Girls' everyday politics in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador: a longitudinal study

This paper explores girls’ everyday politics in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador by looking at how girls’ bodies are controlled/monitored by others and by themselves as a product of cultural norms and development/human rights discourse. Everyday politics is understood as a set of spatially and socially embedded practices and attitudes through which girls navigate, negotiate and contest social structures that shape their lives, such as family, community and educational institutions. The analysis of girls’ and their caregivers' voices exposes how gender inequality is reproduced and contested through the control of girls’ bodies, and how this becomes a site of political resistance. The analysis draws from a unique longitudinal study done by the NGO Plan International, following a total of 24 girls and their caregivers for a period of 18 years in low-income areas of El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. This data set makes it possible to identify the changes throughout childhood to adolescence, especially how girls make sense of their subjectivities based on the expectations placed on them throughout their lives. The findings suggest that girls face stricter rules than male relatives in their families, which is often justified through matters of safety, morality or reputation. This becomes more evident as the girls enter puberty. Some of the girls seem to accept and reproduce the narratives surrounding girls’ social expectations, but other girls use different strategies to negotiate or challenge these rules. By focusing on two countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the paper draws similarities and divergences in how gendered norms are reproduced within families and communities. This study sheds light on the ways that girls’ mundane activities become political when sustaining or negotiating broader gender inequality practices.