Mandate of Invisibility: Reflections on an Ongoing Investigation About Gender Expressions in the Bolivian Chaco

Catalina Wins

doi:10.36950/sjsca.2026.33.11911

Laufende Forschung

Bd. 33 Nr. 1 (2026): Queerness repräsentieren. Methodische und ethische Herausforderungen bei der Porträtierung von queer Lebensgeschichten

Mandate of Invisibility: Reflections on an Ongoing Investigation About Gender Expressions in the Bolivian Chaco

Catalina Wins^▸^▾

Eingereicht: January 7, 2025
Veröffentlicht: 2026-06-25

Abstract

This article addresses ethical and methodological challenges I encountered while conducting fieldwork in the town of Camiri, between May 2023 and December 2024, as part of a research project on gender diversity in the Bolivian Chaco. Through the analysis of interviews with non-heterosexual people and my field notes, emerged the concept of mandate of invisibility, which refers to what is allow or not to be seen, in relation to gender expression and sexual identity. I reflect on how this mandate affects my work as a researcher and the impact my presence has in relation to the tensions between visibility and invisibility.

Literaturhinweise

Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. 1998. “Sex in Public.” Critical Inquiry 24 (2): 547–66. https://doi.org/10.1086/448884.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. First issued in hardback. Routledge Classics. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Canessa, Andrew. 2012. Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex, and History in the Small Spaces of Andean Life. Narrating Native Histories. Durham: Duke University Press.
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039.
Foucault, Michel. 1979. Vigilar y castigar: nacimiento de la prisión. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.
Gustafson, Bret. 2020. Bolivia in the Age of Gas. Durham: Duke University press
Namaste, Viviane K. 2000. Invisible lives: the erasure of transsexual and transgendered people. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ochoa, Marcia. 2014. Queen for a day: transformistas, beauty queens, and the performance of femininity in Venezuela. Perverse modernities / a series edited by Judith Halberstam and LIsa Lowe. Durham: Duke University Press.
Valentine, David. 2007. Imagining transgender: an ethnography of a category. Durham: Duke University Press.
Wayar, Marlene. 2018. Travesti: una teoría lo suficientemente buena. Buenos Aires: Editorial Muchas Nueces.

Schlagwörter

queer anthropology
sex-gender diversity
Bolivian Chaco
ethnography
mandate of invisibility

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Zitationsvorschlag

Wins, Catalina. 2026. “Mandate of Invisibility: Reflections on an Ongoing Investigation About Gender Expressions in the Bolivian Chaco”. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Sozial- Und Kulturanthropologie 33 (1): 22–29. https://doi.org/10.36950/sjsca.2026.33.11911.

[1] Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. 1998. “Sex in Public.” Critical Inquiry 24 (2): 547–66. https://doi.org/10.1086/448884.

[2] Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. First issued in hardback. Routledge Classics. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

[3] Canessa, Andrew. 2012. Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex, and History in the Small Spaces of Andean Life. Narrating Native Histories. Durham: Duke University Press.

[4] Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039.

[5] Foucault, Michel. 1979. Vigilar y castigar: nacimiento de la prisión. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.

[6] Gustafson, Bret. 2020. Bolivia in the Age of Gas. Durham: Duke University press

[7] Namaste, Viviane K. 2000. Invisible lives: the erasure of transsexual and transgendered people. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[8] Ochoa, Marcia. 2014. Queen for a day: transformistas, beauty queens, and the performance of femininity in Venezuela. Perverse modernities / a series edited by Judith Halberstam and LIsa Lowe. Durham: Duke University Press.

[9] Valentine, David. 2007. Imagining transgender: an ethnography of a category. Durham: Duke University Press.

[10] Wayar, Marlene. 2018. Travesti: una teoría lo suficientemente buena. Buenos Aires: Editorial Muchas Nueces.