ABSTRACT
Feminist theory has come under sustained criticism for its universalistic, homogenized, and ethnocentric assumptions about women.1 Alison Bailey ( 1995) suggests that attempts to understand maternal practices as
Feminist research has sought to make visible women's central role in reconceptualizing the political sphere. Recent social action by women in Latin America has taken a variety of forms and had a number of objectives, ranging from their participation in guerrilla movements, church-linked women 's groups, and human rights movements to protest over public services.2 Since the 1980s a number of texts have placed gender firmly in the center of the Latin American studies research agenda. Several themes have emerged in this literature: the politicization of the private sphere, the development of a gendered citizenship emerging from women's political participation in social movements, and the creation of new rituals of resistance, among others. Sheryll Lutiens ( 1995) suggests that feminist theorizing in the region has raised new questions about women, problematizing bodies, identities, and agency while asking repeatedly and in innovative ways about the gendered dynamics of global capitalism, states, and domestic and international politics.3
