing gender and race as interconnected categories is central to understanding how the modern vs. colonial gender system is necessarily related to the
coloniality of power and the coloniality of gender.
For Rita Segato (2011), the entrance of modern colonial order produced an
aggravation and the intensification of hierarchies that formed part of the preintrusion community order.
[A] fragmentary fold which coexists, enabling the maintenance of some characteristics of the world that preceded the colonial intervention (. . .) This is about
realities that continued working . . . together with and beside the world where
colonial modernity intervened. But which, reached by the influence of colonial
processes, first metropolitan and then republican, in some way were damaged,
especially in one key aspect: hierarchies that already existed, basically of caste,
status, and gender as a variety of status, worsened and became perverse and much
more authoritarian. (pp. 2728)

In contrast to Lugones, Segatos work shows that gender and racial hierarchies
also existed in the pre-intrusion community order before the entrance of modern
colonial order. There was also a nomenclature of gender in tribal and afroAmerican societies that had a different patriarchal order than the occidental one,
a low-level patriarchy, but hierarchical and with power relations. Indigenous
and Afro-American women,
They acted and considered, divided between, on the one hand, their loyalty to their
communities and towns on the outer front and, on the other, their internal struggle
against the oppression from which they suffer within these same communities and
towns. They have frequently accused the indigenous authorities of blackmail,
saying that they pressure them to postpone their demands as women and saying
that if they dont do so, they run the risk of fragmenting their communities
cohesiveness, making them more vulnerable in the fight for resources and rights.
(p. 32)

By recognizing the existence of a previous patriarchy that turned more profound with the entrance of the modern colonial system, Segatos proposal is

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close to that of communitarian feminism. The communitarian proposal, made

up of a group of diverse women, among them Bolivian Aymara women and
Guatemalan Xinkas (Cabnal, 2010), also conceives colonization as a violent
imposition of Western patriarchy and recognizes the existence of a native ancestral patriarchy which is then reinforced by western patriarchy, what they call
patriarchal connection (Paredes, 2010). Julieta Paredes compares colonial penetration with coital penetration, loaded with sexual violence and involving the
imposition of obligatory heterosexuality and monogamy through the institution
of family.
For communitarian feminists, decolonizing means questioning obligatory
heterosexuality because during the colonization process, bodies, ideas, and desire
were also colonized. Decolonizing implies a political and ontological proposal
for founding and constructing referents for projects beyond coloniality. The
process analyzed here arises from a mixed space that gathers Latin American
indigenous people. Originated by indigenous women, the process became
autonomous. It poses alternatives to mainly sexist internal indigenous patriarchies and to the external racist patriarchy of national societies with specific forms
of violence regarding the community, territories, bodies, and indigenous
womens projects.

CCMI: Summoning Self-Space

The CCIM of Abya Yala is said to be a self-convened space for indigenous and
aboriginal women, organized within indigenous organizational processes in the
Americas. According to Luis Arias, a Colombian indigenous leader, the CCIM is
(. . .) a struggle that also had to be a struggle from within to emerge in our
organizational processes, sometimes full of machismo symptoms, also symptoms of authority (II-CCMI, 2013) (authors translation). The project is autonomous in nature and has been established as a space that women won in relation
to and linked with the continental indigenous movement.
Indigenous women leaders of indigenous organizations of the Americas
created the First CCMI (I-CCMI). They have participated in a mixed process
called Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya
Yala five times since 2000.5 In the third version of the Summit in Guatemala in
2007, the future realization of a summit of indigenous women was proposed as a
mandate.6
The CCMI project gave way to a network of indigenous women of the Americas, indigenous movement activists, and agrarian movement activists. A peculiarity of the indigenous womens movement of the Americas is the character of
their autonomy, which includes living integrally as an indigenous woman in
America.
The CCCMI has an unbreakable bond with Continental Summit of Indigenous
Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala because (. . .) the struggles over the rights
of indigenous women are not detached from their struggles as people (Acevedo,
2010, p. 13). The specific gender experiences of women led them to seek a space
to discuss their struggles, a space where networks and solidarities would be
created.

