On Feminisms and Mobilities. Critical Debates on Migration and Gender in Latin America (1970-2020)

Abstract

This chapter addresses the relationship between gender and migration andits articulation with some key social, economic, and political processes thattook place in Latin America from the seventies onwards. The debate carriedout in the following pages aims to serve three objectives. First, to offer asynthetic overview of how migrant women were thematized in the socialsciences internationally. Second, to underline the correlation between thesedebates and the reflections raised from feminism, showing the confluence andconflicts among these fields of knowledge. Third, to point out how these issueswere conceptualized by social scientists working in Latin American contextsand, particularly, in South American countries. The purpose of doing so is toemphasize the reflective imprint and critical positioning of researchers fromand in the region in their exercise of rethinking the ethnocentric biases ofsome hegemonic arguments of migration studies. We conclude by offering ourreflections on the current feminist political struggles in the Southern Cone,highlighting the importance of the debate on migrant women?s rights on there-semantization of gender relations and theories.