Gender violence in northern Chile: intergenerational narratives of Aymara women

Abstract

Recent statistics from the Chilean Network against Violence Towards Women (2023) show that northern regions have the highest rates of women affected by domestic violence. This research studies the family narratives of four Aymara women from northern Chile, filially related as grandmother, mother and granddaughters. With the aim of understanding their biographies and the meanings associated with gender violence and ethnic-racial discrimination, life stories were constructed focused on the transmission of experiences linked to their gender, recapitulating different moments of the life cycle, own culture and milestones sociohistorical. Conceptually, an intersectional and decolonial perspective was assumed to analyze gender violence in an intertwined manner with ethnic-racial inequalities. Patterns of generational change in an Aymara family are described, and variations with respect to the gender mandates prevailing in each historical era, as well as tensions, agencies, and resistances that each narrator exercises individually and collectively in the face of gender violence. It is necessary to advance in the understanding of meanings and senses that racialized women construct about their daily lives, their oppressions and resistances, making visible new categories of intersectionality.