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The Organizational Background of the CCMI

Organizational forms of indigenous women of Abya Yala have two backgrounds: (1) their participation and representation in the womens and feminist
movements since the 1970s and (2) their participation and representation in the
Latin American indigenous movement since the 1990s when the debate over the
Fifth Centenary of the Conquest of America gave way to the construction of an
international indigenous agenda.
In 1993, a continental coordination among indigenous women of the Americas
was created to increase participation in the Fourth World Conference on Women,
Beijing 95. After this conference, the Continental Network of Indigenous Women
of the Americas (ECMIA) was created, and the I Continental Meeting of Indigenous Women, organized by Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE) in Quito followed in 1995.
Female participants of ECMIA produced a statement as Indigenous women
called Declaracin del Sol, where they emphasized (. . .) the need for states to
recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and to implement Convention 169 of
the International Labour Organization (ILO), and for the UN and individual
governments to guarantee scholarships for indigenous women and their participation in discussions on public policy (ECMIA, 2012).
Indigenous women at the Fourth World Conference on Women included their
experiences against discrimination in the final declaration of the conference,
which led to the ratification of the document known as Beijing Declaration of
Indigenous Women.7 This is the foundation of the claims of indigenous women
as a people and as a gender (Rivera, 2008, p. 337). The difficulties women leaders
had in Beijing 95 are proof of the existence of the ethnocentric, racist vision and
of the rescue rhetoric present in international agendas on women; the difficulty
of access was one of the problems that mobilized indigenous womens groups to
develop their own spaces.
Indigenous women in Quebec (Femmes autochtones du Qubec) proposed
ECMIA in 1995, and the organization has held six continental meetings of indigenous women (Quito, Ecuador, 1995; Oaxaca, Mexico, 1997; Panama, 2000; Lima,
Peru, 2004; Quebec, Canada, 2007; Morelos, Mexico, 2011) (ECMIA, 2012). The
delegates of regional links met to discuss the progress in relation to the rights of
indigenous women (Rivera, 2008).
ECMIA has built autonomous networks in the continental indigenous movement; national organizations select delegates that may be present in each of the
four regional links.8 ECMIA has had broad international support from NGOs and
multilateral organizations, making it a recognized organizational success. It has
also participated in the First and Second Continental Indigenous Womens
Summit Meeting of Abya Yala.
ECMIA and CCMI have built networks and solidarity among indigenous
women of the Americas, but their organizational processes have been different.
Whereas ECMIA was established as a forum for debate among women leaders
from all indigenous movements in the Americas, CCMI is a space open to all
indigenous women of all ages who wish to participate and is also open to
indigenous men and solidarity organizations. Acevedo (2010) writes about
the discussions that took place within the axis of discussion on organization
and political participation of women at the Third Continental Summit of

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Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala and that gave rise to the
CMMI project.
(. . .) As a result of the discussions and conclusions of the roundtable, born of the
lectures given by Blanca Chancoso (Ecuador) and Alma Lpez (Guatemala), a
number of substantive issues emerged that pointed to the need to analyze and
discuss the issue beyond the stance of simply considering women political leaders
of the movement.
Thus arises the proposal to create a space for thinking about indigenous women as
women in their integrality, that is in economic, cultural, social, spiritual fields, etc.,
not only in the context of their organizational participation but also as a subject of
racism, classism, sexism, and other forms of domination. (p. 13)

CCMI is a space that does not limit its discussions to the experiences of
indigenous women leaders; it also provides openness to indigenous women who
could not get into areas of leadership, indigenous women with diverse experiences against extensive forms of discrimination and resistance.

Structure and Organization of CCMI

There are indissoluble links between CCMI and the Continental Summit of
Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala. The CCMI is organized
similarly and precedes the Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples. In CCMI,
there is an organizing committee, which is rotatable between national indigenous
movements; the call of the Summit is an open invitation to all indigenous women
of the Americas and actors who are in solidarity with the cause of indigenous
women.
At each summit, installation protocols are organized; a steering committee,
lines of discussion called axes, and a mandate that includes agreements, discussions, and decisions are discussed. A host committee composed of leader
women of national indigenous organizations that host CCMI directs the groups.
National or supranational meetings are held before the summit and generally
involve women of every indigenous organization preparing previous agreements and documents to be discussed. Determinations and decisions that
amount to mandate are taken from conclusions debated in the axes of discussion
and are proclaimed in a general plenary led by steering committee. The national
indigenous organization that hosts the event, the local sociopolitical situation, or
the sociopolitical situation of the international indigenous movement can
strongly influence the summit mandate.
At the first and second CCMI, the organizations with the greatest presence
and influence have been Confederacin Nacional de Comunidades del Per
Afectadas por la Minera (CONACAMI), Confederacin Kichwa del Ecuador
(ECUARUNARI), Organizacin Nacional Indgena de Colombia (ONIC),
Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ), and
Coordinadora y Convergencia Nacional Maya WaqibKej, as well as indigenous
womens organizations such as ECMIA and Red de Mujeres Indgenas sobre
Biodiversidad (RMIB), and indigenous Plurinational organizations such as
Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indgenas de la Cuenca Amaznica
(COICA), Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indgenas (CAOI), Consejo
Indgena de Centro Amrica (CICA), and Consejo Indgena Mesoamericano
(CIMA).

