Healthcare at the intersection of spiritualities and feminisms

KARINA FELITTI ; LEILA ABDALA

Río de Janeiro

Workshop; Contemporary Spiritualities, a New Soft Power?; 2021

International Society for the Sociology of Religion

In recent years, Latin American feminist movement gained visibility and expanded its influence in society and politics. The Green Tide, a name which recovers the importance of the green handkerchief created by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion in Argentina, expanded the influence of Latin American feminism beyond the Region and enabled the articulation with transnational feminisms. At the same time, the increasing importance of New Age spiritualities in Latin American societies reintroduced the discussion about ?feminist spirituality? and definitions of laïcité and secularism. In this presentation, we want to highlight the political implications of women's spiritualities in the debates regarding gender equity, sexual and reproductive rights and the struggles against gender violence in contemporary Argentina. These reflections are based on a multi-site ethnography in women's circles in two cities from Argentina, Santa Fe and Buenos Aires, and participant observations in feminist public demonstration and feminist activism in social network where women?s who actually recognized themselves as ?spiritual feminist? have participated. This fieldwork has been conducted since 2013 to the present. The circles we observe are constituted by cis gendered, white, middle class, educated, young/middle age, heterosexual women. Our fieldwork went through crucial moments of Argentinean feminist history, characterized by feminist public presence in the (social) Media, strategic alliance with political actors and confluences with transnational feminist activism, and the major achievements in terms of sexual justice, as the legalization of abortion in December 2020. This context led women spiritual practitioners who, before Ni Una Menos (2015) hesitated or rejected to be involved in feminisms, finally embraced the movement and began to participate in it on their own terms.