Lideres Campesinas: Grassroots Gendered Leadership, Community Organizing, and Pedagogies of Empowerment

May 29, 2007 | by
  • Description

The roots of Organizacion en California de Lideres Campesinas (Lideres Campesinas) are farm-worker women who create a better future for themselves and their communities. The organization is based on the idea that farm-worker women are leaders that can be empowered to solve the problems of injustice in their own lives and communities. This ethnography addresses three areas of research, including Lideres Campesinas's history; changes in terms of leadership, empowerment and community organization; and documenting the organization's pedagogical model. The ethnography chronicles Latina farm workers in California who have developed programs recognizing campesina expertise and nurturing leadership among campesinas who organize their families, communities, and workplaces. These narratives speak to the new forms of empowerment created by Lideres Campesinas and new tools the women have obtained in creating new kinds of community by taking action in their twelve local site committees.