Manuela Picq is a Senior Lecturer in the Departments of Political Science and Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies at Amherst College (USA). She is the author of scholarly books and articles, including "Savages and Citizens: How Indigeneity Shapes the State" (2024, co-authored with Andrew Canessa) and "Vernacular Sovereignties: Indigenous Women Challenging World Politics" (2018, translated to Spanish by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui). She contributes to international media outlets and works at the intersection of scholarship, activism and journalism, which led her to be detained and expelled from Ecuador in 2015. She was nominated a New Generation of Public Intellectuals (2018), featured in the FemiList 100 (2021) of women working in law, policy, and peacebuilding across the Global South, then received the International Studies Association’s 2024 Outstanding Activist Scholar Award. She coordinated the electoral campaigns of presidential candidate Yaku Pérez Guartambel, a Kichwa water defender, in Ecuador and is currently an Editor of the journal Public Humanities. Address: 74 college st amherst
Savages and Citizens: How Indigeneity Shapes the State, 2024
Although Indigenous peoples are often perceived as standing outside political modernity, Savages ... more Although Indigenous peoples are often perceived as standing outside political modernity, Savages and Citizens takes the provocative view that Indigenous people have been fundamental to how contemporary state sovereignty was imagined, theorized, and practiced.
Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international law, the book shows how the concept of indigeneity has shaped the development of the modern state. The exclusion of Indigenous people was not a collateral by product; it was a political project in its own right. The book argues that indigeneity is a political identity relational to modern nation-states and that Indigenous politics, although marking the boundary of the state, are co-constitutive of colonial processes of state-making. In showing how indigeneity is central to how the international system of states operates, the book forefronts Indigenous peoples as political actors to reject essentializing views that reduce them to cultural “survivors” rooted in the past.
With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international ... more Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international law, the book shows how the concept of indigeneity has shaped the development of the modern state. The exclusion of Indigenous peoples was not a collateral byproduct but structural, serving as the indispensable looking glass of political modernity. The book argues that indigeneity is a political identity relational to modern nation-states and that Indigenous politics, although marking the boundary of the state, are co-constitutive of colonial processes of state making. In showing how indigeneity is central to how the international system of states operates, the book forefronts Indigenous peoples as political actors to reject essentializing views that reduce them to cultural “survivors” rooted in the past. With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
En Soberanías Vernáculas, Manuela Lavinas Picq muestra que las mujeres indígenas han sido históri... more En Soberanías Vernáculas, Manuela Lavinas Picq muestra que las mujeres indígenas han sido históricamente actores políticos dinámicos que han moldeado las prácticas estatales con sus variadas formas de resistencia. Su investigación sobre Ecuador muestra que, aunque las mujeres kichwa se enfrentan a opresiones superpuestas que van desde la violencia socioeconómica a la sexual, están construyendo derechos únicos en el mundo. Durante la reforma constitucional de 2008 defendieron con éxito la participación de las mujeres en la administración de justicia indígena, creando la primera constitución de América Latina que garantiza explícitamente los derechos de las mujeres indígenas, y la primera en el mundo que exige la paridad de género en la administración de justicia.
Picq ofrece estudios empíricos que demuestran la importancia de las mujeres indígenas en la política internacional y la sofisticación de su activismo. Las mujeres indígenas utilizan estratégicamente las normas internacionales para definir formas locales de autoridad legal, desafiando las prácticas occidentales de autoridad a medida que construyen lo que la autora denomina soberanías vernáculas. Esta obra interdisciplinar entrelaza las perspectivas feministas con los estudios indígenas para ampliar los debates conceptuales sobre la soberanía moderna.
Traduccion al español por Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
When terms such as LGBT and queer cross borders they evolve and adjust to different political thi... more When terms such as LGBT and queer cross borders they evolve and adjust to different political thinking. Queer became kvir in Kyrgyzstan and cuir in Ecuador, neither of which hold the English meaning. Translation is about crossing borders, but some languages travel more than others. Sexualities are usually translated from the core to the periphery, imposing Western LGBT identities onto the rest of the world. Many sexual identities are not translatable into English, and markers of modernity override native terminologies. All this matters beyond words. Translating sexuality in world politics forces us to confront issues of emancipation, colonisation, and sovereignty, in which global frameworks are locally embraced and/or resisted. Translating sexualities is a political act entangled in power politics, imperialism and foreign intervention. This book explores the entanglements of sex and tongue in international relations from Kyrgyzstan to Nepal, Japan to Tajikistan, Kurdistan to Amazonia.
Indigenous women are rarely accounted for in world politics. Imagined as passive subjects at the ... more Indigenous women are rarely accounted for in world politics. Imagined as passive subjects at the margins of political decision-making, they often epitomize the antithesis of international relations. Yet from their positions of marginality they are shaping sovereignty.
In Vernacular Sovereignties, Manuela Lavinas Picq shows that Indigenous women have long been dynamic political actors who have partaken in international politics and have shaped state practices carrying different forms of resistance. Her research on Ecuador shows that although Kichwa women face overlapping oppressions from socioeconomic exclusions to sexual violence, they are achieving rights unparalleled in the world. They successfully advocated for women’s participation in the administration of Indigenous justice during the 2008 constitutional reform, creating the first constitution in Latin America to explicitly guarantee the rights of Indigenous women and the first constitution worldwide to require gender parity in the administration of justice.
Picq argues that Indigenous women are among the important forces reshaping states in Latin America. She offers empirical research that shows the significance of Indigenous women in international politics and the sophistication of their activism. Indigenous women strategically use international norms to shape legal authority locally, defying Western practices of authority as they build what the author calls vernacular sovereignties. Weaving feminist perspectives with Indigenous studies, this interdisciplinary work expands conceptual debates on state sovereignty.
Picq persuasively suggests that the invisibility of Indigenous women in high politics is more a consequence of our failure to recognize their agency than a result of their de facto absence. It is an invitation not merely to recognize their achievements but also to understand why they matter to world politics.
The authors of this edited volume use a queer perspective to address colonialism as localized in ... more The authors of this edited volume use a queer perspective to address colonialism as localized in the Global South, to analyse how the queer can be decolonized and to map the implications of such conversations on hegemonic and alternative understandings of modernity. This book is distinct in at least four ways. First, its content is a rare blend of original scholarly pieces with internationally acclaimed art. Second, it is a volume that blends theoretical debates with policy praxis, filling a gap that often tends to undermine the reach of either side at play. Third, its topic is unique, as sexual politics are put in direct dialogue with post-colonial debates. Fourth, the book brings to the forefront voices from the Global South/non-core to redefine a field that has been largely framed and conceptualized in the Global North/core.
As LGBTQ claims acquire global relevance, how do sexual politics impact the study of Internatio... more As LGBTQ claims acquire global relevance, how do sexual politics impact the study of International Relations? This book argues that LGBTQ perspectives are not only an inherent part of world politics but can also influence IR theory-making. LGBTQ politics have simultaneously gained international prominence in the past decade, achieving significant policy change, and provoked cultural resistance and policy pushbacks.
Sexuality politics, more so than gender-based theories, arrived late on the theoretical scene in part because sexuality and gender studies initially highlighted post-structuralist thinking, which was hardly accepted in mainstream political science. This book responds to a call for a more empirically motivated but also critical scholarship on this subject. It offers comparative case-studies from regional, cultural and theoretical peripheries to identify ways of rethinking IR. Further, it aims to add to critical theory, broadening the knowledge about previously unrecognized perspectives in an accessible manner. Being aware of preoccupations with the de-queering, disciplining nature of theory establishment in the social sciences, we critically reconsider IR concepts from a particular LGBTQ vantage point and infuse them with queer thinking. Considering the relative dearth of contemporary mainstream IR-theorizing, authors ask what contribution LGBTQ politics can provide for conceiving the political subject, as well as the international structure in which activism is embedded.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of gender politics, cultural studies and international relations theory.
