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Rethinking the way we teach.

One of the most incredible things in life is to be able to question everything we believe and know, education is one of those things that change with the passage of time and the evolution of human ideas. Recently in some universities a subject related to gender has been included in the curricula, that seems to me a great advance to build from an academic space a free and informed thought on the subject. But I do this post because I want to recommend an article on how to teach from a decolonial perspective. What I found interesting is that it not only covers topics of education in universities, but also historical topics regarding the knowledge of practices in motherhood. The text explains that in order to diversify the way of teaching and acquiring knowledge, it is necessary to link gender, race and class.

Márgenes Revista de Educacion de la Universidad de Malaga va encaminada a recuperar la reflexion pedagogica y didactica como elemento centra

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The deconstruction of law.

When we talk about law and gender, the first thing that comes to mind and debate is the vindication of the role that women have because they are women, from the categories and roles adopted and learned from generation to generation. Thus, one concept has had importance in the bodies that impart justice and international organizations, that concept is that of judging with a gender perspective.

On many occasions an echo is played in such a way that it allows to make visible the social problems of discrimination and oppression that women see, however, sometimes we forget that there is more than the category woman man. Thinking about the law from a decolonial perspective allows us to analyze a case from different points of view, for example the roles of a same-sex couple, or the situation of people who belong to indigenous communities, because history gives us a different vision to what is proposed as fair in Europe and the United States. Building the right to be seen from a decolonial perspective is a topic that I could not express in a single post, because there are more situations such as the economic, political, social and cultural participation of people. In this space I want to share an article that delves into these issues in public international law.

O Direito Internacional Público é tão antigo quanto a história de nossas civilizações, nesse sentido, houve uma série de tratados comer- cia

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Reflection on parity, diplomacy and gender

Foreign policy is a field that has advanced much faster than domestic politics (at least in Mexico) in terms of issues of feminism and defense of women's rights, however, it still has a large area of opportunity. Gender parity in the field of diplomacy is one of the strategies used to cover the issue of gender inequality, since diplomacy being one of the oldest activities, it has often been lost or made invisible. in history the role of women in this area. Although it is interesting how women found a way to participate in the foreign policy of their countries through influence in their role as wives, mothers, sisters or friends, I nevertheless consider that this is predominantly in European power structures, in which diplomacy is traditionally a male activity. Currently, despite efforts to increase the number of women in the foreign service, this is not the solution for a field or an institution that by nature has sought to exclude women. Parity in number is not enough either if women are only found in low-ranking positions or those that have historically been related to their gender, stigmas continue to permeate this and many work areas.

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Zapatista feminism, the decolonial practice in Mexico.

The EZLN (Zapatista Army for National Liberation) is a group for the defense of collective and individual rights of indigenous communities, womens in this group has taken a great roll in the international and national feminist movement.

We can see their ideals in the “Letter of the zapatistas to the women fighting around the world” (2019)

The defense of their lands, the non-exploitation of capitalism, dignity, freedom, respect and struggle are the ideals that we can find in this document, as well as a call for the international collaboration of women and the recognition of different ideas and ways of thinking.

It is important to support these resistance groups, because even if you do not completely share their ideals, sooner or later we will all be involved or affected due to the causes they oppose.

Traduzione italiano Deutsch Übersetzung English translation Ελληνική μετάφραση Traduction en Français

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Indigenous customary law and women political rights.

In Mexico, the indigenous customary law is recognized in the Article 2 of the Politic Constitucion of the United Mexican States where it is recognized that the Mexican nation is multicultural, originally sustained in the peoples that descend from populations that inhabited the actual territory before the colonization and still conserve their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, this descendants that conserve the way of life of our ancestors have the right of autodetermination. It is important to point out that these groups descend and are governed by the same customs of the communities that were in this territory before coloniality.

However, this right of autodetermination for the indigenous community is not absolute, it has to line up with the individual guarantees, human rights and to the dignity and integrity of the women. The specification of the last point shows how this customary law of use and customs from the indigenous communities unfolds along with the big changes women rights movements accomplished over the last decades.

The 17 of October of 1953 its an historical date because it was the first time woman acquire the political right of vote into the election, even it has been a long time since women were able to vote in the present the political participation of the indigenous woman in Mexico it is very low thanks to these uses and customs that rules their communities.

While the Legislative System in Mexico managed to materialize the gender parity, been conformed by 241 woman (240 more women than 70 years ago) in 2021, communities in Mexico like San Pablo Cuatro Venados where the tradition is that men congregate to make decisions for the howl community or other communities where the inclusion of just one women it seems as an impositions by the state.

Although we carry many ideas of our colonial stage in terms of gender, the original communities in the same way present an idea of differentiation and discrimination against women, where indigenous women carry more axes as indigenous poor women with no social, economic and political rights due to the costums of their communities.

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Si te interesa conocer más a profundidad sobre el caso de los feminicidios en Ciudad Juárez desde la perspectiva decolonial feminista de esta autora, de las implicaciones de la corporalidad y las nuevas formas de guerra, te compartimos el libro “La guerra contra las mujeres” de Rita Segato.

