ABSTRACT
From their beginnings in the nineteenth century, national feminist counterpublics in Latin America were linked with one another, fi rst through discursive and personal connections and, somewhat later, through organizational ties. Th ese early contacts involved the crossing of borders, but not the transcendence of national diff erences in any signifi cant way. Th ough there were mutual infl uences and small groups of activists took on common strategic projects, most feminist movements were fi rmly rooted in local cultures and political systems, and their international gatherings were sporadic and limited in their reach. It was not until the late twentieth century that feminist relations stretched to include more distant allies and took on a more transnational character, as economies and polities became increasingly implicated with one another and communication and travel became more widely accessible. Simultaneously, the forces of militarism, fundamentalism, environmental destruction, and market relations reshaped the experiences of a wide variety of women in overlapping, though not identical, ways.