As scholars, we must reflect on why we do what we do. What outcomes guide our research? For whom?... more As scholars, we must reflect on why we do what we do. What outcomes guide our research? For whom? Are we pushing critical perspectives to contest a broken world order or to climb institutional ladders and publication rankings? As much as we may be driven by ethical ideas, we are simultaneously contained by institutional frameworks, time limits, and professional expectations. Our ability to step into the world cannot rely solely on individual decisions; it also requires a collective commitment for a public IR. Practice transforms theory and theory transforms practice. To separate knowing from doing signals a coloniality of knowledge that perpetuates hierarchies instead of connecting with the fabric of life.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics, 2020
It is extremely dangerous to resist extractive megaprojects in Latin America. The intensive accum... more It is extremely dangerous to resist extractive megaprojects in Latin America. The intensive accumulation of natural resources for export on global markets has long characterized Latin America, but the boom in exports of raw commodities since 2000 has accentuated a violent history of dispossession. As of 2020, Latin America represents 60% of nature defenders killed in the world. Governments license natural resources at unprecedented rates, pushing land- and water-grabbing to new levels. Resistance against mining, oil, hydroelectric, and agribusiness projects is framed as antidevelopment and repressed with brutal violence. Governments are expanding the extractive frontier fast, promoting megaprojects in the name of national development or to fund social policies, a so-called redistributive neo-extractivism. This extractive consensus has increased social conflict across the region; but it has also inspired new forms of resistance. Resistance, which is mostly Indigenous and largely female, is a political struggle against extractive industries that represent ongoing forms of colonial dispossession. Resistance against extractivism focuses on the defense of nature as much as on rights to self-determination, a central element to shape a postextractive world. Ecuador is a case in point. The country recognizes international rights to prior consultation and established the first rights of nature framework in the world, yet it criminalizes nature defenders as it continues to expand the extractive frontier. The emerging rights of nature framework, like mining bans, are alternatives to extractivism that offer insights into experiences of resistance in the highlands of Ecuador. The Rio Blanco mine, an iconic megaproject financed by China, was suspended in 2018 thanks to a solid network of resistance that secured a broad mobilization of rural communities and urban youth, lawyers and academics, blending street protest with legal action. The Rio Blanco case shows the complementarity of various strategies, the potential of courts as allies, and the powerful coordination between social movements and government to contest structural dispossession.
Resumo: La colonización sexual reprime sexualidades indígenas, regulando las ex-periencias sexual... more Resumo: La colonización sexual reprime sexualidades indígenas, regulando las ex-periencias sexuales y de género, forzando pueblos indígenas a existir dentro de códigos occidentales heteronormativos. Este ensayo analiza la supresión de las sexualidades indígenas como parte de un proceso más amplio de despojo colonial. Se examina la diversidad sexual en lenguas indígenas, la narrativa colonial de sodomía que criminaliza cuerpos para justificar el despojo bajo la doctrina del descubrimiento, e se propone descolonizar las sexualidades como un acto fundamental de libre determinación para resistir el despojo en todas sus formas. Palabras llave: sexualidad, genero, pueblos indígenas, colonialismo, sodomía. The colonization of indigenous sexualities: between dispossession and resistance Abstract: Sexual colonization represses indigenous sexualities, regulating sexual and gender experiences, forcing indigenous peoples to exist within western hetero-normative frameworks. This essay analyzes the erasure of indigenous sexualities as part of a broader process of colonial dispossession. It examines sexual diversity in indigenous languages, the colonial narrative of sodomy that criminalizes bodies to justify dispossession under the doctrine of discovery, and proposes to
This chapter analyzes how these politics challenge conventional understandings of sovereignty as ... more This chapter analyzes how these politics challenge conventional understandings of sovereignty as Kichwa women pursue autonomy and legal accountability. The particular effect of their claims is a legal triangulation between international norms, constitutional rights, and Indigenous justice. The ensuing legal assemblage challenges established practices of sovereignty. While threats to sovereignty tend to be perceived as coming from international locations “above” the state, Indigenous politics also challenge sovereignty from within. I discuss how Indigenous politics engage with nonexclusive forms of sovereignty, challenging the concept of exclusive authority over a territory. Indigenous authority, I argue, can be thought of as vernacular forms of sovereignty within the state. I conclude by emphasizing the significance of Indigenous ways of seeing and Indigenous politics in relation to state sovereignty, the organizing principle of world politics
“Self-Determination with Gender Parity” explains how Indigenous women engage international norms ... more “Self-Determination with Gender Parity” explains how Indigenous women engage international norms to consolidate their rights in local contexts. I tell the largely unknown story of Kichwa women’s claims for gender parity in the Indigenous justice movement. I analyze how women from the Red Provincial de Organizaciones de Mujeres Kichwas y Rurales de Chimborazo (REDCH) have envisioned new rights and successfully pursued original legislation almost single-handedly. Their unprecedented legal achievements have far-reaching implications for women’s rights and for the practice and conceptualization of human rights globally. Kichwa women’s struggles may be local, but they represent a remarkable contribution to international women’s rights. Through their innovative practice of interlegality, they have reconciled old tensions between gender and multiculturalism to propose a differentiated practice of universal rights.
Taking a historical perspective, chapter 2, “The Inheritance of Resistance,” argues that women ha... more Taking a historical perspective, chapter 2, “The Inheritance of Resistance,” argues that women have long participated in Indigenous struggles against colonial governments. It traces the inheritance of political resistance among Indigenous women from colonial times, stressing female leaders who were blacklisted by colonial states, persecuted for constituting military threats, and feared for their cold-bloodedness across the Andes. If Indigenous women are invisible today it is because they are erased from memory by selective histories. I retell their history to subvert familiar understandings of Indigenous women as passive or unrelated to state-making. A closer look at Dolores Cacuango and Tránsito Amaguaña, the two women who founded Ecuador’s modern Indigenous move- ment, suggests that their leadership is part of a legacy of resistance against state violence. Surprisingly, however, their forceful political contestation has resulted in their relative absence from contemporary politics, and I show how the incorporation of Indigenous movements into formal politics may have adversely impacted women’s leadership.
Chapter 1, “Invisible Women,” discusses the intersectionality of sexism, colonial racism, and con... more Chapter 1, “Invisible Women,” discusses the intersectionality of sexism, colonial racism, and conceptual statelessness to demonstrate the political situation of Indigenous women. I first examine what it means to be Indigenous through the fluctuation of Indigenous categorizations in official records. I then analyze the multidimensional overlap of socioeconomic exclusions of Indigenous women. Structural un-freedoms like economic scarcity, ill health, and low levels of education are accentuated by limited access to political participation to make Indigenous women vulnerable political actors. Finally, I analyze the Remache case to illustrate the pervasiveness of domestic violence against Indigenous women. Estuardo Remache, a Pachakutik congressional delegate, was repeatedly charged with domestic violence in Riobamba’s "comisaría de la mujer" before the case was transferred to Indigenous justice, but neither legal system provided security to the victim.
The word ‘queer’ is not translatable in Spanish, so Ecuadorians say cuir, translating queerness i... more The word ‘queer’ is not translatable in Spanish, so Ecuadorians say cuir, translating queerness into a term of their own (Falconí 2014; Falconí, Castellanos, and Viteri 2013). There are plenty of LGBT politics in Japan, but the Japanese language has no letter ‘L’.[1] How do LGBT politics function without the L? What are the implications of translating a political movement into a language that does not have the words to say it? The politics of sexuality are radically transformed during the process of translation, be it in Ecuador or Japan. Language allows us to make sense of things, ourselves, and the universe we inhabit. Yet, time and again, our selves are lost, displaced, and reinvented in the process of translation. The contributions in this volume reveal how processes of translation are entangled in layers of self-determination. Which experiences are translated with which words? From where? By whom? The chapters tackle the problem of sexual liberation to show how global narratives assert the existence of diverse sexualities but also impose external arrangements.
Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics, 2019
Indigenous societies were never straight. Hundreds of languages across the Americas had words ref... more Indigenous societies were never straight. Hundreds of languages across the Americas had words referring to same-sex practices and non-binary, fluid understandings of gender long before the emergence of international LGBT rights. The muxes in Juchitán are nei ther men nor women but a Zapotec gender hybridity. Across the Pacific in Hawaii, the māhū embrace both the feminine and masculine. Global sexual rights frameworks did not introduce referents to recognize alternative sexualities; Indigenous languages already had them, as their terminologies indicate. Indigenous sexualities both predate and defy contemporary LGBT and queer frameworks. It is not the idioms that are untranslatable but the cultural and political fabric they represent. This chapter shows the plurality of gender roles and sexual practices in Indigenous societies not to contribute sexual reper toires but to expand the imagination with new epistemologies. The analysis suggests that codes of heteronormativity were central tenets of the colonial project. Sexuality was a terrain to frame the Native as pervert and validate European violence against the non-Christian other, labeled as savage, heretic, and sodomite. The repression of sexual diver sity shows how sexual control followed colonial logics of dispossession like the doctrine of discovery and why resisting heteronormative codification is a decolonial practice. This chapter recognizes the significance of the existence and resistance of Indigenous sexuali ties. It analyzes colonial processes of heterosexualization and approaches Native sexuali ties as sites of resurgence and self-determination to resist ongoing forms of disposses sion.
