Far beyond what is Measured: Governance Feminism and Indicators in Colombia

Resumo

This article analyzes how power feminism, a mainstream feminist trend in international legal discourse, was incorporated into the Colombian legal system through the process of design and discussion of indicators to measure the Colombian government’s compliance with the Constitutional Court’s orders regarding internal forced displacement in the country. To do so, this paper examines the participation of Corporación Sisma Mujer, one of the most well-known Colombian women’s rights NGOs, in the debates inside and outside the Constitutional Court that led this Court to adopt a battery of indicators to track internally displaced women’s effective enjoyment of rights, and in general a women-sensitive approach to forced displacement. To unveil the theoretical foundations of Corporación Sisma Mujer’s interventions and strategies before the Constitutional Court, this article combines a theoretical approach with documentary research and interviews. Nancy Fraser’s paper Rethinking the Public Sphere, and Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, Hila Shamir and Chantal Thomas’ concept governance feminism constitute the basic theoretical framework. Documents drafted by Sisma Mujer and Constitutional Court decisions that accepted, appropriated and transformed Sisma’s claims are analyzed through the lens of Fraser and Halley, Kotiswaran, Shamir and Thomas’ theoretical contributions. Interviews with Sisma’s staff, and with other relevant actors complement what is found in documents and judicial decisions.