Abstract

KUROMIYA, Aki. Local Political Advocacy of Women Leaders in Tapachula, Chiapas: Discourses and Practices of Power. LiminaR [online]. 2018, vol.16, n.2, pp.132-146. ISSN 2007-8900.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main practices of women from a neighborhood of the city of Tapachula, Chiapas, who take on local leadership roles to obtain governmental support. Through ethnographic case studies, we examine how women leaders’ discourses adopt some idealized qualities of women to legitimize their power as leaders. Furthermore, we discuss how they resort to traditional mechanisms of “intermediation” that respond to unwritten local management rules. In particular, we analyze what strategies these leaders and their followers use as politic tools in order to solve their everyday problems.

Keywords : political management; local politics; women’s leadership; gender roles; citizen participation; intermediation.

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