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I-CCMI
More than 2,000 indigenous women of the Americas attended the First Continental Summit Meeting (I-CCMI) on May 27 and 28, 2009, in Puno, Peru. The
summit covered five axes: (1) worldview and identity; (2) womens rights in the
context of collective rights; (3) the effects of the development model and globalization from the perspective of women; (4) women, violence, discrimination, and
racism; and (5) communication (Acevedo, 2010).
The first axis of discussion covered the need to reaffirm the indigenous
cosmovision and resume the principles of complementarity, duality, balance,
respect, and harmony to eliminate machismo, racism, and discrimination
against women in different areas of their lives. Cosmovision in this debate was
proposed as a way to confront everyday oppression of women.
In the second axis of discussion, the need to raise awareness of the rights of
women and indigenous peoples recognized in international instruments was
addressed, with the aim of promoting womens participation in national and
international spaces, state policies, and the project of Buen vivir (good living).9
This plan involves building conditions for full participation of women and
strengthening their ability to make decisions at the political, economic, social,
and cultural level. Also discussed were possible strategies and mechanisms to
strengthen participation, the possibility of strengthening alliances with related
sectors, autonomous economy for women, community and organizational structures in the context of plurinational states, and defense of Mother Earth (Acevedo,
2010).
In the third axis, three specific topics were discussed: the links between
women and territory; indigenous womens migration; and links between
women, biodiversity, and food sovereignty. The first topic covered the recovery of
ancestral lands, productive, complementary participation in positions of power
and decision making, and respect for collective rights. The second topic dealt
with the direct inclusion of indigenous women in biodiversity policy and the
protection of water, respect for all international treaties on the environment and
community life by American states, and the fight against climate change from the
reaffirmation of the cosmovision. Under the final topic, the need to incorporate
indigenous perspectives to national food policies was considered.
The fourth axis covered the need to incorporate models of intercultural education to reduce discrimination and racism, and respect for human rights by
states, with full compensation to indigenous people affected by armed conflict
and conflict with multinational and transnational companies.
In the last axis, strategies were proposed to unveil new communication technologies and media to indigenous women to develop alternative communication
with fairness, equality, and complementarity.
In the general plenary, the complaint of the violation of the human rights of
women and indigenous peoples was presented. As Sarat Pacheco, an indigenous Mayan Quiche pointed out, Here we come to know the realities of
Americas women in general, and we conclude that violence, racism, and discrimination against indigenous women, (. . .) involve a deep structural racism,
in all aspects (ALAI, 2009). Indigenous women in the first summit learned
about all the realities experienced in Abya Yala, creating support and solidarity
networks.

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The mandate of the I-CCMI proposed the creation of an Indigenous Womens

Continental Coordinator of Abya Yala. A collective and participatory space to
strengthen organizations, promote policy proposals training, and create opportunities for exchange of experience in various fields, economic, political, social,
cultural was discussed (Mandato I-CCMI, 2009).
The Continental Coordinator would be a representative entity of indigenous
women, unlike others convened by international organizations. As Pacheco says,
Women in the process of each country must be participating, (. . .) unfortunately,
there have been networks, forums, womens links, but most of them have had an
agenda that responds to international organizations or an agenda that has not
responded to the issue of indigenous peoples (ALAI, 2009). Representation at
the CCMI is a hotly debated aspect because the project is open to all indigenous
women, even women who do not participate in visible leadership.

