Exploring the Potential and Impact of Indigenous Female Community Participation and Leadership in Peru

Women play a fundamental role in the preservation of biodiversity and ancestral knowledge, and the management and defence of Amazonian land and water. However, these contributions often go unrecognised.

The Women of Influence project – a partnership between UEA, PUCP, ONAMIAP and OMIAASEC - highlights the importance for Indigenous women to participate actively and be supported with the tools to exercise influence in their communities.

Working alongside a group of young Indigenous women in the Peruvian Amazon region of Junín, this project has sought to understand and make visible the work that these women have undertaken as community members and future leaders.  Through participatory work, we are working to support their ambitions, expand further their networks, enhance their visibility and probe their spheres of influence in the context of environment, social, cultural and political risk.

The Women of Influence team is formed by women researchers, cultural producers and activists based at the University of East Anglia (UEA), the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), and the Organisation for Indigenous Women of the Central Selva region of Peru (OMIAASEC). We are also grateful for the support and expert input from the young women of EmpoderArte and the SAAM (Support for Access to Audiovisual Media) project at UEA.

This interdisciplinary, transnational team of women is united in our passion for the role of women as leaders and influencers in the context of the climate emergency and of environmental humanities and social sciences. We bring skills, experience and understandings from media production and design, anthropology, development and cultural studies. Most importantly we are informed and inspired by the lived experiences, ambitions and needs of the young members of our project partners, OMIAASEC.

This project is funded by the British Academy’s Humanities and Social Sciences Tackling Global Challenges Programme, supported under the UK Government's Global Challenges Research Fund; also by the University of East Anglia’s Impact Fund and Arts and Humanities International Fund.

OUR TEAM

  • Prof. Sarah Barrow

    Professor of Cinema at the University of East Anglia, UK. She has worked at cinemas and film festivals, and has published on the connections between cinema, state and society in Peru. Her research has analysed the ecology of cinema production, the role of film festivals in Peru, and the work of various Peruvian filmmakers. Sarah is Principal Investigator of the British Academy funded project, Women of Influence, working in collaboration with colleagues and hermanas at PUCP, ONAMIAP and OMIAASEC.

  • Prof. Maria Eugenia Ulfe

    Peruvian anthropologist, professor, and researcher at the department of Social Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). She holds a PhD in Human Sciences/Anthropology at the George Washington University (Washington DC, 2005), and she is Honorary Professor in the School of Arts, Media, and American Studies at the University of East Anglia. Among her topics of research are Anthropology of the State, politics, and arts focused on memory studies, gender, ethnicity, and violence, and experimental visual ethnography.

  • Prof. Eylem Atakav

    Professor of Film, Gender and Public Engagement at the University of East Anglia where she teaches courses on women and world cinema; gender and Middle Eastern media; and documentary. She is the director of Growing Up Married – an internationally acclaimed documentary about forced marriage and child brides in Turkey; and co-director of Lifeline, a new documentary that reveals the reality of working in the frontline of the domestic abuse sector in the UK during the pandemic.

  • Karoline Pelikan

    Documentary filmmaker and cultural manager. Her films, awarded by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and international cultural organisations, focus on intimate portraits, gender violence and human rights and were screened at major film festivals. Karoline is founder of EmpoderArte, a collective of women that creates safe audiovisual spaces for women and non-binary artists across Peru. She teaches film workshops for women, and creates distribution opportunities for underrepresented communities and filmmakers.

  • Roxana Vergara

    Lawyer and Master in anthropology and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). Roxana has always worked with women and their communities fighting against violence and for social justice. Currently, she is also working on the development of projects on intercultural justice and violence against rural and indigenous women. Roxana thinks of interdisciplinary work as a tool to contribute to change and social justice through local experiences and knowledge.

  • Victoria Chicmana

    Victoria Del Pilar Chicmana Zapata is a Peruvian Quechua sociologist based in Chanchamayo - Perú. She is interested in collaborative research with Indigenous people in the fields of food security, health and social movements.

ONAMIAP

OUR PARTNERS IN JUNÍN

ONAMIAP is a national organisation of Andean and Amazonian indigenous women in Peru who are working for full exercise of their individual rights as women and of their collective rights as indigenous peoples. Based on principles of respect and recognition of diversity, the organisation implements actions aimed at strengthening the grassroots organisations, raising awareness of their demands and influencing the public agenda in order to gain representative spaces at a local, regional, national and international level.

OMIAASEC

The Organización de Mujeres Indígenas Amazónicas Asháninkas de la Selva Central (Organization of Ashaninka Indigenous Women of the Central Amazon) is a women-led organization based in the Junín and Pasco regions of the Central Amazon of Peru. The organization’s activities focus on the development of leadership capacities (for example, public speaking) and community participation, learning about ancestral knowledge and sharing understandings of Indigenous women’s rights from historical and contemporary perspectives. An important goal of the organisation is to increase representation by women as community leaders and thereby strengthen the value of their contribution to society.