Taking the Law Into Our Own Hands
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Sciences Po PSIA – Paris School of International Affairs [Master in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action] Taking the Law Into Our Own Hands – Female Vigilantism in India and Mexico Roxana Baldrich Master’s thesis supervised by Quentin Delpech, associate researcher at CEMCA and Carol Wise, Professor of International Relations at USC Academic Year 2013/2014 The copyright of this Master's thesis remains the property of its author. No part of the content may be reproduced, published, distributed, copied or stored for public or private use without written permission of the author. All authorisation requests should be sent to [email protected] Roxana Baldrich – "Taking the Law Into Our Own Hands" – Sciences Po – PSIA – 2013-2014 1 Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 5 a) Violent Women: Mapping the current (theoretical) terrain ................................................. 5 1) Discourses of female violence: “The Beautiful Soul” …................................ 5 2) Discourses of gender stereotypes: “Mothers, Monsters, Whores” …............. 6 b) Vigilantism: Issues and preliminary definitional elements …........................................... 9 1) “Diana the Huntress”, continued …................................................................ 9 2) Preliminary definitional elements of vigilantism.......................................... 12 3) Previous work on female vigilantism …....................................................... 15 c) Methodology, limitations, and structure of the paper …................................................... 17 I – Female vigilantism in India ...................................................................................................... 21 a) The Gulabi Gang, Bundelkhand ....................................................................................... 22 1) Main Sources ................................................................................................ 23 2) Bundelkhand, one of the poorest regions in the world ................................. 24 3) The birth of the world's largest female vigilante group ................................ 24 4) Violence only as a last resort ........................................................................ 26 5) The Gulabi Gang's manifold activities …..................................................... 28 6) The media's over-emphasis on the gang's violence-proneness …................. 30 7) Local support for the Gulabi Gang ............................................................... 31 8) Conclusions .................................................................................................. 31 b) The Red Brigade, Lucknow .............................................................................................. 32 1) The birth of an unusual vigilante group ....................................................... 33 2) Activities and violence-proneness ............................................................... 33 3) Mixed reactions to the group's activities ...................................................... 36 II – Female vigilantism in Mexico ................................................................................................. 38 a) ¡Ni Una Más! - women's grassroots organizing in Ciudad Juárez .................................. 40 1) The longest epidemic of femicidal violence in modern history ..................... 40 2) The Birth of the movement ............................................................................ 41 3) The local all-female grassroots movement of Juárez ..................................... 42 4) Local Nongovernmental organizations .......................................................... 44 5) Outcomes ........................................................................................................ 45 6) Where are the female vigilantes? ................................................................... 46 Roxana Baldrich – "Taking the Law Into Our Own Hands" – Sciences Po – PSIA – 2013-2014 2 b) Women in the “autodefensas” of Guerrero and Michoacán ............................................. 49 1) The growing movement of self-defense groups in Mexico ............................ 49 2) The first all-female armed Citizen Police group .......................................... 50 3) Women's roles in mixed autodefensas and their stereotypical media representation ............................................................................................... 52 4) Conclusions .................................................................................................. 55 Conclusion – Female vigilantism conceptualized ........................................................................ 57 a) General observations on female vigilantism .................................................................... 47 1) Female vigilantism as a constructive collective enterprise ............................ 57 2) Female vigilantism as distinct from male vigilantism .................................... 57 3) Female vigilantism as a shifting concept ....................................................... 58 b) Violence-proneness of female vigilantes .......................................................................... 59 c) Short-term impact ............................................................................................................. 61 1) Creation of safer environments for women ................................................... 61 2) Giving women a voice ................................................................................... 62 3) Awareness-rising and exercise of pressure .................................................... 63 d) Long-term impact ............................................................................................................. 64 1) Negation of gender stereotypes ...................................................................... 64 2) Changing perceptions of violent women ….................................................... 65 e) Limits ................................................................................................................................ 66 f) Conclusion and directions for further research ................................................................. 69 Sources ............................................................................................................................................. 72 a) Books ................................................................................................................................ 72 b) Journal articles .................................................................................................................. 73 c) Press article ....................................................................................................................... 74 d) Human Rights reports ....................................................................................................... 78 e) Websites and blogs ............................................................................................................ 78 f) Videos ................................................................................................................................ 79 Roxana Baldrich – "Taking the Law Into Our Own Hands" – Sciences Po – PSIA – 2013-2014 3 Acknowledgments I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisors Quentin Delpech and Prof. Carol Wise for their time and useful comments, engagement and support throughout the learning process of this master's thesis. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Hélène Combes for introducing me to the topic of social movements and for her enthusiasm, with which she raised my interest in the subject area; and Michelle Reddy for her encouragement, support and help throughout the application process from my study abroad semester at USC as well as during the production of this thesis. Furthermore, I would like to thank Christina Grey for her insightful comments and guidance. I am deeply grateful to her for the long discussions that helped me organize my many ideas for this thesis. I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to my immediate family members, to whom this dissertation is dedicated, for their emotional and financial support throughout my studies. Roxana Baldrich – "Taking the Law Into Our Own Hands" – Sciences Po – PSIA – 2013-2014 4 Introduction a) Violent Women: Mapping the current (theoretical) terrain 1) Discourses of female violence: “The Beautiful Soul” Women, constrained to nonviolence, are precluded from claiming a self, a world. The moral imperative established by heterosexual virtue that women are to be nonviolent, establish[es] a male-defined goof that is beneficial to men and harmful to women. – Jeffner Allen qd. In Martindale, 1986, 109 On August 28, 2013, at approximately 7:45 am, an unidentified woman boarded a bus in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She approached the driver, Jose Roberto Flores Carrera, 45, took out a pistol, and shot him. The next day, at almost the same hour, a similar scene took place on the same bus route, which serves main thoroughfares and downtown Ciudad Juárez. This time, Fredy Zarate Morales, 32, was killed.