Indigenous experiences complement official national histories with forgotten narratives; in the p... more Indigenous experiences complement official national histories with forgotten narratives; in the process, they contribute new epistemologies. Rather than expanding history; they revert it, destabilizing state-centric conceptualizations of the political. This special issue explores the complexity and diversity of indigenous resistance to argue that the vibrancy of Indigenous resistance today is testimony to ongoing forms of colonial dispossession. Contributions range from Australia to Bolivia, cover the USA - Canada border, and put Zapatista interventions in dialogue with resistance in Amazonia. Their interdisciplinary perspective show that Indigenous politics may contribute singular, radical critiques because they are co-constitutive of state-formation.
Este ensayo explora estos temas en cuatro tiempos. La primera parte narra mi detención, reveland... more Este ensayo explora estos temas en cuatro tiempos. La primera parte narra mi detención, revelando la represión que lleva una académica tras las rejas. Una segunda parte explora las condiciones carcelarias en el centro de detención para extranjeros en Quito, desde la historia del “Hotel Carrión” hasta la situación de limbo jurídico en la cual se encontraban hombres y mujeres de origen extranjero en agosto de 2015, sin acceso a abogados o atención médica. Una tercera parte analiza el uso sistemático de “lawfare,” la criminalización jurídica, como una forma de gobierno en Ecuador, indicando los más notables de más de 700 casos de criminalizados en el país. Por último, me detengo en una reflexión sobre la relación entre academia y activismo, cuestionando la posibilidad de una observación científica “neutral” y las dimensiones éticas del posicionamiento político.
Savages and Citizens: How Indigeneity Shapes the State, 2024
Although Indigenous peoples are often perceived as standing outside political modernity, Savages ... more Although Indigenous peoples are often perceived as standing outside political modernity, Savages and Citizens takes the provocative view that Indigenous people have been fundamental to how contemporary state sovereignty was imagined, theorized, and practiced.
Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international law, the book shows how the concept of indigeneity has shaped the development of the modern state. The exclusion of Indigenous people was not a collateral by product; it was a political project in its own right. The book argues that indigeneity is a political identity relational to modern nation-states and that Indigenous politics, although marking the boundary of the state, are co-constitutive of colonial processes of state-making. In showing how indigeneity is central to how the international system of states operates, the book forefronts Indigenous peoples as political actors to reject essentializing views that reduce them to cultural “survivors” rooted in the past.
With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international ... more Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international law, the book shows how the concept of indigeneity has shaped the development of the modern state. The exclusion of Indigenous peoples was not a collateral byproduct but structural, serving as the indispensable looking glass of political modernity. The book argues that indigeneity is a political identity relational to modern nation-states and that Indigenous politics, although marking the boundary of the state, are co-constitutive of colonial processes of state making. In showing how indigeneity is central to how the international system of states operates, the book forefronts Indigenous peoples as political actors to reject essentializing views that reduce them to cultural “survivors” rooted in the past. With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
En Soberanías Vernáculas, Manuela Lavinas Picq muestra que las mujeres indígenas han sido históri... more En Soberanías Vernáculas, Manuela Lavinas Picq muestra que las mujeres indígenas han sido históricamente actores políticos dinámicos que han moldeado las prácticas estatales con sus variadas formas de resistencia. Su investigación sobre Ecuador muestra que, aunque las mujeres kichwa se enfrentan a opresiones superpuestas que van desde la violencia socioeconómica a la sexual, están construyendo derechos únicos en el mundo. Durante la reforma constitucional de 2008 defendieron con éxito la participación de las mujeres en la administración de justicia indígena, creando la primera constitución de América Latina que garantiza explícitamente los derechos de las mujeres indígenas, y la primera en el mundo que exige la paridad de género en la administración de justicia.
Picq ofrece estudios empíricos que demuestran la importancia de las mujeres indígenas en la política internacional y la sofisticación de su activismo. Las mujeres indígenas utilizan estratégicamente las normas internacionales para definir formas locales de autoridad legal, desafiando las prácticas occidentales de autoridad a medida que construyen lo que la autora denomina soberanías vernáculas. Esta obra interdisciplinar entrelaza las perspectivas feministas con los estudios indígenas para ampliar los debates conceptuales sobre la soberanía moderna.
Traduccion al español por Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
When terms such as LGBT and queer cross borders they evolve and adjust to different political thi... more When terms such as LGBT and queer cross borders they evolve and adjust to different political thinking. Queer became kvir in Kyrgyzstan and cuir in Ecuador, neither of which hold the English meaning. Translation is about crossing borders, but some languages travel more than others. Sexualities are usually translated from the core to the periphery, imposing Western LGBT identities onto the rest of the world. Many sexual identities are not translatable into English, and markers of modernity override native terminologies. All this matters beyond words. Translating sexuality in world politics forces us to confront issues of emancipation, colonisation, and sovereignty, in which global frameworks are locally embraced and/or resisted. Translating sexualities is a political act entangled in power politics, imperialism and foreign intervention. This book explores the entanglements of sex and tongue in international relations from Kyrgyzstan to Nepal, Japan to Tajikistan, Kurdistan to Amazonia.
Indigenous women are rarely accounted for in world politics. Imagined as passive subjects at the ... more Indigenous women are rarely accounted for in world politics. Imagined as passive subjects at the margins of political decision-making, they often epitomize the antithesis of international relations. Yet from their positions of marginality they are shaping sovereignty.
In Vernacular Sovereignties, Manuela Lavinas Picq shows that Indigenous women have long been dynamic political actors who have partaken in international politics and have shaped state practices carrying different forms of resistance. Her research on Ecuador shows that although Kichwa women face overlapping oppressions from socioeconomic exclusions to sexual violence, they are achieving rights unparalleled in the world. They successfully advocated for women’s participation in the administration of Indigenous justice during the 2008 constitutional reform, creating the first constitution in Latin America to explicitly guarantee the rights of Indigenous women and the first constitution worldwide to require gender parity in the administration of justice.
Picq argues that Indigenous women are among the important forces reshaping states in Latin America. She offers empirical research that shows the significance of Indigenous women in international politics and the sophistication of their activism. Indigenous women strategically use international norms to shape legal authority locally, defying Western practices of authority as they build what the author calls vernacular sovereignties. Weaving feminist perspectives with Indigenous studies, this interdisciplinary work expands conceptual debates on state sovereignty.
Picq persuasively suggests that the invisibility of Indigenous women in high politics is more a consequence of our failure to recognize their agency than a result of their de facto absence. It is an invitation not merely to recognize their achievements but also to understand why they matter to world politics.
The authors of this edited volume use a queer perspective to address colonialism as localized in ... more The authors of this edited volume use a queer perspective to address colonialism as localized in the Global South, to analyse how the queer can be decolonized and to map the implications of such conversations on hegemonic and alternative understandings of modernity. This book is distinct in at least four ways. First, its content is a rare blend of original scholarly pieces with internationally acclaimed art. Second, it is a volume that blends theoretical debates with policy praxis, filling a gap that often tends to undermine the reach of either side at play. Third, its topic is unique, as sexual politics are put in direct dialogue with post-colonial debates. Fourth, the book brings to the forefront voices from the Global South/non-core to redefine a field that has been largely framed and conceptualized in the Global North/core.
As LGBTQ claims acquire global relevance, how do sexual politics impact the study of Internatio... more As LGBTQ claims acquire global relevance, how do sexual politics impact the study of International Relations? This book argues that LGBTQ perspectives are not only an inherent part of world politics but can also influence IR theory-making. LGBTQ politics have simultaneously gained international prominence in the past decade, achieving significant policy change, and provoked cultural resistance and policy pushbacks.
Sexuality politics, more so than gender-based theories, arrived late on the theoretical scene in part because sexuality and gender studies initially highlighted post-structuralist thinking, which was hardly accepted in mainstream political science. This book responds to a call for a more empirically motivated but also critical scholarship on this subject. It offers comparative case-studies from regional, cultural and theoretical peripheries to identify ways of rethinking IR. Further, it aims to add to critical theory, broadening the knowledge about previously unrecognized perspectives in an accessible manner. Being aware of preoccupations with the de-queering, disciplining nature of theory establishment in the social sciences, we critically reconsider IR concepts from a particular LGBTQ vantage point and infuse them with queer thinking. Considering the relative dearth of contemporary mainstream IR-theorizing, authors ask what contribution LGBTQ politics can provide for conceiving the political subject, as well as the international structure in which activism is embedded.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of gender politics, cultural studies and international relations theory.