II-CCMI
More than 1,000 women from different countries attended the second Summit
Meeting, which took place on November 11 and 12, 2013, in La Mara Piendam,
Cauca department, Colombia. The participants came from Mexico, Guatemala,
Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and the different regions of
Colombia. The subjects dealt at the worktables were indigenous womens rights
in the framework of collective rights; development models, extractive industries
in indigenous territories, and violation of indigenous womens rights; violence
against women and access to proper and ordinary justice; cosmovision and
identity; and proper and intercultural communication. The topics on womens
rights are central to the organizational processes and include other problems
discussed at the II-CCMI.
Some of the topics are interrelated, for example, violence and extractivism. In
the face of a new wave of extractivism accompanied by forced displacement and
violations of womens human rights and related to the presence of multinational
companies in indigenous territories, the claims for the right to a life without
violence become very important. Indigenous peoples right to autonomy and
womens right to a life without violence go hand in hand, but the violence that
indigenous women experience is not only related to extractivism. The subject of
violence was present during the summit in various worktables. Women articulated that public policies do not recognize the specific situation of indigenous
women and that there is community and spiritual violence.
Despite the diversity and the different contexts, at the worktable about womens
rights in the framework of collective rights, the participants identified similar
problems in different countries. An important issue was access to higher education. As a participant from Bolivia affirms, We need more professional indigenous
women; politicians ignore our problems and they prevent us from participating
(L.K. Galeano & M. Werner, personal communication, November 12, 2013). The
right to a proper education and the need for a specialization program addressed to
indigenous women was emphasized.
Womens political participation was also identified as very important.
We are not exercising our right to participation; women only raise their hand, only
figure (in politics). We have been substitutes, not holders in the political area. (. . .)

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Even if there are women in the political area, they dont speak for us because they
dont have our vision. (. . .) Without a proper political vision we will always be
obeying. (. . .) There are many barriers, but if we manage to overcome them, we
will be exercising our rights. (II-CCMI, 2013)

There were also more radical voices too that questioned the possibility that
indigenous women could participate in actual forms of government because
they are colonial and indigenous women and dont fit in there (L.K. Galeano &
M. Werner, personal communication, November 12, 2013).
Another subject articulated at the worktable was sexual and reproductive
health. The participants bemoaned the lack of information about diseases such as
HIV, AIDS, and uterine cancer, which came to the communities with the presence
of multinational and mining companies. Faced with the problem that even if they
have health insurance, many women do not use public health services; the
participants demanded a hospital that recognizes traditional medicine and has
the ability to treat indigenous women in accordance with their cosmovision and
traditional practices. The participants also questioned certain traditional visions
that expect women to have a lot of children and criticized the fact that decisions
about their sexual and reproductive health are not taken in terms of complementarity between women and men.
The relationship with men and the subject of complementarity, which, according to their cosmovision, should guide relations between men and women, was
heavily discussed. The participants were aware of the fact that there was
machismo, that had they kept quiet for a long time, and that there was not
always complementarity in their relationships. As wives we have to fulfill
certain duties, but we have rights too and we are not exercising them (L.K.
Galeano & M. Werner, personal communication, November 12, 2013). Another
participant criticized the lack of shared responsibility. When the wife is tired,
why cant men do something (referring to the household)? (L.K. Galeano & M.
Werner, personal communication, November 12, 2013). They observed that some
women came without men because men preferred women who cooked and did
not criticize them, but there was unanimity about the importance of working
with men to guarantee complementarity in the relationships and the proposal to
invite men to the next summit meeting emerged. We speak from a position of
unity, we dont want to divide men and women (L.K. Galeano & M. Werner,
personal communication, November 12, 2013).
In the final declaration of the summit meeting, which includes the subjects
discussed and agreements from the worktables, the participants affirmed that
the exercise of our rights as indigenous women begins with empowering our
lives and our bodies and rejecting all forms of violence that go against our
physical, spiritual, and emotional integrity (L.K. Galeano & M. Werner, personal
communication, November 12, 2013). They also emphasized the importance of
the Buen vivir (good living) that establishes the reconstruction of complementarity between women and men and all beings that inhabit the territories to
revitalize our values and principles as native people. They made a call to the
governments responsible for guaranteeing individual and collective rights that
are internationally recognized and for respecting the autonomy and free selfdetermination of the (native) people (L.K. Galeano & M. Werner, personal communication, November 12, 2013).

