The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local. Mark Goodale , Sally Engle Merry

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Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador

3. The Committee welcomes the open dialogue with the inter-ministerial delegation of the State party as well as its efforts to provide comprehensive responses to issues raised by Committee members during the dialogue. The Committee further commends the State party for the detailed written replies to the list of issues, which was however submitted three months late, just before the dialogue. Such delay prevented the Committee from conducting a careful analysis of the information provided by the State party.

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Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 18 of the Convention

Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule. By Ann Laura Stoler. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Pp. xi+335. $54.95 (cloth); $21.95 (paper).

by Jennifer S Hirsch Berkeley, CA-university of california Press, 2003, 376 pp A Courtship After Marriage provides a fascinating look at social change among Mexican families Jennifer Hirsch skillfully documents how the shift to modernity has changed the face of Latino intimate relationships, including love, sexuality, conceptions of gender, and the meaning and practice of marriage Her book is based on a study of transnational families who are connected both to Atlanta, Georgia, and one of two neighboring communities in Mexico Some families own property in both countries; others do not but move from one country to the other for work Thus, Hirsch has focused on a group of migrants who feel and act both Mexican and American, which challenges earlier research over simplistic notions about identity and assimilation The economic and social contexts of Mexico and the United States differ radically, and Hirsch's subjects live in both worlds Her ethnography reveals the consequences of these differences for the intimate family relationships of men and women Hirsch developed extensive life histories from 13 women in each location, visiting each at least eight times The descriptions of the research context and the methods used to collect her data provide a rich background to her study Life histories were organized into six topical interviews, including (1) childhood and family life; (2) social networks, migration, and differences between life in the United States and Mexico; (3) gender, earning and spending money, and the household division of labor; (4) menstruation, reproduction, and fertility control; (5) reproductive health, STDs, and infidelity; and (6) dating, marriage, and sexuality Interviews were conducted in both Atlanta and Mexico; in Atlanta she often conducted interviews while assisting women with errands, such as driving them to the doctor In Mexico she provided transportation to weekly rosary In many ways Hirsch became an important fixture in their communities and their lives Her initial intention was to interview each woman's husband, but the sex segregation among Mexicans made this virtually impossible Unrelated men and women typically do not interact with one another; private interviews violated the tradition of separate spheres and made both Hirsch and the respondents highly uncomfortable Consequently, Hirsch was forced to make a significant but understandable compromise: to gain the trust of married women, she could interact little with men Thus, she was afforded only a rare glimpse into the male social world Instead, she focused her fieldwork on women and their mothers Therefore, her analysis of men in family relationships, including their attitudes, behaviors, and norms, are most often filtered through the lens of the women in their lives This distinction is important because the book is purportedly about sexuality and love in Mexican transnational families, not simply about women's experience and interpretations within these families Despite that caveat, I found this book to be a fascinating story of social change We see dramatic differences in "ideal" relationships between older and younger women …

A Courtship after Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families

Las Colinas, a rural region of northwestern Ecuador, is considered a lawless frontier. Violence against women is common, in part because of its perceived legitimacy. Since 2000, various nongovernmental organizations have conducted workshops on women’s rights, producing contradictory effects on social relations and rates of violence. Understandings and manifestations of gender violence are changing as transnational human rights discourses enter Las Colinas and local women and men learn about human rights and gain access to state-based justice. Human rights and improved access to justice offer powerful openings for women and families, but their empowering potential is limited by growing social and economic vulnerability and discrepancies between rights-based subjectivities and preexisting understandings of the self.Las Colinas, una region rural del noroeste de Ecuador, se considera una frontera sin ley. La violencia contra las mujeres es comun, en parte debido a que se percibe como legitima. Desde el ano 20...

Violence against Women and the Contradictions of Rights-in-Practice in Rural Ecuador:

In the Ecuadorian public imaginary, Manabi province is constructed as a lawless frontier. Manaba men are characterized for their aggressive masculinity, robust and primitive sexuality, and their proclivity towards resolving conflict with violence. This paper examines community debates about brothels and healthy sexuality in a rural coastal region where the state is expanding its reach into domestic life via the regulation of sexual intimacies and family violence. Local debates about healthy sexuality embody the historically contested and currently changing nature of state–community relationships in this previously marginalized region. While certain community factions invoke modernizing discourses of women's rights in their struggle to shut down brothels and mitigate family violence, others argue for unregulated sexuality as a way to diminish violence. Drawing from over 10 years of ethnographic research on gender, violence, and human rights in Ecuador, this paper reveals the co-construction of rura...

The ‘SONY NIGHTCLUB’: Rural Brothels, Gender Violence, and Development in Coastal Ecuador

Under President Rafael Correa (2007-2017), Ecuador's Ministry of Health established a state-centred health care regime that incorporates elements of Latin American social medicine into post-neoliberalism. These initiatives - which are part of 'The National Plan for Good Living (Buen Vivir)' - include free healthcare, greater attention to social determinants of health, a focus on equity and inclusion, and increased coordination across welfare, health, and development sectors. However, the reforms also use health services to build a sense of inclusive, participatory citizenship, with the Ecuadorean state as the central figure in service provision. In this paper, we demonstrate that state-centred health care reforms have paradoxically weakened community organising for collective health. Drawing on seventeen years of ethnographic research and health solidarity work in rural Northwest Ecuador, we illustrate how Ecuador's health reforms have reconfigured relations among local civil society, transnational NGOs, and the state. Established modes of community participation and international collaboration have been undermined largely because these reforms ignore community sovereignty and self-organisation and overemphasise the threat of neoliberalism. The lessons about balancing the state-based fulfilment of rights with community power are relevant to social medicine advocates, particularly those working in rural communities that are already organising creatively for their own health and well-being.

La Revolución Ciudadana and social medicine: Undermining community in the state provision of health care in Ecuador

Rapid economic, political, social, and technological changes have left many people in the world feeling anxious and longing for the known, the predictable, and the safe. At the same time, globalisa...

Introduction: Intimacies and Sexualities in Out-of-the-Way Places

In the year 2001, I began researching the relationship between domestic violence, family relations, and women's rights awareness in rural Northwest Ecuador. I have also been involved in the development of a community-based health project in the region, as well as other local initiatives for health and social justice. Over a ten-year period, violence has come unexpectedly in and out of focus in my work due to shifting perceptions of its legitimacy in the eyes of community members. While intimate partner violence has long been accepted as a private and generally unremarkable affair, newly circulating discourses of human rights and citizenship are prompting people to increasingly question this view. Some forms of intimate partner violence are now intentionally labeled violencia domestica (domestic violence) and contested as such. For this reason, many Las Cruces inhabitants now hold the state accountable for protecting women and children, even though legal and judicial resources remain scant. In this paper, ...

Karin Friederic

Papers

Violence against Women and the Contradictions of Rights-in-Practice in Rural Ecuador:

The ‘SONY NIGHTCLUB’: Rural Brothels, Gender Violence, and Development in Coastal Ecuador

La Revolución Ciudadana and social medicine: Undermining community in the state provision of health care in Ecuador

Introduction: Intimacies and Sexualities in Out-of-the-Way Places

The Challenges of Advocacy in Anthropological Research on Intimate Partner Violence