Leadership, Empowerment, and Political Participation of Indigenous Women

Abstract

This research article addresses the recognition of the dynamics that emerge from the leadership, empowerment, and political participation of Indigenous women in community organization scenarios. This work is intended to reveal the manifestations that naturalize discrimination and gender inequality and recognize the pragmatics of daily life that legitimize social relations of male domination. The method focuses on autoethnography as a methodological strategy that enables the construction of meanings of a reality anchored to a context and a history, and the communication of that knowledge from the narration that emerges through interaction with others. The results highlight the recognition of gender stereotypes that justify the interactions between men and women ―particularly, the place of subordination that women occupy in said relationships. In addition, the enunciation of places of emancipation and resistance of indigenous women is proposed, as these spaces tend to become invisibilized within the collective, given the imposition of the logic of male domination, typical of Western culture. The discussion arises from the validation of the theoretical contributions of the study related to the barriers or difficulties that indigenous women face in the exercise of leadership, empowerment, and political participation within their community. It is determined that confronting said barriers in the scenario of the community contributes significantly to enhancing the task of leadership, capacity for empowerment, and political participation.