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The Americas 59.2 (2002) 256-258



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Still Fighting: The Nicaraguan Women's Movement, 1977-2000. By Katherine Isbester. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. Pp. xiv, 256. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $45.00 cloth; $19.95 paper.

Katherine Isbester has two related objectives: to present a case study of a social movement in terms of its mobilization of resources, identity formation, and goal orientation, and to document the rise of the Nicaraguan women's movement from 1977-2000. Her book achieves both objectives to a degree, weaving together analysis of social movements and discussion of one of the most interesting women's movements to have emerged in the last quarter century. However, she might have been more successful by focusing directly on the time of her research in the mid-1990s, a period that has received less attention to date. Much of the book traces the earlier years of the women's movement organized by the Sandinista National Liberal Front, from just before the Sandinista victory in 1979 through the years of revolutionary government ending in 1990, laying the groundwork for a final chapter that examines the development of a more autonomous feminist movement under the [End Page 256] neoliberal government of Violeta Chamorro between 1992 and 1996. An epilogue sketches national-level change through 2000, but the book is largely written from the vantage point of the mid-1990s.

A political scientist, Isbester carried out interviews with over one hundred individuals and also conducted archival research for her study. She states that she found that the most valuable aspect of her research was her attendance at women's movement meetings and conferences. Thus, I was surprised that we see little of the result of her participation in these gatherings and little of the immediate outcome of her interviews. Without searching the endnotes, it is difficult to discern what new material is offered, since much of the subject matter has been taken up before by other writers. Where such original material and discussion appears it is quite interesting and I would have liked to see more extensive treatment of it in the work. For example, there is a rich discussion of the Nicaraguan movement's focus on the body as a site of contention and feminists' ethic of care as a response to patriarchal violence; an important analysis of the way that the women's movement came to emphasize health and human rights; and a productive discussion of women's political struggles over the right to private and public spaces.

Isbester presents the Nicaraguan women's movement as the creation of the Sandinista party, which established a mass organization in 1977. Other research coming to light reveals earlier evidence of feminism under the Somoza dictatorship, which will provide a broader historical view; attention to the Somoza era along with the Sandinista and current neoliberal eras will eventually contribute to the project of comparing social movement strategies and outcomes across dramatically different political periods. Despite her more limited time frame, Isbester offers a useful discussion of the transition from a significant but constrained Sandinista women's movement to a more independent feminism that mobilized groups and networks despite the socially and politically conservative governments of the last decade. Her strength is in assessing successes and failures in women's organizing around shared goals of ending violence against women, improving women's health and well-being, and democratizing gender relations so that women would have more social space and political influence.

Isbester ably links the Nicaraguan women's movement and the gay rights movement in the country. But once again, without attention to the earlier stirrings of gay culture and politics, from the somewhat tolerant attitude under Somoza to the surprisingly repressive response under the Sandinistas, she suggests that the gay movement emerged only after 1990 when it was inspired by the women's movement. Both social movements are thus deprived of a part of their layered and independent histories. The book is marred by such shortcomings, and by the author's tendency to speak with certainty regarding debatable questions. Also...

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