As scholars, we must reflect on why we do what we do. What outcomes guide our research? For whom?... more As scholars, we must reflect on why we do what we do. What outcomes guide our research? For whom? Are we pushing critical perspectives to contest a broken world order or to climb institutional ladders and publication rankings? As much as we may be driven by ethical ideas, we are simultaneously contained by institutional frameworks, time limits, and professional expectations. Our ability to step into the world cannot rely solely on individual decisions; it also requires a collective commitment for a public IR. Practice transforms theory and theory transforms practice. To separate knowing from doing signals a coloniality of knowledge that perpetuates hierarchies instead of connecting with the fabric of life.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics, 2020
It is extremely dangerous to resist extractive megaprojects in Latin America. The intensive accum... more It is extremely dangerous to resist extractive megaprojects in Latin America. The intensive accumulation of natural resources for export on global markets has long characterized Latin America, but the boom in exports of raw commodities since 2000 has accentuated a violent history of dispossession. As of 2020, Latin America represents 60% of nature defenders killed in the world. Governments license natural resources at unprecedented rates, pushing land- and water-grabbing to new levels. Resistance against mining, oil, hydroelectric, and agribusiness projects is framed as antidevelopment and repressed with brutal violence. Governments are expanding the extractive frontier fast, promoting megaprojects in the name of national development or to fund social policies, a so-called redistributive neo-extractivism. This extractive consensus has increased social conflict across the region; but it has also inspired new forms of resistance. Resistance, which is mostly Indigenous and largely female, is a political struggle against extractive industries that represent ongoing forms of colonial dispossession. Resistance against extractivism focuses on the defense of nature as much as on rights to self-determination, a central element to shape a postextractive world. Ecuador is a case in point. The country recognizes international rights to prior consultation and established the first rights of nature framework in the world, yet it criminalizes nature defenders as it continues to expand the extractive frontier. The emerging rights of nature framework, like mining bans, are alternatives to extractivism that offer insights into experiences of resistance in the highlands of Ecuador. The Rio Blanco mine, an iconic megaproject financed by China, was suspended in 2018 thanks to a solid network of resistance that secured a broad mobilization of rural communities and urban youth, lawyers and academics, blending street protest with legal action. The Rio Blanco case shows the complementarity of various strategies, the potential of courts as allies, and the powerful coordination between social movements and government to contest structural dispossession.
Resumo: La colonización sexual reprime sexualidades indígenas, regulando las ex-periencias sexual... more Resumo: La colonización sexual reprime sexualidades indígenas, regulando las ex-periencias sexuales y de género, forzando pueblos indígenas a existir dentro de códigos occidentales heteronormativos. Este ensayo analiza la supresión de las sexualidades indígenas como parte de un proceso más amplio de despojo colonial. Se examina la diversidad sexual en lenguas indígenas, la narrativa colonial de sodomía que criminaliza cuerpos para justificar el despojo bajo la doctrina del descubrimiento, e se propone descolonizar las sexualidades como un acto fundamental de libre determinación para resistir el despojo en todas sus formas. Palabras llave: sexualidad, genero, pueblos indígenas, colonialismo, sodomía. The colonization of indigenous sexualities: between dispossession and resistance Abstract: Sexual colonization represses indigenous sexualities, regulating sexual and gender experiences, forcing indigenous peoples to exist within western hetero-normative frameworks. This essay analyzes the erasure of indigenous sexualities as part of a broader process of colonial dispossession. It examines sexual diversity in indigenous languages, the colonial narrative of sodomy that criminalizes bodies to justify dispossession under the doctrine of discovery, and proposes to
This chapter analyzes how these politics challenge conventional understandings of sovereignty as ... more This chapter analyzes how these politics challenge conventional understandings of sovereignty as Kichwa women pursue autonomy and legal accountability. The particular effect of their claims is a legal triangulation between international norms, constitutional rights, and Indigenous justice. The ensuing legal assemblage challenges established practices of sovereignty. While threats to sovereignty tend to be perceived as coming from international locations “above” the state, Indigenous politics also challenge sovereignty from within. I discuss how Indigenous politics engage with nonexclusive forms of sovereignty, challenging the concept of exclusive authority over a territory. Indigenous authority, I argue, can be thought of as vernacular forms of sovereignty within the state. I conclude by emphasizing the significance of Indigenous ways of seeing and Indigenous politics in relation to state sovereignty, the organizing principle of world politics
“Self-Determination with Gender Parity” explains how Indigenous women engage international norms ... more “Self-Determination with Gender Parity” explains how Indigenous women engage international norms to consolidate their rights in local contexts. I tell the largely unknown story of Kichwa women’s claims for gender parity in the Indigenous justice movement. I analyze how women from the Red Provincial de Organizaciones de Mujeres Kichwas y Rurales de Chimborazo (REDCH) have envisioned new rights and successfully pursued original legislation almost single-handedly. Their unprecedented legal achievements have far-reaching implications for women’s rights and for the practice and conceptualization of human rights globally. Kichwa women’s struggles may be local, but they represent a remarkable contribution to international women’s rights. Through their innovative practice of interlegality, they have reconciled old tensions between gender and multiculturalism to propose a differentiated practice of universal rights.
Taking a historical perspective, chapter 2, “The Inheritance of Resistance,” argues that women ha... more Taking a historical perspective, chapter 2, “The Inheritance of Resistance,” argues that women have long participated in Indigenous struggles against colonial governments. It traces the inheritance of political resistance among Indigenous women from colonial times, stressing female leaders who were blacklisted by colonial states, persecuted for constituting military threats, and feared for their cold-bloodedness across the Andes. If Indigenous women are invisible today it is because they are erased from memory by selective histories. I retell their history to subvert familiar understandings of Indigenous women as passive or unrelated to state-making. A closer look at Dolores Cacuango and Tránsito Amaguaña, the two women who founded Ecuador’s modern Indigenous move- ment, suggests that their leadership is part of a legacy of resistance against state violence. Surprisingly, however, their forceful political contestation has resulted in their relative absence from contemporary politics, and I show how the incorporation of Indigenous movements into formal politics may have adversely impacted women’s leadership.
Chapter 1, “Invisible Women,” discusses the intersectionality of sexism, colonial racism, and con... more Chapter 1, “Invisible Women,” discusses the intersectionality of sexism, colonial racism, and conceptual statelessness to demonstrate the political situation of Indigenous women. I first examine what it means to be Indigenous through the fluctuation of Indigenous categorizations in official records. I then analyze the multidimensional overlap of socioeconomic exclusions of Indigenous women. Structural un-freedoms like economic scarcity, ill health, and low levels of education are accentuated by limited access to political participation to make Indigenous women vulnerable political actors. Finally, I analyze the Remache case to illustrate the pervasiveness of domestic violence against Indigenous women. Estuardo Remache, a Pachakutik congressional delegate, was repeatedly charged with domestic violence in Riobamba’s "comisaría de la mujer" before the case was transferred to Indigenous justice, but neither legal system provided security to the victim.
The word ‘queer’ is not translatable in Spanish, so Ecuadorians say cuir, translating queerness i... more The word ‘queer’ is not translatable in Spanish, so Ecuadorians say cuir, translating queerness into a term of their own (Falconí 2014; Falconí, Castellanos, and Viteri 2013). There are plenty of LGBT politics in Japan, but the Japanese language has no letter ‘L’.[1] How do LGBT politics function without the L? What are the implications of translating a political movement into a language that does not have the words to say it? The politics of sexuality are radically transformed during the process of translation, be it in Ecuador or Japan. Language allows us to make sense of things, ourselves, and the universe we inhabit. Yet, time and again, our selves are lost, displaced, and reinvented in the process of translation. The contributions in this volume reveal how processes of translation are entangled in layers of self-determination. Which experiences are translated with which words? From where? By whom? The chapters tackle the problem of sexual liberation to show how global narratives assert the existence of diverse sexualities but also impose external arrangements.
Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics, 2019
Indigenous societies were never straight. Hundreds of languages across the Americas had words ref... more Indigenous societies were never straight. Hundreds of languages across the Americas had words referring to same-sex practices and non-binary, fluid understandings of gender long before the emergence of international LGBT rights. The muxes in Juchitán are nei ther men nor women but a Zapotec gender hybridity. Across the Pacific in Hawaii, the māhū embrace both the feminine and masculine. Global sexual rights frameworks did not introduce referents to recognize alternative sexualities; Indigenous languages already had them, as their terminologies indicate. Indigenous sexualities both predate and defy contemporary LGBT and queer frameworks. It is not the idioms that are untranslatable but the cultural and political fabric they represent. This chapter shows the plurality of gender roles and sexual practices in Indigenous societies not to contribute sexual reper toires but to expand the imagination with new epistemologies. The analysis suggests that codes of heteronormativity were central tenets of the colonial project. Sexuality was a terrain to frame the Native as pervert and validate European violence against the non-Christian other, labeled as savage, heretic, and sodomite. The repression of sexual diver sity shows how sexual control followed colonial logics of dispossession like the doctrine of discovery and why resisting heteronormative codification is a decolonial practice. This chapter recognizes the significance of the existence and resistance of Indigenous sexuali ties. It analyzes colonial processes of heterosexualization and approaches Native sexuali ties as sites of resurgence and self-determination to resist ongoing forms of disposses sion.