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They committed themselves to fortify our agendas and actions as women that
respond to changes and dynamics that we are living in our realities and problems
based on collective participation and maintain, replicate, and interchange
experiences of formation and organization that contribute tools to advance in our
collective processes as women. They also committed themselves to position a
broad vision of communication from indigenous women, parting from our
cosmovision, spirituality, and proper education. Among other commitments,
they confirmed the proposal to constitute the Continental Coordinator of Indigenous Women of Abya Yala, conferring responsibility to the Regional Coordinators (CAOI, CICA, CIMA and COICA) to meet soon with the purpose to
articulate agendas based in the resolution of the present summit meeting (L.K.
Galeano & M. Werner, personal communication, November 12, 2013).

Conclusions
This article analyzed the autonomous process of indigenous women of
Abya Yala that emerged with womens participation in indigenous, feminist, and
womens movements, moved to the Continental Indigenous Womens Link
a discussion space for indigenous women leaders, and meetings called by international organizationsand reached the Continental Indigenous Womens
Summit Meetings that have offered participation to a broad base of indigenous
women.
In these spaces for indigenous women, there have been debates about relations
with the indigenous movement, and with feminist and womens movements, a
debate about the autonomy of the process. Indigenous women have strong criticisms of the processes that have denied full participation. Mixed indigenous
organizations did not meet their contributions and needs, and they have experienced racism and ethnocentrism in the hegemonic feminist and womens movements. These autonomic processes of women have been fed by their links to
feminisms, which have made them autonomous, diasporic, migrant, antiracist,
postcolonial, and sexually diverse. Indigenous women have appropriated feminist proposals and are building strategies.
The experiences of women have made them realize that they confront multiple
oppressions that affect them as indigenous people and as women. They face
exploitation systems that have impoverished their territories, and they respond
with the affirmation of what they consider necessary: their rights, resistances,
and building solidarity with other similar processes for women.
Another important aspect of the processes that converged at the Indigenous
Womens Continental Summit Meetings is the opening of an organization that
recognizes the diversity of indigenous womens experiences and contributions.
Aura Cumes (2009) affirms that women defend their cosmovision and complementarity as an alternative place to occidental patriarchy; others recover an
analysis of their cosmovision in a critical perspective that parts from their experience in daily routine; and others assume themselves openly as feminists, incorporating in their language, their experience, and the outline of their lives a
feminist ideology while they reaffirm their ethnic identity. All the indigenous
women who identify as defenders of nature and their territories must be added
to this mix.

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As we can observe in the declaration of the first and second CCMI, the autonomous indigenous womens process of Abya Yala is constantly consolidating a
more proper agenda. The proposal to constitute the Indigenous Womens Continental Coordinator aims at giving continuity to an articulation process that
promotes indigenous womens rights in a regional area, where despite the diversity, all women face similar discrimination and problems that to a great extent
have their origins in colonialism, racism, and machismo.
The formation of the Indigenous Womens Continental Coordinator can be
interpreted as a commitment to continue with the collective struggle for changes
in the realities they are living as indigenous women on the continent. As the
coordinator is supposed to be in charge of articulating the agendas based on the
resolutions of the CCMI, this proposal implies a greater visibility of indigenous
womens ideas and demands in the continent. At the same time, the final declaration represents a call for solidarity, a joint struggle, and the importance of interchanging and replicating experiences, parting from collectivity and spirituality.
Even though we cannot speak about feminist processes in an occidental sense
because indigenous women do not necessarily consider themselves occidental, in
the declaration, we find the affirmation that the exercise of their rights begins
with the empowerment of their bodies and lives and by rejecting all forms of
violence against them. This affirmation implies the recognition not only of the
specific oppressions that they experience as indigenous women but also of their
rights, a commitment to struggle for change, and the ability to exercise these
rights.

About the Authors

Lady Katherine Galeano Snchez is a political scientist and a candidate for a
masters in Gender and Development Studies at the National University of
Colombia.
Meike Werner has an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of
Cologne. She is a doctoral student in History at the same university and the
National University of Colombia.

