ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the rise of the feminist movement in Chile in the last few years (2018–2020), particularly observing the role that feminists played in the social uprising of 2019. The chapter discusses the interconnection between feminist consciousness-raising – or becoming a feminist – and the practices of non-violent resistance. Feminist consciousness is defined here as the dialectical relationship between suffering and joy, two collective emotions that allow the recognition of becoming a feminist in a context of political upheaval. Using this theoretical approach, the chapter analyses the political ideas of the Coordinadora 8 de Marzo (C8M) and Asamblea Feminista Plurinacional (AFP), organisations that took an active role during the uprising. It is argued that the feminist movement takes a radical anti-neoliberal approach to political and social transformations through the practice of non-violence that permits the formation and reproduction of feminist consciousness as fundamentally oppositional to the structural violence of neoliberalism in Chile. The chapter also presents how the feminist movement resisted state violence through non-violent resistance, such as street performances. This practice of non-violence does not indicate a pacifist approach to political transformations, but rather that the feminist movement sees non-violence as a necessity in fighting back against intense levels of repression and violence. Finally, it is concluded that non-violent resistance does not always fall into the distinctions of “principled” or “strategic”, but that sometimes – as this case demonstrates – non-violence is a practice of necessity that (re)configures the idea of the self in contexts of structural violence and repression.