Indigenous experiences complement official national histories with forgotten narratives; in the p... more Indigenous experiences complement official national histories with forgotten narratives; in the process, they contribute new epistemologies. Rather than expanding history; they revert it, destabilizing state-centric conceptualizations of the political. This special issue explores the complexity and diversity of indigenous resistance to argue that the vibrancy of Indigenous resistance today is testimony to ongoing forms of colonial dispossession. Contributions range from Australia to Bolivia, cover the USA - Canada border, and put Zapatista interventions in dialogue with resistance in Amazonia. Their interdisciplinary perspective show that Indigenous politics may contribute singular, radical critiques because they are co-constitutive of state-formation.
Este ensayo explora estos temas en cuatro tiempos. La primera parte narra mi detención, reveland... more Este ensayo explora estos temas en cuatro tiempos. La primera parte narra mi detención, revelando la represión que lleva una académica tras las rejas. Una segunda parte explora las condiciones carcelarias en el centro de detención para extranjeros en Quito, desde la historia del “Hotel Carrión” hasta la situación de limbo jurídico en la cual se encontraban hombres y mujeres de origen extranjero en agosto de 2015, sin acceso a abogados o atención médica. Una tercera parte analiza el uso sistemático de “lawfare,” la criminalización jurídica, como una forma de gobierno en Ecuador, indicando los más notables de más de 700 casos de criminalizados en el país. Por último, me detengo en una reflexión sobre la relación entre academia y activismo, cuestionando la posibilidad de una observación científica “neutral” y las dimensiones éticas del posicionamiento político.
This essay traces the changing forms of indigenous dispossession in Guatemala from colonial times... more This essay traces the changing forms of indigenous dispossession in Guatemala from colonial times to the present. We show that the stealing of Maya lands is not a historical episode linked to the Spanish invasion but a defining structure of Guatemala’s modern state. Our argument is twofold. First, various logics of colonization are at play. A historical approach illuminates a combination of settler colonial logics that erase indigenous presence and the colonial logic of racialization to control indigenous peoples. Second, the stealing of Maya territories is intrinsic to modern states. We connect colonial archives with contemporary neoliberal policies of extraction to reveal the continuation of colonial logics in Guatemala.
Monções, Revista de Relaciones Internacionais da UFGD, 2017
A experiência política dos povos indígenas, e especialmente das mulheres indígenas, é crucial pa... more A experiência política dos povos indígenas, e especialmente das mulheres indígenas, é crucial para repensar o mundo da política. Também busca visibilizar o dinamismo internacional da política indígena e enfatiza seus esforços para contrapor o estadocentrismo. Seguindo a sugestão de Chatterjee (1993) de olhar para dentro da nação, eu integro abordagens etnográficas a um ponto de vista feminista para mostrar como mulheres indígenas moldam o internacional. Sustento meu argumento com uma análise de um estudo de caso de mulheres indígenas no Equador. Localizando sua política na intersecção de direitos coletivos indígenas e direitos internacionais das mulheres, as mulheres kichwa articulam política indígena, o estado-nação e normas internacionais de modos que deslocam formas convencionais de autoridade legal. Sua busca por justiça é profundamente imbricada com a política global e resulta em práticas de soberania dispostas em múltiplas camadas que se sobrepõem umas às outras. No geral, esta análise postula a indigenidade como uma categoria de análise significativa, ainda que negligenciada, para pensar as RI diferentemente
Crítica Contemporánea: Revista de Teoría Política , 2016
Resumen: En agosto de 2015 fui detenida durante una marcha pacífica contra la reelección indefini... more Resumen: En agosto de 2015 fui detenida durante una marcha pacífica contra la reelección indefinida del presidente de Ecuador. Una semana después fui expulsada del país en el cual había construido mi vida social, profesional y emocional durante más de una década. Mi experiencia confirma las fallas de gobiernos progresistas y de izquierda no solo en Ecuador, sino también en América Latina. Además, el incidente revela la cara racista de revoluciones que celebran Manuelas blancas pero siguen menospreciando a las Manuelas indígenas. Esta historia de represión que separa a la fuerza a dos personas unidas en matrimonio es más que una vendetta política personal: es otro capítulo en la historia de violencia de estado contra la libre determinación de los pueblos indígenas. Abstract In August 2015, I was beaten and detained during a peaceful protest against the indefinite re-election of the president of Ecuador. A week later I was expelled from the country where I had lived, worked, and built emotional ties for over a decade. My experience speaks to a broader disappointment with the political left in Latin America. My experience confirms the shortcomings of progressive governments of the political left not only in Ecuador, but also across Latin America. The incident also reveals the racist face of revolutions that celebrate white Manuelas while dismissing the Indigenous ones. This story of repression that separates two people united by marriage is more than a single political vendetta: it is one more chapter in the history of state violence against Indigenous self-determination. Profesora Visitante en el Departamento de Ciencia Política de Amherst College, EUA, y Profesora de Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), Ecuador.
This article proposes Amazonia as a site to think world politics. The Amazon is invisible in the ... more This article proposes Amazonia as a site to think world politics. The Amazon is invisible in the study International Relations (IR), yet its experiences are deeply global. I present the international dynamics at play in Amazonia at different historical moments to posit that this periphery has contributed to forging the political-economy of what is refer to as the core. The Amazon's absence from the study of IR speaks about the larger inequality in processes of knowledge production. Serious engagements with Amazonia are one way to invite a plurality of worlds in the production of theories, disrupting global divisions of labor in knowledge production ally.
Narrative Global Politics: Theory, History and the Personal in International Relations , Aug 2016
When I completed my doctoral studies, I skipped my US graduation ceremony. I preferred to visit m... more When I completed my doctoral studies, I skipped my US graduation ceremony. I preferred to visit my grandpa’s home in southern France, where I raced snails on the old stonewalls as a child. Although grandpa did not care about diplomas, I showed him the thick spiral-bound thesis over a pastis. He browsed through it, understanding little since his knowledge of English was limited to what American soldiers taught him back in 1944 when they liberated Paris (his generation, unlike mine, admired Americans, not least for introducing them to “chewing-gum”). I squatted by him in the kitchen to explain my research. My dad was cooking next to us, waiting for his turn to ask: “so what is international relations?” I went blank. “It’s what happens internationally.” I tried further explanations all equally inadequate. The look on my dad’s face was as unsatisfied as I was embarrassed with my answers. That is when I realized that I had graduated in something I could not explain.
Extrativismo: a pedra no caminho do desenvolvimento Manuela L. Picq, Universidad San Francisco de... more Extrativismo: a pedra no caminho do desenvolvimento Manuela L. Picq, Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ É ao menos irônico que a América Latina lute contra a desigualdade usando modelos de desenvolvimento que frequentemente reproduzem as desigualdades coloniais. As fortes assimetrias dentro da região são objeto de preocupação constante. Apesar da eleição de governos de esquerda no começo do milênio e do mainstreaming de programas de redistribuição de renda do tipo Bolsa Família, a América Latina mantém os mais altos índices de desigualdade no mundo com coeficiente de GINI de 0,50 em 2010. A contradição reside em querer enfrentar as iniquidades com modelos de desenvolvimento extrativistas que são, eles mesmos, geradores de desigualdades. Ideias acerca do desenvolvimento devem expandir seus enfoques predominantemente econômicos para adotar perspectivas sociais. Hoje, medidas de desenvolvimento consideram redistribuição de renda e participação para além do enfoque restrito ao produto interno bruto. No entanto, as estratégias de produzir desenvolvimento mudaram pouco. Projetos de desenvolvimento seguem sendo fundamentalmente extrativistas, buscando a inserção da América Latina nos mercados globais através da exportação de produtos primários. O paradigma do desenvolvimento latino-americano continua sendo a transformação da periferia em centro, seus cálculos econômicos, não ecológicos, enfocados em aumentar a produtividade e a acumulação de capital. O problema desse modelo reside no fato de que projetos extrativistas não se fazem em qualquer lugar, mas principalmente em territórios indígenas como a Amazônia. O desenvolvimento de hoje continua exibindo a mesma cara extrativista da época colonial e oligárquica, atado a uma ontologia política eurocêntrica de instrumentalização da natureza e expropriação indígena. O sistema extrativista na América Latina não só exacerba dependências históricas, como também revela a colonialidade enraizada de conceitos desenvolvimentistas. Ainda são os povos indígenas quem pagam o preço do desenvolvimento nacional, para eles sinônimo de exploração e destruição. Suas demandas de livre determinação são mais que lutas por territórios ancestrais: elas oferecem alternativas para repensar os meios e os fins do desenvolvimento. Desenvolver significa descolonizar. Dependência extrativista O extrativismo se confunde com as origens do Estado na América Latina. Muita coisa mudou desde a extração colonial nas minas de Potosí, mas o que não mudou é a dependência à exportação de commodities. O extrativismo mineiro foi complementado com petróleo; a produção de soja suplantou a borracha. Mas a economia regional ainda se caracteriza por padrões de exploração intensiva de recursos naturais. Longe de reverter a tendência histórica, alguns países até acentuaram sua dependência em recursos naturais e capital externo. Apesar de o extrativismo gerar baixas taxas de produtividade e escasso bem-estar, ainda assim muitos países apostam nas indústrias extrativas como motor do desenvolvimento.
