Women Organizing against Free Trade in Latin America

The point of departure of this essay is that global restructuring, free trade and integration processes have not been sufficiently linked to women and feminist struggles and yet women are a very important part of the mass mobilizations that civil society has organized to protest big capital globalization from Seattle to Cancún. Moreover those studies that have focused on social organizing around free trade issues lack the different women actors perspective that can only be obtained through field work. This paper’s aim is to try to contribute to start filling this gap. Accordingly, the goal is to analyze how a gender perspective is being built/integrated into the anti-free trade discourses and movements and if this perspective is capable of mobilizing and impacting at three levels: the grassroots of the mobilization opposing free trade, the women’s movement in Latin America and finally the targeted international/national structures. In particular, the following questions are addressed: which are the conditions that activate feminist groups’ resistance to global restructuring and free trade?, how is a gender perspective being integrated in free trade discussions and in relation to other more ‘traditional’ themes among women and feminist coalitions in Latin America and what kind of strategies and coordination efforts are these groups developing? This is part of a major project dealing with women as transnational actors in the case of NAFTA"Resistance to global capital at the local level: solidarity links and women workers’ networking strategies in Mexico.