From Human Rights to Emancipation: Four Decades of Feminist Movement Configurations in Latin America

Abstract This article explores the evolution of feminist movements in Latin America over the past four decades, focusing on their shifting organizational structures and evolving perspectives on women’s rights, democracy, and citizenship. It asks: how have evolving conceptions of democracy and citizenship been shaped by transformations in the movement’s organizational configurations? Although early feminist discourse was rooted in a human rights framework that linked women’s rights to the democratization struggles against authoritarian regimes, this framework has grown increasingly multifaceted over time. Latin American feminists have ultimately redefined democracy and citizenship, conceptualizing them not merely as political inclusion but as a broader pursuit of emancipation from all forms of oppression. The central argument is that these transformations are deeply tied to organizational shifts, as the feminist movement transitioned from a marginal faction within broader women’s movements in the 1980s to a dynamic, heterogeneous network of multiple feminist collectives by the early 2020s.