Gay prides and same-sex marriage tend to be perceived as symbols of modernity. The non-modern is ... more Gay prides and same-sex marriage tend to be perceived as symbols of modernity. The non-modern is in Amazonia, where Indigenous peoples live in a wild Eden untouched by global forces. Yet there are gay prides and same-sex marriages in Amazonia too. There are drag queen contests in old rubber towns. Tikuna women defend homo-affective relationships as part of ancestral rules of the clan. If Amazonia is in fact modern, then what is modernity about and where is it located? Sexuality approaches both debunk the collective imaginary of Amazonia as detached from world politics and disrupts associations of sexual liberation with western modernity. This article looks at Amazon sexualities to challenge conventional narratives of global modernity.
As the coronavirus spread across the Amazon in March, the evangelical organization New Tribes Mis... more As the coronavirus spread across the Amazon in March, the evangelical organization New Tribes Mission of Brazil was preparing for a mission to the Javari Valley — a remote region near the border with Peru that is home to one of the world’s largest concentration of Indigenous peoples. With a newly acquired helicopter, the group reportedly planned to contact and convert the Korubo tribe that lives in the valley in voluntary isolation. The operation risked spreading the coronavirus and other dangerous infections to people highly vulnerable to diseases transmitted by outsiders. The missionaries organized flights into the Javari Valley until late March. In April, a Brazilian judge banned them and other missionary groups from entering the area. (In response to criticism, the group denied that it planned to contact isolated tribes, and has said that it does not work with isolated peoples.) There is an evangelical conquista happening across Latin America and, in the struggle for religious hegemony, Amazonia is a sought-after prize. According to one survey, evangelicals now outnumber Catholics in the region. Evangelical missionaries are also entering politics, where they are trying to shape policy to make it easier to reach the last tribes.
What should you do in case of a fire during a tornado? Leave the building or stay inside? Public ... more What should you do in case of a fire during a tornado? Leave the building or stay inside? Public safety drills generally prepare people for one disaster, not for two simultaneous ones that require opposing responses. But this is what Ecuador's Indigenous people are facing today. As the country is struggling with a COVID-19 pandemic spiralling out of control, the Amazon region has been hit by one of the worst oil spills in decades.
The overlap of two crises in one of the world's most biodiverse hotspots has made a bad situation even worse. Amazonian peoples, whose "social-distancing" skills have been cruelly honed by centuries of Old World epidemics, have suddenly found that the water, fish, game and crops that would allow them to self-isolate in the forest, are contaminated by oil.
Fires have been ravaging the Bolivian lowlands for over a month. Nearly ten million acres have al... more Fires have been ravaging the Bolivian lowlands for over a month. Nearly ten million acres have already burned, an area larger than Connecticut and New Jersey combined. Almost half the destruction lies in protected areas known for high biodiversity. It is a tragedy.
The Chiquitanía, a dry forest ecosystem between Amazonia and Gran Chaco in the province of Santa Cruz, is at the center of the crisis. The fires threaten the survival of the region’s wildlife and indigenous people. The Ñembi Guasu Reserve, home to indigenous Ayoreo groups in voluntary isolation, is the most affected area. Destruction is incommensurable.
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first ever indigenous president, promised to defend Pachamama, or Mother Earth. Instead his government has promoted the interests of agribusiness.
a communities have faced multiple forms of state-led dispossession, structural exclusion and over... more a communities have faced multiple forms of state-led dispossession, structural exclusion and overt genocide. But their struggle doesn’t only exist in the past. While the political arena has changed countless times, the Maya continue to defend their lands, their communities, and their lifeways against ever-evolving forms of colonial theft and violence.
A distinguished group of Maya lawyers embody this ongoing struggle as they strive to create a better future—using the tools of the state to correct historical wrongs and defend their right to exist in a system that is designed to destroy them. No small part of this effort involves challenging apartheid in Guatemala courtrooms. To defend indigenous rights in Guatemala today, Maya lawyers can’t limit themselves to simply revisiting the wrongs of the past. Sometimes, they also have to rewrite history.
“It seemed impossible to stop a mine with so many millions at stake,” recalls Yaku Perez Guartam... more “It seemed impossible to stop a mine with so many millions at stake,” recalls Yaku Perez Guartambel, the Kichwa-Kañari lawyer and president of the Confederation of Kichwa Nationalities of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI) who led the trial against the mine. Yet the impossible happened. On June 1st 2018, a provincial judge ordered the suspension of all mining activities at the Rio Blanco project arguing that the Rio Blanco mine failed to have a prior consultation with indigenous communities as required by the Constitution (Art. 57.7) and international law (ILO 169).
La Revolución Ciudadana ha fortalecido al Estado en detrimento de la población y su autoritarismo... more La Revolución Ciudadana ha fortalecido al Estado en detrimento de la población y su autoritarismo ha legitimado a la derecha política. Hoy, pocos son los que se atreven a identificarse con la izquierda.
The Citizen Revolution has strengthened the State at the detriment of the public, and its authoritarian hand has legitimized the political Right. Today, few dare identifying with the Left anymore.
Nim Ajpu is the name of the Association of Maya Lawyers and Notaries in Guatemala. The associatio... more Nim Ajpu is the name of the Association of Maya Lawyers and Notaries in Guatemala. The association supports the individual and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples through strategic litigation. Because the Maya represent over 60 percent of the population—which is largely discriminated against by state institutions—Nim Ajpu is unable to defend all Maya peoples in court, so it chooses instead to take strategic cases that can help set legal precedents. Their goal is to advance Indigenous rights in the legal and political system, eventually taking cases to the Inter-American system of human rights when domestic resolutions reiterate racist patterns.
Rigoberto Juárez (pictured here) and Domingo Baltazar are political prisoners of a legal system t... more Rigoberto Juárez (pictured here) and Domingo Baltazar are political prisoners of a legal system that is not only racist but also accomplice to the private land-grabbing of Maya lands
On October 12, 2015, the day of Indigenous Resistance, Carlos Pérez Guartambel entered Ecuador wi... more On October 12, 2015, the day of Indigenous Resistance, Carlos Pérez Guartambel entered Ecuador with a Kichwa passport. It caused confusion for Immigration authorities who said “We have never seen such a passport before.” Not long after, they determined that it was “not a valid document.”
Guartambel, an Indigenous lawyer and president of The Confederation of Kichwa Peoples of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI) invoked the Ecuadoran Constitution to defend his Kichwa passport. “The first Article of the Constitution establishes Ecuador as a pluri-national state, and over twenty articles recognize collective rights,” he argued. To issue a passport, he insisted, is a core dimension of Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-governance and self-determination.
Immigration authorities did not know what to do. After 30 minutes of hesitation, officials accepted the Kichwa passport as a form of ID, stamped Guartambel’s immigration card (not the passport) and allowed him to enter Ecuador.
2021 Roemer Lecture:
"Water Defenders: why indigenous peoples, especially women, are at the fron... more 2021 Roemer Lecture: "Water Defenders: why indigenous peoples, especially women, are at the frontlines of climate solutions"
The annual Kenneth Roemer Lecture on World Affairs at SUNY Geneseo will feature Manuela L. Picq, a professor of international relations at Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador and Amherst College, who will speak on the topic of "Water Defenders: why indigenous peoples, especially women, are at the frontlines of climate solutions."
Instituto de Relações Internacionais PUC-Rio, 2020
Aula Inaugural IRI-PUC 2020
As mulheres indígenas continuam a ser imaginadas como sujeitos passi... more Aula Inaugural IRI-PUC 2020
As mulheres indígenas continuam a ser imaginadas como sujeitos passivos à margem da tomada de decisões políticas. Na realidade, contudo, elas são dinâmicas na política internacional, e suas formas de resistência influenciam a soberania do Estado na América Latina. Manuela Picq utiliza o caso das mulheres Kichwa no Equador para mostrar como as mulheres indígenas desafiam a política mundial de forma fundamental. Apesar da justaposição de opressões que atravessa a vida dessas mulheres (desde a violência socioeconômica até a sexual), seu ativismo político lhes permitiu alcançar direitos inigualáveis na constituição de 2008 - a primeira a garantir explicitamente os direitos das mulheres indígenas e a primeira no mundo a exigir a paridade de gênero na administração da justiça. Combinando olhares feministas com estudos indígenas, a pesquisa interdisciplinar de Manuela Picq expande os debates conceituais sobre a soberania do Estado nas relações internacionais.
