Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the challenges of intersectionality in the formulation of public policies in Argentina, and thus examine the colonialism ingrained within State structures in general and its judicial system in particular. To that end, this approach is based on the analysis of a legal process that condemned Reina Maraz Bejarano to life sentence in 2014. She is a migrant Bolivian woman, indigenous (Quechua speaker who does not understand Spanish), poor, and a victim of violence, who spent almost two years in jail accused of murdering her husband, also Bolivian, without comprehending the legal process by which she had been detained. This case, which embodies different intersections of social inequalities affecting a woman’s life, reveals the absence of public policies in Argentina oriented to respond to these intersections. The intention of this chapter is not to determine whether Reina is innocent or guilty but to enrich the discussion about the importance of including an intersectional perspective in the State sphere and in public policy-making processes in order to consider—and provide answers to—the many situations of inequality and oppression people face during their lives, which affect their experiences and their access to justice.
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Notes
- 1.
To analyse the different moments of Bolivian migration into Argentina and its specificities, see Mallimaci and Magliano (2015).
- 2.
By colonialism, we mean the sustaining of the colonial basis of power in Latin America which was translated into the production and reproduction of gender, sexual, racial, and classist forms of domination. To go deeper into this, see, among others, the studies of Grosfoguel (2007), Lugones (2008), Mignolo (2007, 2016), and Quijano (2000).
- 3.
The CPM appears in 1999 around two main ideas: first, the democratic State must have an active role in the impulse of public policies of memory and in the promotion of human rights; second, this mandate should be fulfilled strongly articulating with civil society, defending the premise that the fact that the CPM is part of the Province State does not mean being linked to the governments ruling at the moment.
- 4.
Bolivian women migration due to familiar reunification, as was Reina’s case, has been one of the most common characteristics of this migration process through time (Magliano 2017). The pioneer migration of the man and the following relocation of the rest of the family has been, historically, a modality sustained within the context of Bolivian migration into the country.
- 5.
Among the most common labour activities of Bolivian migrants in Argentina are the construction industry, small commerce, domestic work, horticultural production in the greenbelts of the main cities, brick manufacturing, and garment workshops (Mallimaci and Magliano 2015).
- 6.
The other accused, also from Bolivia, died in the Unit 23 of Florencio Varela while in prison for the same reason as Reina.
- 7.
It is important to point out that English, French, Portuguese, and Italian interpreters were available.
- 8.
She did not see her other children again, since after her imprisonment the children had stayed with their paternal grandfather and, then, they were taken to Bolivia. Once there, both families (maternal and paternal) agreed that each family would keep one boy. The one that stayed with Reina’s family was in contact with her through the phone, while she had lost contact with the other one until three months before the trial, when she regained contact through the Bolivian consulate.
- 9.
Device allows judges and defence attorneys to listen to the victims’ story—in this case, it was the story of the boy as witness of the deed—from a room next door without being seen. The mechanism consists of two rooms, one next to the other, separated by a mirrored glass that makes it possible to see from one of the rooms to the other, but not the other way around; this means that it is unidirectional. In one of the rooms, the minor must answer questions asked by a specialist—in this case, this main characteristic wasn’t respected, since the interview was carried out by the prosecutor himself—and in the other room the judges and the counsellors listen what he answers by means of an audio system.
- 10.
The category of “race” should not be understood as “belonging to an ethnic group in particular, but as a trace of a colonial history that continues up to now” (Segato 2007: 1).
- 11.
An interesting precedent was the inclusion of the “anthropological cultural expert’s report” in the case Sepur Zarco, in Guatemala. Through this procedure, and with the purpose of decolonizing the legal system, the interpretation of the legal situation and its impact on the communities given the cultural patterns and values of the individual and collective subjects that go to the Court in the role of victims was expected (Segato 2016).
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Magliano, M.J., Ferreccio, V. (2019). Intersectional Borders in Argentina: Migration, Inequalities, and Judicial Colonialism. In: Hankivsky, O., Jordan-Zachery, J.S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy. The Politics of Intersectionality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98473-5_26
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