Life Histories of Mapuche Women Elders


March 4, 2016 at 3:30 pm
“Recollections of Violence and Survival in the Life Histories of Mapuche Women Elders”
Patricia Richards, University of Georgia

UW-Milwaukee Campus
Curtin Hall 175

Patricia Richards’ talk draws from her preliminary research on Mapuche women elders residing in ancestral territory in Southern Chile.

Although Richards’ initial focus was on how these women’s lives had been shaped by gender, racial, and colonial marginalization, she discovered that the most salient theme is violence: colonial violence, the violence wrought by the Pinochet dictatorship, everyday symbolic and structural violence, and the violence in their closest relationships.

Patricia Richards is associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at the University of Georgia. She is the author of Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights (2013) and Pobladoras, Indígenas and the State: Conflicts over Women’s Rights in Chile (2004).