Manuela Lavinas Picq shares how Indigenous women of Ecuador are reshaping their culture.
“When y... more Manuela Lavinas Picq shares how Indigenous women of Ecuador are reshaping their culture.
“When you write the law saying, in the management of justice, women have to have the same position. We want gender parity, we want the same number of male judges and female judges.”
El objetivo central del taller es explorar el estado actual y las perspectivas futuras de las Rel... more El objetivo central del taller es explorar el estado actual y las perspectivas futuras de las Relaciones Internacionales en América Latina, con miras a identificar las tendencias principales que se observan en la disciplina, así como en la investigación de temáticas específicas, entre ellas la integración y el regionalismo, la política exterior y la seguridad. El taller contará con la participación de reconocidos académicos pertenecientes a la disciplina, provenientes de distintos países de la región, así como de Colombia. Además de indagar acerca del estado y los aportes de las RI latinoamericanas a la comprensión de distintos fenómenos mundiales, el Taller Internacional será la ocasión para sentar las bases de una red regional de internacionalistas.
How do Indigenous forms of governance provide models for organizing beyond the state? How might s... more How do Indigenous forms of governance provide models for organizing beyond the state? How might scholars better work alongside of and in the best interests of the people that they study? How does Indigenous artistic production reimagine the very nature of politics?
In episode 72 of the Imagine Otherwise podcast, host Cathy Hannabach interviews professor Manuela Lavinas Picq about the powerful ways Indigenous Ecuadorian women are forging new models for international politics; the personal, professional, and political stakes of being a scholar in the Global South; why it is so important for academics to work with and for communities, not just write about them; and how Indigenous communities across the globe are imagining worlds beyond the state.
Women have long been at the forefront of Indigenous struggles. In the eighteenth century, Mary Mo... more Women have long been at the forefront of Indigenous struggles. In the eighteenth century, Mary Mom oho was leading the legal resistance against land dispossession of Eastern Pequots in New England while Bartolina Sisa terrified the colonial army holding Spanish officials under siege in La Paz, Bolivia. More recently, Zapatista women covered their faces with masks and took up arms to resist military forces in Chiapas, Mexico. In Ecuador, Dolores Cacuango and Transito Amaguana founded the Federation of Indians and led massive historical revolts against exploitation. Such legacies should have contributed to women's solid participation in contemporary Indigenous movements. Yet their historical protagonism did not translate into political leadership. Instead, most Indigenous women were left behind as ethnic struggles became institutionalized.Indigenous women's rights are a fundamental tenet of global human rights, and their political participation is a key barometer of the scope and quality of democracy. Since the 1970s, Indigenous peoples have articulated their rights within the international human rights regime (Morgan, 2011), and feminist movements have successfully framed "women rights as human rights" (Bunch, 1990). The 1993 Vienna Declaration of Human Rights established the indivisibility and interconnectedness of human rights: political rights are not only an end in itself but also a fundamental means to achieve economic, social, and cultural rights (Sen, 1999). Indigenous women's political rights are core to the larger realization of individual and collective human rights. They also constitute political signals. Processes of democratization that fail to secure Indigenous women's political rights are simply not democratic enough. This article focuses on the political rights of Indigenous women because they are inextricable from Latin American democratic practice and global human rights.Despite a discourse that advocates social justice, Ecuador's contemporary Indigenous movement counts few women in its leadership. In fact, it suffers from pathologies of power very similar to those it is combating in mestizo society. Gender inequality is not peculiar to Indigenous politics, but the social agendas of Indigenous movements are tarnished by contradictory practices that perpetuate inequalities. Women's absence from ethno-politics reveals the permanence of discriminatory practices as well as the tolerance of insidious impunity in the name of cultural cohesion. The gap between the legal rights of women and their actual implementation is a global problem that should not be blamed on ethno-politics. However, beyond the implementation gap, the Indigenous movement's denial to secure gender rights in the name of cultural preservation is aggravating women's political marginalization. This case-study analysis offers insights into why patriarchal structures remain rampant from local organizing to the national politics of Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).In what follows, I take an intersectional approach to explore the receding presence of women in Ecuador's Indigenous movement since its institutionalization in the mid-1990s. First, I examine the absence of women from the movement, providing comparative and quantitative perspectives and explaining how women were pushed out during its institutionalization in the 1990s. Second, I posit the responsibility of Indigenous institutions that retain sexist attitudes, notably bypassing accountability through claims of cultural exceptionalism. Their denial of structural violence against women is problematic because it contradicts their calls for Indigenous human rights. Third, I explore how Indigenous women's exclusion from formal politics is embedded in broader dynamics. The last section explains the role played by external factors like gendered processes of nation making, the religious imprint of liberation theology during the agrarian reform, and the sexist structures embedded in national politics. …
Although legal recognition of indigenous justice is a major component of democratization in Latin... more Although legal recognition of indigenous justice is a major component of democratization in Latin America, customary law can be detrimental to women. In Ecuador, indigenous women seized the opportunity of the 2008 Constitutional Assembly to advocate for gender parity within indigenous law. As women’s support for indigenous justice proposes more diverse understandings of democracy, it also challenges conventional practices of citizenship. To understand the attractiveness of legal pluralism for women and its impact on the state, the paper explores the confines of feminist alliances and the accessibility of indigenous justice.
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Books by manuela L picq
Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international law, the book shows how the concept of indigeneity has shaped the development of the modern state. The exclusion of Indigenous people was not a collateral by product; it was a political project in its own right. The book argues that indigeneity is a political identity relational to modern nation-states and that Indigenous politics, although marking the boundary of the state, are co-constitutive of colonial processes of state-making. In showing how indigeneity is central to how the international system of states operates, the book forefronts Indigenous peoples as political actors to reject essentializing views that reduce them to cultural “survivors” rooted in the past.
With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
Co-authored with Andrew Canessa.
Picq ofrece estudios empíricos que demuestran la importancia de las mujeres indígenas en la política internacional y la sofisticación de su activismo. Las mujeres indígenas utilizan estratégicamente las normas internacionales para definir formas locales de autoridad legal, desafiando las prácticas occidentales de autoridad a medida que construyen lo que la autora denomina soberanías vernáculas. Esta obra interdisciplinar entrelaza las perspectivas feministas con los estudios indígenas para ampliar los debates conceptuales sobre la soberanía moderna.
Traduccion al español por Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
In Vernacular Sovereignties, Manuela Lavinas Picq shows that Indigenous women have long been dynamic political actors who have partaken in international politics and have shaped state practices carrying different forms of resistance. Her research on Ecuador shows that although Kichwa women face overlapping oppressions from socioeconomic exclusions to sexual violence, they are achieving rights unparalleled in the world. They successfully advocated for women’s participation in the administration of Indigenous justice during the 2008 constitutional reform, creating the first constitution in Latin America to explicitly guarantee the rights of Indigenous women and the first constitution worldwide to require gender parity in the administration of justice.
Picq argues that Indigenous women are among the important forces reshaping states in Latin America. She offers empirical research that shows the significance of Indigenous women in international politics and the sophistication of their activism. Indigenous women strategically use international norms to shape legal authority locally, defying Western practices of authority as they build what the author calls vernacular sovereignties. Weaving feminist perspectives with Indigenous studies, this interdisciplinary work expands conceptual debates on state sovereignty.
Picq persuasively suggests that the invisibility of Indigenous women in high politics is more a consequence of our failure to recognize their agency than a result of their de facto absence. It is an invitation not merely to recognize their achievements but also to understand why they matter to world politics.
Sexuality politics, more so than gender-based theories, arrived late on the theoretical scene in part because sexuality and gender studies initially highlighted post-structuralist thinking, which was hardly accepted in mainstream political science. This book responds to a call for a more empirically motivated but also critical scholarship on this subject. It offers comparative case-studies from regional, cultural and theoretical peripheries to identify ways of rethinking IR. Further, it aims to add to critical theory, broadening the knowledge about previously unrecognized perspectives in an accessible manner. Being aware of preoccupations with the de-queering, disciplining nature of theory establishment in the social sciences, we critically reconsider IR concepts from a particular LGBTQ vantage point and infuse them with queer thinking. Considering the relative dearth of contemporary mainstream IR-theorizing, authors ask what contribution LGBTQ politics can provide for conceiving the political subject, as well as the international structure in which activism is embedded.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of gender politics, cultural studies and international relations theory.
