Diasporic resistances and intersectionality: Professional mapuche women in the city of santiago and wallmapu

Abstract

In this study we seek to understand the experiences of diasporic and gendered resistance of professional mapuche women in southern Chile, with which they problematize the prevailing colonial, patriarchal and classist model. Considering the intersectional gender perspective, focused on the diverse and heterogeneous oppression matrices that racialized women face in different socio-historical contexts, we have developed a multi-situated ethnography, with in-depth interviews, to reach the significant experiences of 20 mapuche women from the Metropolitan, Biobío, La Araucanía and Los Ríos regions. The results show us that the diasporic situation of mapuche women is transforming their mapuche and gender identity, thus putting a strain on both their private and public worlds. Also, tears and resistances that they create and re-create coexist, based on their own mapuche knowledge and discursive practices with which they confront class, racial and gender oppressions. We conclude that professional mapuche women, in the context of the diaspora, take resistance not only to their socio-labour spaces, but also to their family relations, their political activism and their gender relations.