Beyond the category of rural 'women': provocations from transfeminism and queer/cuir theories to rural and agrarian theory

Abstract

There is a heated debate taking place in Latin American feminist academia about the hegemonic feminism subject called ‘woman’ and the inclusion or exclusion of trans and non-binary people, gender diverse and plural bodies within the feminist refuge. This debate has not reached the field of rural and agrarian studies creating gaps in land access policies and essentialist analyzes that reproduce the binarism inside academy. It is believed that rural theory and gender theories differ mainly because its epistemological bases have different paths: one line focuses on material political actions and the other(s) start from discursive political actions, and what is called ‘merely identities reaffirmations’. However, in this text I raise some points to provoke a conversation and demonstrate that both epistemological lines are not so far apart and, from an epistemological base of transfeminist political action, I set an invitation to move the category 'rural woman' towards contemporary places of study, reality and concrete practices of alliance and solidarity