Scholarly articles by manuela L picq
Delving into European political philosophy, comparative politics, and contemporary international law, the book shows how the concept of indigeneity has shaped the development of the modern state. The exclusion of Indigenous people was not a collateral by product; it was a political project in its own right. The book argues that indigeneity is a political identity relational to modern nation-states and that Indigenous politics, although marking the boundary of the state, are co-constitutive of colonial processes of state-making. In showing how indigeneity is central to how the international system of states operates, the book forefronts Indigenous peoples as political actors to reject essentializing views that reduce them to cultural “survivors” rooted in the past.
With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
With insights drawn from diverse global contexts and empirical research from Bolivia and Ecuador, this work advocates for the relevance of Indigenous studies within political science and argues for an ethnography of sovereignty in anthropology. Savages and Citizens makes a compelling case for the centrality of Indigenous perspectives to understand the modern state from political theory to international studies.
Co-authored with Andrew Canessa.
Picq ofrece estudios empíricos que demuestran la importancia de las mujeres indígenas en la política internacional y la sofisticación de su activismo. Las mujeres indígenas utilizan estratégicamente las normas internacionales para definir formas locales de autoridad legal, desafiando las prácticas occidentales de autoridad a medida que construyen lo que la autora denomina soberanías vernáculas. Esta obra interdisciplinar entrelaza las perspectivas feministas con los estudios indígenas para ampliar los debates conceptuales sobre la soberanía moderna.
Traduccion al español por Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
In Vernacular Sovereignties, Manuela Lavinas Picq shows that Indigenous women have long been dynamic political actors who have partaken in international politics and have shaped state practices carrying different forms of resistance. Her research on Ecuador shows that although Kichwa women face overlapping oppressions from socioeconomic exclusions to sexual violence, they are achieving rights unparalleled in the world. They successfully advocated for women’s participation in the administration of Indigenous justice during the 2008 constitutional reform, creating the first constitution in Latin America to explicitly guarantee the rights of Indigenous women and the first constitution worldwide to require gender parity in the administration of justice.
Picq argues that Indigenous women are among the important forces reshaping states in Latin America. She offers empirical research that shows the significance of Indigenous women in international politics and the sophistication of their activism. Indigenous women strategically use international norms to shape legal authority locally, defying Western practices of authority as they build what the author calls vernacular sovereignties. Weaving feminist perspectives with Indigenous studies, this interdisciplinary work expands conceptual debates on state sovereignty.
Picq persuasively suggests that the invisibility of Indigenous women in high politics is more a consequence of our failure to recognize their agency than a result of their de facto absence. It is an invitation not merely to recognize their achievements but also to understand why they matter to world politics.
Sexuality politics, more so than gender-based theories, arrived late on the theoretical scene in part because sexuality and gender studies initially highlighted post-structuralist thinking, which was hardly accepted in mainstream political science. This book responds to a call for a more empirically motivated but also critical scholarship on this subject. It offers comparative case-studies from regional, cultural and theoretical peripheries to identify ways of rethinking IR. Further, it aims to add to critical theory, broadening the knowledge about previously unrecognized perspectives in an accessible manner. Being aware of preoccupations with the de-queering, disciplining nature of theory establishment in the social sciences, we critically reconsider IR concepts from a particular LGBTQ vantage point and infuse them with queer thinking. Considering the relative dearth of contemporary mainstream IR-theorizing, authors ask what contribution LGBTQ politics can provide for conceiving the political subject, as well as the international structure in which activism is embedded.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of gender politics, cultural studies and international relations theory.
Co-authored with Juan Castro
ponto de vista feminista para mostrar como mulheres indígenas moldam o internacional. Sustento meu argumento com uma análise de um estudo de caso de mulheres indígenas no Equador. Localizando sua política na intersecção de direitos coletivos indígenas e direitos internacionais das mulheres, as mulheres kichwa articulam política indígena, o estado-nação e normas internacionais de modos que deslocam formas convencionais de autoridade legal. Sua busca por justiça é profundamente imbricada com a política global e resulta em práticas de soberania dispostas em múltiplas camadas que se sobrepõem umas às outras. No geral, esta análise postula a indigenidade como uma categoria de análise significativa, ainda que negligenciada, para pensar as RI diferentemente
With a newly acquired helicopter, the group reportedly planned to contact and convert the Korubo tribe that lives in the valley in voluntary isolation. The operation risked spreading the coronavirus and other dangerous infections to people highly vulnerable to diseases transmitted by outsiders.
The missionaries organized flights into the Javari Valley until late March. In April, a Brazilian judge banned them and other missionary groups from entering the area. (In response to criticism, the group denied that it planned to contact isolated tribes, and has said that it does not work with isolated peoples.)
There is an evangelical conquista happening across Latin America and, in the struggle for religious hegemony, Amazonia is a sought-after prize. According to one survey, evangelicals now outnumber Catholics in the region. Evangelical missionaries are also entering politics, where they are trying to shape policy to make it easier to reach the last tribes.
The overlap of two crises in one of the world's most biodiverse hotspots has made a bad situation even worse. Amazonian peoples, whose "social-distancing" skills have been cruelly honed by centuries of Old World epidemics, have suddenly found that the water, fish, game and crops that would allow them to self-isolate in the forest, are contaminated by oil.
The Chiquitanía, a dry forest ecosystem between Amazonia and Gran Chaco in the province of Santa Cruz, is at the center of the crisis. The fires threaten the survival of the region’s wildlife and indigenous people. The Ñembi Guasu Reserve, home to indigenous Ayoreo groups in voluntary isolation, is the most affected area. Destruction is incommensurable.
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first ever indigenous president, promised to defend Pachamama, or Mother Earth. Instead his government has promoted the interests of agribusiness.
A distinguished group of Maya lawyers embody this ongoing struggle as they strive to create a better future—using the tools of the state to correct historical wrongs and defend their right to exist in a system that is designed to destroy them. No small part of this effort involves challenging apartheid in Guatemala courtrooms.
To defend indigenous rights in Guatemala today, Maya lawyers can’t limit themselves to simply revisiting the wrongs of the past. Sometimes, they also have to rewrite history.
Yet the impossible happened.
On June 1st 2018, a provincial judge ordered the suspension of all mining activities at the Rio Blanco project arguing that the Rio Blanco mine failed to have a prior consultation with indigenous communities as required by the Constitution (Art. 57.7) and international law (ILO 169).
The Citizen Revolution has strengthened the State at the detriment of the public, and its authoritarian hand has legitimized the political Right. Today, few dare identifying with the Left anymore.
Guartambel, an Indigenous lawyer and president of The Confederation of Kichwa Peoples of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI) invoked the Ecuadoran Constitution to defend his Kichwa passport. “The first Article of the Constitution establishes Ecuador as a pluri-national state, and over twenty articles recognize collective rights,” he argued. To issue a passport, he insisted, is a core dimension of Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-governance and self-determination.
Immigration authorities did not know what to do. After 30 minutes of hesitation, officials accepted the Kichwa passport as a form of ID, stamped Guartambel’s immigration card (not the passport) and allowed him to enter Ecuador.
"Water Defenders: why indigenous peoples, especially women, are at the frontlines of climate solutions"
The annual Kenneth Roemer Lecture on World Affairs at SUNY Geneseo will feature Manuela L. Picq, a professor of international relations at Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador and Amherst College, who will speak on the topic of "Water Defenders: why indigenous peoples, especially women, are at the frontlines of climate solutions."
As mulheres indígenas continuam a ser imaginadas como sujeitos passivos à margem da tomada de decisões políticas. Na realidade, contudo, elas são dinâmicas na política internacional, e suas formas de resistência influenciam a soberania do Estado na América Latina. Manuela Picq utiliza o caso das mulheres Kichwa no Equador para mostrar como as mulheres indígenas desafiam a política mundial de forma fundamental. Apesar da justaposição de opressões que atravessa a vida dessas mulheres (desde a violência socioeconômica até a sexual), seu ativismo político lhes permitiu alcançar direitos inigualáveis na constituição de 2008 - a primeira a garantir explicitamente os direitos das mulheres indígenas e a primeira no mundo a exigir a paridade de gênero na administração da justiça. Combinando olhares feministas com estudos indígenas, a pesquisa interdisciplinar de Manuela Picq expande os debates conceituais sobre a soberania do Estado nas relações internacionais.
“When you write the law saying, in the management of justice, women have to have the same position. We want gender parity, we want the same number of male judges and female judges.”
In episode 72 of the Imagine Otherwise podcast, host Cathy Hannabach interviews professor Manuela Lavinas Picq about the powerful ways Indigenous Ecuadorian women are forging new models for international politics; the personal, professional, and political stakes of being a scholar in the Global South; why it is so important for academics to work with and for communities, not just write about them; and how Indigenous communities across the globe are imagining worlds beyond the state.