Todas somos Liderezas: A qualitative study of female leadership and political participation within the Comarca Ngobe-Buglé in Panama

Abstract

Throughout Latin America there seems to have been a significant increase in indigenous women’s involvement in politics and many female political leaders have risen in the political ranks. This suggest a shift from their traditional role and raises questions of what this means for indigenous women’s struggles and for indigenous peoples’ politics as a whole. The purpose of this study is to investigate indigenous female leadership and political participation within the comarca Ngobe-Buglé in Panama by examining how politically active women move into political spaces and how they understand their own political impetus with regards to gender and ethnicity. This has been done by employing qualitative methods during two months of fieldwork in Panama in the spring of 2013. The gathered data is analyzed in relation to a theoretical framework consisting of perspectives from postcolonial theory, intersectionality and empowerment approaches. The study concludes that politically active Ngobe-Buglé women have successfully transgressed the boundaries and the traditional place of women and now occupy vast political space and important leadership roles although internal contestation, contradictions and ambiguities still exist. In sum, politically active Ngobe-Buglé women showcase great dynamism in their ability to reinvent and reconstruct identities in unpredictable and progressive ways in order to gain political participation and attain leadership positions.