Notes
1

Aba Yala is the name the pre-Colombian Kuna people give to America. Indigenous movements in
the region reaffirmed it amid the struggle for recognition in the late 20th century.
2
This term is theoretically used in the work of Chandra Mohanty (2008) as a discursive tension. It
was in several works of postcolonial feminists, when asked about a European power feminism,
positioned in a structural position of power, structuring a political agenda at the institutional and
international level to address gender inequality (Hernndez & Surez, 2008). This concept is retaken
from the notion of epistemic violence developed by Spivak (1998), (. . .) violence is related to the
amendment, editing, and even the annulment of systems of symbolization, subjectivity and representation that the other has of himself, and the concrete forms of representation, register, and memory
of his experience (Belasteguigoitia, 2001, p. 237).
3
This diversity does not consider sexual diversity and heteronormativity in the current movements
of indigenous women.
4
We use the term gender to refer to gender relations as a subject that has been included in the
agenda of indigenous womens struggle, but many of them prefer to use the term women because
gender is associated with occidental feminism, as Mndez (2009) indicates.
5
The Cumbre Continental de Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indgenas de Abya Yala has been organized
on five occasions: Teotihuacn (Mxico, 2000), Kito (Ecuador, 2004), Iximche Tecpn (Guatemala,

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277

2007), Puno (Per, 2009), and La Mara Piendam, Cauca (Colombia, 2013). The names of the locations
appear with their ethnic name. The Summit had as a background the First and Second Continental
Meeting of Indigenous Peoples, held in Quito (Ecuador, 1990) and Temoaya (Mexico, 1993).
6
It was significant that at the table where they debated, the issue of women was one of the
busiest. However, the presence of women was not limited to the discussion of this undoubtedly
important agenda. They were at all the tables presenting papers, discussing the contents thereof and
lobbying to get the plenary of the holding of the First Continental Summit of Indigenous Women of
Abya Yala approved. The announcement in plenary caused jubilation among Congress (Burguete,
2007, paragraph 10).
7
This statement makes a critique of the Beijing Draft Platform for Action because it ignores the
experiences of indigenous Women who suffer multiple oppressions as Indigenous peoples, as
citizens of colonized and neo-colonial countries, as women, and as members of the poorer classes of
society (Indigenous Peoples Council on Bioculturalism, 1995).
8
South Link consists of women representing the following organizations: Consejo de la Nacin
Charra, Mujeres Indgenas Wayuu, Consejo Nacional Indio de Venezuela, Organizacin Nacional
Indgena de Colombia, Confederacin de Nacionalidades Indgenas del Ecuador, Centro de Culturas
Indgenas del Per, Organizacin Nacional de Mujeres Indgenas Andinas y Amaznicas del Per,
Confederacin de Pueblo Indgenas de Bolivia, Confederacin Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas
Indgenas Originarias de Bolivia Bartolina Sisa, Confederacin Nacional de Mujeres Indgenas de
Bolivia, Toledo Maya Womens Council, Asociacin de Lderes de Pueblos Indgenas de Surinam,
Organizacin Indgena de Surinam, Federacin de Organizaciones Amerindias de Guayana Francesa,
Consejo Nacional de la Mujer Indgena, Red GRUMIN de Mujeres Indgenas, Coordinadora de
Organizaciones Indgenas de la Amazona Brasilera, Consejo de Todas las Tierras, Corporacin de
Mujeres Mapuche Aukiko Zomo, Consejo Nacional Aymara, Consejo Nacional de las Mujeres
Indgenas de Argentina, Newen Mapu, Organizacin del Pueblo Guaran, Federacin por la
Autodeterminacin de los Pueblos Indgenas del Paraguay, and IXCAVA. Link Center consists of
women representing the following organizations: Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala,
Asociacin de Mujeres Indgenas de la Costa Atlntica, Confederacin Nacional de Pueblos
Autctonos de Honduras, Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Indgenas y Negras de Honduras,
Organizacin Nacional de Mujeres Indgenas de Panam, Consejo Indgena de Centro Amrica, and
Amerindian Peoples Association of Guyana. Link Mexico consists of women representing the
Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Indgenas de Mxico. North Link consists of women representing
the following organizations: Femmes Autochtones du Qubec, Pauuktuutit, and Red Xicana Indgena
(ECMIA, 2012).
9
Buen Vivir (good living), or Sumak Kawsay in Kichwa language, is a paradigm championed
throughout the continental indigenous movement in reference to the construction of a new model of
development based on ecological and social sustainability, and the proposed political construction of
community plurinational states. Its referent in the first degree is the Bolivian experience, and
second, the Ecuadorian (Acevedo, 2010, p. 16).

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