CHOLA CONTRAVISUAL: NEW FEMINISMS

Abstract

In 2023, Peru made headlines for experiencing a gender-based violence crisis, with 21.194 cases reported in January and February and one woman being killed every three days in March alone. Feminist movements vow to address the ongoing crisis, yet in Peru, traditional feminism tends to marginalize indigenous, poor, LGBQTIA+ women, who are most affected by gender-based violence. Chola Contravisual (CC) is a feminist art collective based in Huancayo that challenges societal norms, stereotypes, and inequalities through their artwork. Through an intersectional and queer theory lens, I analyze how CC responds to traditional feminisms. Because they saw themselves, and other womxn with multiple subaltern identities under- or misrepresented within institutionalized feminist movements in Peru, they decided to form their own new feminism. Their methods do not follow a Eurocentric logic of knowledge production but seize indigenous ways of knowing, making their work meaningful especially because these people have been previously ignored and silenced in Andean communities and traditional feminist movements.

Keywords: coloniality of gender, gender-based violence, feminist movements, decolonial queer theory, intersectionality