The process towards gender parity in Latin America in the light of a participatory ideology. Methodological proposal applicable to interdisciplinary gender studies and women’s citizenship

Abstract

This article presents a methodological proposal developed to address research studies linked to gender studies and, in particular, women’s citizenship. The methodology addresses research problems from an interdisciplinary, integral and circular perspective, linking the critique of traditional notions and paradigms of the social, economic and political order by feminist theoretical thought with praxis. That is, with the tensions and strategic synergies that occur in different contexts. The article shows its successful application to a study already carried out on the process towards gender parity in Latin America. The two methodological elements that distinguish the critical analysis on which the methodology is based are: (1) a circular dialogue, with a constant interrogation of the conceptual and the contextual analytical perspectives. In the research to which it has been applied, it resulted in a three-dimensional structure of the phenomenon described: conceptual, evolutionary in time and space, and of the progress arising from the tension between action-resistance; and (2) the wide and diverse repertoire of philosophical, commented and participatory sources, originating from the very actors involved in the phenomenon analysed (the “Latin American paritist process”) in the light of a participatory ideology. The methodology intends to help academic research studies by trying to solve real problems; hence, together with a critical qualitative methodology, in which phenomena, causes, contexts and actors are analysed, a prescriptive approach is also formulated, in a propositional spirit.

Received: 02 November 2020
Accepted: 14 May 2021