If you are interested in knowing more about the case of the Juárez feminicides within a decolonial feminist perspective and about the implications this had to the corporality and the new ways of war, we would like to share with you her book.

Disponible en/Available at:

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Live sexuality from a decolonial perspective.

The issue of sexuality, especially of women, has been a forbidden topic, in the case of men they have had greater freedom in terms of expression, but that does not make it easier. Recently I was looking for articles related to sexuality and I found an article that has no waste, it is about sex work and how hegemonic radical feminism has stigmatized it as something negative and purely macho, however, the article makes a historical journey on the beginnings of this work and comes to conclusions from a more integral point of view, where the woman can feel free and owned in the right conditions. I think it is a topic that could be of interest to you, but above all to open the dialogue, that's why I have decided to share the article with you.

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Intersectional feminism or decolonial feminism.

The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in the eighties. Crenshaw was working on a case of discrimination against three black women at General Motors and sought a way to provide a term that would allow, in legal terms, to visualize the experience of these women and how it was traversed by race and gender. Crenshaw explains his approach with the image of the intersection of avenues: each avenue is a system of oppression. To understand the violence that black women particularly experience, for example, we would have to address the point where racism and sexism intersect, two independent avenues, which are found in the experience of certain people. María Lugones says that given the construction of the categories, intersections misinterpret women of color, "At the intersection between "woman" and "black" there is an absence where the black woman should be precisely because neither "woman" nor "black" include her. The intersection shows us a void. The intersectionality approach has led to the understanding that oppressions are cumulative and hierarchical. On the other hand, Ochy Curiel, insists that intersectionality is a policy of recognition of difference that is attached to the multicultural logics of the State, because he is interested in recognizing differences, but not understanding why and for what they were created. Decolonial feminism seeks to question the fragmented and hierarchical model of intersectionality to analyze differences as a unity in terms of oppression and discrimination, to give visibility to a more complete feminism.

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MERCY MERCY - a controversial portrait of the adoption industry.

To get some insight into the capitalist and decolonial character of the global adoption industry I would like to highlight this documentary directed and created by Katrine Riis Kjaer that was released in 2012. Ris Kjaer is following two families - the Ethiopian couple Sinkenesh and Hussein and the Danish couple Henriette and Gert. The Danish couple are about to adopt two of Sinkenesh and Hussein's children, 4-year-old Masho and her 2-year-old brother Ropa. The families have their own reasons for choosing adoption. Masho and Roba's parents are HIV-positive and have been told they don’t have long to live. Local authorities and agents for a private orphanage have convinced them that the best thing they can do to save their youngest children is to give them up to a wealthy foreign family who will give them a secure upbringing. The parents want to secure the future of two of their children and are promised financial compensation. Sinkenesh and Hussein are also promised that they will keep in touch with their children and with the Danish adoptive parents. The Danish family wants to fulfill a long-cherished dream of having children and at the same time saving children and giving them a better future. But are the children really being saved? Are they better off in a new country with strangers?

During a period of four years Ris Kjaer follows the two families and the devastating consequences are clear. It shows how Sinkenesh and Hussein agreed to adoption on false premises and the consequences of the adoption were fatal for four-year-old Masho. The adoption agency DanAdopt has not kept its promises, and they are not allowed to be in contact with their children, nor do they receive the promised help. In Denmark, problems begin to mount for Masho, and for Gert and Henriette. The strong-willed Masho is shuttled between different treatments, psychologists, foster parents and doctors. Eventually she ends up in an orphanage. Mercy Mercy is a film about how much human suffering is created when adoption is developed into an industry focused on supplying children to the wealthy West. The documentary caused a stir and a huge debate in Denmark. It’s heartbreaking to see this movie unfold and there is an important discussion to be had about both the ethical responsibility the director had to intervene when there were events developing that would harm the children involved. From a decolonial perspective it is also worth noticing that this is a Danish movie by a Danish director, and ask ourselves what would happen if this story was told from another point of view. There is also debate however whether this is a fair portrayal of a standard adoption process or if this case is a criminal act that does not represent adoptions in general or as a whole.

The documentary shows that the world of adoption is based on the question of supply and demand, with international adoption organizations establishing themselves in Ethiopia along with private orphanages and hopeful adoptive parents flocking to the country. In recent years, the number of Ethiopian children who are given up for adoption to couples abroad has risen exponentially, but no one pays any attention to the parents that under different circumstances end up losing their children. Their side of the story has never really been told. Kjær's film offers a close-up look at an Ethiopian mother and father who have been lied to and pressured into making the toughest decision of their lives. In this interview,

Director Katrine W. Kjær had always been convinced that adoption was a compassionate act guided by noble institutions. Now that she has fini

the director develops her own thoughts on the matter:

"There were many times when I felt like I was stuck in a swamp of ethical dilemmas and wished I didn't have to make this film. But I did. Because if I hadn't, Masho and Roba would just be more anonymous numbers in a sad statistic and we would have learned nothing from their family's story."

