Networking Gender Equity. The Latin American Interdisciplinary Gender Network

In 2020, the Council on Latin American & Iberian Studies (CLAIS) at the Yale MacMillan Center decided to pursue gender studies as our primary field of study and programming thematic priority. This decision, made in close consultation with the advisory committee, responded to a broader interest in women’s rights and gender issues within and beyond academia as well as the increasing societal interest in addressing worldwide gender inequalities. We also wanted to call attention to how advanced the discussion is in Latin America and to what extent it has permeated the overall social agenda, as the massive and historical activism in countries like Argentina, Mexico, and Chile have demonstrated. Colonialism and other structural global inequalities have not helped Latin America develop in many fields. So, we wanted to embrace in the Latin American gender-related achievements later replicated in many other parts of the world.

As Yale’s hub for research and intellectual discussion related to Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, we wanted to acknowledge the work of hundreds of leading thinkers and committed activities across the region in an issue directly impacting billions of individuals’ daily lives. It also aligns with our goal of engaging in a conversation transcending the classroom and the conference rooms to reach a concrete and impactful societywide conversation—CLAIS’s recent outreach efforts go in this same direction.

For all those reasons, we decided to create a network on gender studies. We seek to help people connect with colleagues with shared interests working in another discipline or country and help them be aware of what others do in the expectation of supporting them to launch joint projects. We thought that UNAM, the largest university in the Americas, with over 380 thousand students, would be the ideal partner for the project. More specifically, with the permanent support UNAM’s Office in Boston, we joined efforts with their Center for Gender Studies and Research (CIEG), a Latin American leader on the topic, as our partner for this major effort. We eventually launched together the Latin American Interdisciplinary Gender Network (LAIGN) in 2020.

The response from researchers in the Americas has been immensely gratifying. We currently have over 100 members representing over 25 institutions in over a dozen countries working within the broad field of gender studies. Their research encompasses an extensive list of fields in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and technology, organized into seven working groups: Gender and Education; Gender and Feminism Theory; Gender, Economy, Poverty, and Health; Gender in the Arts and Humanities; Gender in Science, Technology, and Innovation; Gender and Human Rights; and Gender and Policy Forum. The latter exemplary embodies the LAIGN and even the overall CLAIS’s spirit: bringing the conversation beyond their typical spaces (the classroom, the conference room) to connect them with daily life challenges. Through four sessions a year, the Gender & Policy Forum directly engages Latin American policymakers and academic researchers on gender-related issues. Both benefit from each other by expanding their audience and their ideas’ impact and complexity.

LAIGN contemplates one annual in-person conference for the members to connect, network, and share their research and findings. It also gives the floor to the working groups to share updates on the yearly work. Unfortunately, we had to host the first two editions virtually due to the pandemic. But we had it in person for the first time at UNAM in Mexico City last year. We seek to host the fourth LAIGN conference at Yale University on Friday, March 1, 2024.

GENDER ISSUES ARE NOT ONLY AN ACADEMIC MATTER, BUT ALSO POLITICAL

FOURTH ANNUAL LAIGN CONFERENCE: GENDER, PRECARITY, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: AN ACADEMIC AGENDA
In these times of uncertainty and polarization, it is important to offer within our universities avenues to think critically about issues related to identity and gender and human rights and activism. Latin America is site of multiple demonstrations that might show how democracies are still fragile and on other hand, how important it is for governments, policy makers, and citizens to connect with each other and with scholars. This is an incredibly diverse and multi-cultural region that is coming to terms with legacies of coloniality and this shows in the academic and public discourse.

There is a long tradition of gender studies in Latin America that is informed by specificity of our context—we are a region of political turmoil and resistance. Gender issues are not only an academic matter, but also a political matter important in policy making and broader governmental initiatives.

STRUCTURE DRAFT FOR THE CONFERENCE
The conference will consist of four panels as described below:

Panel 1. LAIGN Working Groups Presentations
Each working group will be asked to present a briefing of what they have been working on the past year in order to exchange ideas and share outcomes from their research and to provide some new ideas for new groups. This is also about discussing organizational structure and other strategies for success as part of the working groups. Moreover, this will be an opportunity to discuss as a wider network the possibility of new themes or working groups based on interest and current research activities.

Panel 2. Feminist Mobilizations
The past decade has seen increasing demonstrations led by women and feminists through different means—art and even violence. This creates an opportunity for societies, universities, and policy makers to have wider debate on conditions on precarity to have lives free of violence.

Panel 3. Notions of Precarity and Intersectionality
Within the Latin American context, we can find different forms of precarity that impact directly in people’s lives and opportunities. So, an intersectional approach is needed to understand—study different systems of oppression that need to be considered in academic work and policy making in order to understand conditions that lead to precarity and also to provide solutions.

Panel 4. Gender and Policy Forum: Current Research on Gender in Latin America
One of LAIGN’s goals is to bridge connections between academics and policy makers. This year we want to put forward important discussions related to gender in Latin America. In this panel, we will have invitees from LAIGN as well as others from activism, journalism, and governments. We propose two important policy makers to be the discussants in conversation with academics from the network.

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