The Fourth Wave of Latin American Feminist Mouvements

The purpose of this paper is to present what I have been calling since 2010 the "fourth wave" of feminist movements in Latin America. Two field research projects, conducted within the scope of the Center for Studies and Research on Women (NEPEM) at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), led me to this proposal. Both were funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and both investigated 18 Latin American countries in their respective dynamics of constructing more equitable parameters of social justice, political representation, and gender justice (Matos 2010, 2013) for and in the region. Starting from feminist critiques of the use of wave metaphors, I present 10 characteristics that led me to affirm that feminist movements in Latin America have long ceased to be merely and strictly social movements organized in society, having constituted themselves into a complex "field" of interaction between civil society (horizontalizing itself), the State and other political institutions (verticalizing itself), and international human rights organizations.