Peasant women’s agency in Bolivia during the global recession

In January 2009, when the world economic and financial crisis was just beginning to show its devastating consequences in many countries, 61 percent of Bolivian voters approved a new political constitution. Under the leadership of Silvia Lazarte, the Constituent Assembly wrote a truly revolutionary new Carta Magna. Silvia Lazarte is an indigenous peasant woman who dresses in traditional indigenous clothing. She has no formal training and only a few years of schooling at the primary level, but she is also a leader of the peasant women’s organization, the National Confederation of Original, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant peasant Women of Bolivia—Bartolina Sisa, whose members are also known as Bartolinas. ¹