Political participation of indigenous women: affirmative actions in the Peruvian case

Abstract

This article addresses the situation of vulnerability and oppression in which indigenous women find themselves and the implications this has had on the exercise of rights such as the right to political participation. In this line, we will focus as a framework of study on the situation of Peruvian indigenous women, using intersectionality as an analytical category to verify the different scenarios of violation and oppression in which they find themselves and which have influenced and conditioned the exercise of this right with the consequent materialization of their participation in the public sphere in decision-making and access to positions of power. Specifically, we will focus on the legal response that has been given to this problem with the reception in the Peruvian legal system of positive actions such as the gender quota and the indigenous quota, in addition to the recent amendments to the electoral laws in order to ensure gender parity and alternation in the lists of electoral candidates, which have sought to address situations of inequality in the political sphere. In this sense, we analyze the effectiveness of these measures to date and, subsidiarily, the resources that indigenous women themselves have made use of through associations to promote their presence and effective participation in decision-making, which has had more tangible results than those intended to be achieved with the recent electoral legislative reforms.

Summary: INTRODUCTION. I. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AS A SEXED CATEGORY AND UNIVERSALIST FEMINIST DYNAMICS. II. IN­TERSECTIONALITY AS AN ANALYTICAL CATEGORY FOR THE VISIBILIZATION OF THE OPPRESSION OF INDIGENOUS WOM­EN. III. AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS AND POLITICAL PARTICIPA­TION OF PERUVIAN INDIGENOUS WOMEN. IV. CONCLUSIONS.