User:Sundaynightdinner/Mara Viveros Vigoya

Mara Viveros Vigoya

Mara Viveros Vigoya is an Associate Professor at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia. Her focus is on Anthropology and Gender Studies at the National University of Colombia.

Education

Mara Viveros Vigoya attended Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. She received a PhD in Anthropology.

Research

Mara Viveros Vigoya has done research on the intersectionality between gender, race, and sexuality. She has published and co-authored many pieces about the social inequalities in Latin American societies.

United States

Mara Viveros Vigoya is a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey. She participates in the School of Social Science, which was founded in 1973.

Europe

The Institut des Hautes Etudes sur l’Amérique Latine in France has invited Mara Viveors Vigoya to participate in their research on gender and race intersectionality. The EHESS of Paris also invited her to contribute to their research.

Other Countries

Mara Viveros Vigoya contributed research to the University of Guadalajara in Mexico where she is a fellow of the CALAS project. The project follows intersectionality in Colombia, as well as, social inequalities and identity. She also produced research for the UAM-Xochimilco Federal University of Bahia in Brazil in their Center for Gender Studies.

Publications

Authored

Mara Viveros Vigoya is the author of The political vitality and vital politics of Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism: A reading in light of contemporary racism (2019) and Dionysian Blacks: Sexuality, Body, and Racial Order in Colombia (2002). She has authored El oxímoron de las clases medias negras. Movilidad social e interseccionalidad en Colombia (2021), As cores da masculinidade Experiências interseccionais e práticas de poder na Nossa América, Rio de Janeiro (2018), and Les couleurs de la Masculinité. Expériences intersectionnelles et pratiques de pouvoir, en: Amérique Latine, Paris (2018).

Co-Authored

In Changing Men and Masculinities in Latin America (2003) by Matthew C Gutmann, Mara Viveros Vigoya wrote the chapter Contemporary Latin American Perspectives on Masculinity. The chapter outlines the exclusion of the male perspectives in the study of gender, including the study of masculinity. According to Viveros-Vigoya, Gender studies in Latin American societies were mainly dominated by women, but more men are becoming involved in gender relations and the cultural, social, and economic effects it has on power dynamics. The study of masculinity refers to the relationship between genders and within the male gender. Within gender studies, researchers understand the power dynamics and relationships as being between genders, with the male gender dominating over the female gender. This perspective excludes the internal power dynamics within the genders. She discusses the intersectionality between gender and race and gender and sexuality that is often erased or ignored and Viveros Vigoya points to this. Sex roles and traditional family dynamics are two points that Viveros Vigoya writes about that represent inequalities between men and women, yet she explains how it only represents a heterosexual relationship dynamic. She introduces the sociological, anthropological, and psychological studies of the male identity in Latin America and how it has been socially structured to fit the conforming and stereotypical expectations of men. There is the hegemonic expectation of the position men is meant to perform in society. She explains how it neglects other social factors, such as race and sexuality, as well as men’s health (reproductive and other health), fatherhood, and other contributors. Viveros Vigoya and other researchers involved in these studies have labeled masculinity in crisis, which creates a social movement that questions male privilege but also introduces the harmful effects of masculinity on men. She emphasizes the unequal power dynamics within genders.Viveros-Vigoya points out the macho stereotype men are expected to fit into in many Latin American societies. There is an expectation of how men are not only supposed to act but also supposed to look to fit a masculine, macho identity. This masculine identity is defined by Viveros-Vigoya as a need to provide for one’s family, fit a certain body standard, only show anger as a negative emotion (not sadness), etc., as well as, only participating in a heterosexual relationship and ultimately follow the traditional male role. In many Latin American cultures, this can be referred to ethnographically as “machismo". In many studies done on the male identity, the male gender is characterized and researched based solely on their genitals, not their overall identity. This forces many into a box where they can’t express their sexual identities and other social identities that challenge the norm.

She has also contributed chapters or articles in Race, Indigeneity and Gender: Colombian Feminism Learning, Lessons for Global Feminism (2018), Masculinities in the continuum of violence in Latin America (2016), Social Mobility, Whiteness, and Whitening in Colombia (2015), Sex/Gender (2015), and The sexual erotic market as an analytical framework for understanding erotic-affective exchanges in interracial sexually intimate and affective relationships (2015).

She has research published in Género, raza y nación. Los réditos políticos de la masculinidad blanca (2013), Con Lesmes Sergio. Cuestiones raciales y construcción de Nación en tiempos de multiculturalism (2014), L’intersectionnalité au prisme du féminisme latinoaméricain (2015), Blanqueamiento social, nación y moralidad en América Latina (2016), La interseccionalidad: una aproximación situada a la dominación (2016), La contestación del género, La cuestión nodal de la política sexual en Colombia (2016), Los estudios feministas y de género: un campo de pensamiento y transformación social (2017), Les études de genre et les mouvements ethnico-raciaux en Colombie. Entre méfiances et défis (2017), Intersecciones, periferias y heterotopías en las cartografías de la sexualidad (2017), La invención de las mujeres. Una perspectiva africana sobre los discursos occidentales del género. Bogotá: en la Frontera (2017), and De la extraversión a las epistemologías nuestramericanas: Un descentramiento en clave feminista (2018).

Mentioned

In Gender as Southern Theory (2018), Pallavi Banerjee and Raewyn Connell mention Vigoya's work on racial and gender hierarchies in the global south due to colonialism.