Abstract

In the field of gender and ethnicity studies, this paper analyzes the meanings Aymara women assign to the gender violence that permeates their daily lives in northern Chile’s Tarapacá Region. As the first stage of a more extensive research process, the paper adopts a decolonial and intersectional perspective to analyze the narratives obtained in interviews with 16 women from different rural and urban territories. The results have been organized into a description of the gender violence framework the women describe, revealing how gender, ethnicity, generational inequalities and sexual/gender orientation overlap and connect. There is special emphasis on understanding gender violence within couples and the various explanations the interviewees provide for its occurrence and perpetuation. The paper highlights the need to unravel the colonial/modern components that have been invisibilized in the construction of “tradition” to reveal the ways patriarchy is embedded in the Andean categories.