Transnational Arenas, International Initiatives, and Latin American Women’s Mobilization: Exploring 20th Century (Feminist) Activism beyond the Nation State

This panel seeks to bring together research on Latin American women’s international engagement beyond the level of nation-states. Papers may focus on regional ties, but preference will be given to the connections women of different Latin American nations built beyond the Americas. Research questions should relate to the changing preoccupations that shaped women’s political initiatives and women’s (gendered) understandings of rights they were striving to defend. Questions could address, but are not limited to, the following themes: How were Latin American women’s international initiatives shaped by existing gender systems and by expectations regarding women’s roles? To what extent did women challenge such gender systems or defy traditions on the transnational arena or on nation-state levels? Did the international engagement by women of different Latin American nations lead to their empowerment, to an increase of women’s interpretive power and political influence? The panel would profit from contributions that document the histories of specific international organizations or Latin American feminist influences on transnational arenas such as the United Nations. Papers could also address women’s mobilization for gender equity and their changing definitions of feminisms and their relation to feminist mobilization as they built international ties.