Find out more information about the movie here:

What happens when adoption turns into an industry with the aim to alleviate the western world's childlessness, forgetting all about helping

Katrine Riis Kjær - 2012 - At first sight, adoption seems like a win-win situation: a poor orphan get

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LISA WOOL-RIM SJÖBLOM: Approaching representation, racism and decolonisation through art and comics.

Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom (link to her instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chung.woolrim/ ) was born in 1977, and works as a comic artist, graphic designer, illustrator, activist and debater. She’s an anti-transnational adoption activist that was adopted to Sweden from Korea and has become one of the most influential and knowledgeable voices in the Swedish debate on adoption. She mixes her art and activism in her work in comics and her biggest work is her debut book Palimpsest (2016) that is built around her own corrupt adoption process and Den uppgrävda jorden (could be translated to “the excavated soil”), her second book from earlier this year (2022). Den uppgrävda jorden centers the story of Maria and her adoption process. When adopted Maria finally finds her Chilean mother after years of searching for her roots, she learns that her background paperwork is not correct. The mother did not leave her voluntarily at all, and it later turns out that Maria is one of the thousands of cases in a massive criminal investigation in Chile, in which it is estimated that up to 20,000 children may have been stolen from their families for adoption. Hundreds of these children are estimated to have ended up in Sweden through adoption. This book is about the lonely and painful struggle that the victims of the adoption industry themselves have had to wage without any support or help from the state or the agencies that brought them to Sweden. It is also a tribute to the fervent activism and solidarity work of Maria and a few other adoptees in an attempt to obtain redress for the crimes they and their Chilean families have suffered.

Some of Lisas’ work is set within a Swedish context, but several of her works are translated into multiple languages. In this video Lisa explains her work and her process in decolonizing herself through her art, her search for her roots, and her activism. For me, this is a very interesting example of decolonization in practice, both on an individual level but also using art as a strategy for shared and accumulated knowledge to create new narratives about colonial practices still active today. Link to the video:

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My game,my body.

The idea of bodies as an extension of the territory that has to be conquered, which Rita Segato works, becomes more and more worrying in Mexico since the number of homicides has increased over the years. The region of the State of Mexico registers the highest number of femicides at the national level in recent years.

This problem has overwhelmed the State institution and the involvement of civil society seems one of the factors if we want to tackle this national problem.

For Guadalupe García, playing football represents a rebel act and an act of empowerment because “when you are at that space you can be yourself, it is a place just for you, feel the adrenaline run through your body when you are about to enter a football match”

Guadalipe Garcia it's a 36 years old woman from the Mazahua community, when she finishes high school she migrates to the CDMX to work as a domestic worker as its the “tradition” in her community but her habit of reading turned her words "disobedient" and so she decided to return to her community, enter the university and start playing amateur football.

Now she changes her positions from player to coach and recruits women from all the ages to join her team, to show them a way to free themselves from the everyday oppression by the rebel act of football.

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Where to start...

The Geneva Graduate Institute offers within their Global Challenges publication an article about Decolonization and Gender where they explain the relation gender has with colonization and domination structures.

Hope you enjoy!

Gender and Decolonisation by By Nicole Bourbonnais Associate Professor of International History and Politics and Co-director of the Gender C

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A lovely member of The Decolonial Mind team made this for our blog presentation. Really capturing the idea of what intersectionality and decolonial knowledge are about.

Thank you, Fernanda Quini

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Arab women in art

There are different ways to resist not only oppression but also discrimination particularly from the West. Decolonialism is about breaking dominated knowledge and for those muslim and arab women their voices need to be remember as loud and present as any other one.

This article sheds light on contemporary artists that through their work are showing resistance to the canon of arab femininity.

More and more female writers, journalists, and artists are offering an alternative to the typically male, often autocratic voice that domina

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CAPITALISM AND COLONIALISM, A LOVE STORY

Why talk about anti-capitalism in the context of a decolonial feminism blog? Because different power systems are very much related - especially colonialism, capitalism, and sexist, heteronormative oppression.

Colonization was the foundation for modern-day capitalism, and the capitalist endeavor was the motor for the project of colonization. And today's global capitalist economy can be seen as a modern-day colonialism, the mechanism of colonialism is still very much present. The explotation of natural resources, labor, and the environment mostly takes place in the previously politically colonized regions of the world (the economical periphery), while the profits from this exploitation still accumulate around the global economy's center - the western world. The political and official colonization of the global south and the non-western world has only been rebranded into economical colonization. The oppression and exploitation are still there. The world's global, capitalist economy is built on and made possible through the exploitation of regions in the economic periphery for the benefit of the global economic center. It will not be possible to decolonize our global society and dismantle the oppression of racism and sexism without dismantling the global system of capitalism, and that’s why it’s so important to talk about anti-capitalism. If you want to have a more developed explanation and perspective on this I’m recommending this video. It’s nine minutes long and does a great job of explaning the relation and interdependence between capitalism and colonialism. I also recommend a study of the ecologically unequal exchange in today's global economic system.

Resources:

Dorninger & Wieland (2021), Global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange: Implications for sustainability in the 21st century, Ecological Economics Vol 179

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