Feminist escraches are transforming Bolivia
Image by Lorena K for Ojalá.
Reportage · Claudia López Pardo · November 24, 2023 · Leer en castellano
A March 2020 accusation by Icla K. in La Paz sent shockwaves through social networks in Bolivia. Together with her closest friends, she denounced Alejandro Archondo and Alejandro Cambero for drugging and raping her in her own home.
The horrific attack broke open a debate about rape culture in Bolivia, and brought women’s desire to break the silence into sharp relief.
Icla’s actions opened a new possibility of feminist justice, giving shape to what would come to be known as “escrache,” an organized, unsanctioned, public call-out of male aggressors. Over time, her struggle became a catalyst for more women, young and old, who found the courage to speak out, first among themselves, then in their organizing spaces and in public to express that they are fed up with sexist violence.
Since then, the practice of escrache has spread all over Bolivia.
Last year, an accusation against Marco Quelca, a renowned chef in Bolivia’s alternative cuisine scene, emerging from the kitchens where he worked. A group of female cooks said they had been subject to sexual assault and labor exploitation. Several public actions were organized, including protests at Quelca’s events, drawing even more attention to what takes place in and around prestigious kitchens.
The women described how the core of gourmet cuisine is built around military style, hierarchical relationships between male chefs and female cooks. This structure concealed not only the exploitation of women workers, but also the harassment and sexual abuse of young trainees at Sabor Clandestino, a restaurant that promotes the re-appropriation of popular Bolivian culture and local terroir.
The main institutions in the food world reacted with denial. In May 2023, Quelca received a Gourmand World Cookbook Award in Sweden for innovation and creativity in the “Design & Art Book” and “Food & Indigenous Peoples” categories. Quelca has denied the allegations against him.
The international recognition meant public accusations and the far-reaching campaign carried out by María René Parada and other women cooks who are part of feminist movement were called into question. “They were more interested in rewarding a chef who positions himself as Indigenous than in supporting the escrache against him for sexual assault,” Parada told me in an interview.
An "escracho" in Sucre
As the accusations against Quelca emerged in La Paz, young women in Sucre organized as individuals and collectives and prepared for the International Women’s Day demonstrations on March 8th.
“We were sick of seeing how no one seemed moved by the deaths; every year, we staged performances naming the victims of femicide. But the public wasn’t moved. That’s why we organized the ‘tendedero’,” said Flor Azul, a young feminist from Sucre. She and others interviewed requested anonymity to protect their identity, as after the protest, several of them were attacked and harrassed.
The tendedero, which means clothesline in Spanish, was strung across the Sucre’s 25 de Mayo square, right in the center of the city. It became the beating heart of their resistance. Photos of the faces of aggressors were clothespinned to the line as if being hung out to dry.
This is another kind of escrache that can be understood as a practice of “reckoning through showing faces,” or what Bolivian feminist María Galindo called enrostramiento. The tendedero exposed accusations including sexual assault, abuse of power, rape, and harassment. For the most part, the accused were powerful men within universities, as well as teachers, judges, and other authorities.
The young women in Sucre labelled their action an escracho, using the masculine form of escrache. Its aim was to unmask the conservative and patriarchal elements of a sexist society.
Several middle and upper-class men were called out, and the day became a scandal for many traditional families in Sucre. For feminists, it was a day of joy and liberation.
These events demonstrate the politicization of multiple desires, as well as the way reflections and debates among feminists are being condensed and expressed through the concrete practice of escrache.
A recent study carried out by Precarias e Investigadoras (Precarious Researchers), a space I am a part of, shows that escrache is an action nested inside a lengthier process of producing justice.
In August and September of this year, our research collective conducted 16 interviews and held two roundtables with women. This article is an initial summary of the research we carried out; and we will release all of our findings in February, 2024.
The women we interviewed said violence is structural and goes beyond gender violence. And although most escraches relate to allegations of sexual violence, they also reveal other kinds of violence.
Escraches: who and where?
Women and gender dissidents from different social backgrounds carry out escraches, however, most of them have “access to social media and a smartphone,” said Natalia, who is active in a collective specialized in escrache in the city of Cochabamba.
Not everyone is able to carry out escraches. The practice is contingent social class and the ability to produce or weave affective networks both off and online.
The expansion and massiveness of physical and virtual escraches suggest a wide range of people are being called out: scholars, members of the clergy, and right and left-wing politicians across the country, mostly in urban areas.
The women we spoke with told us the practice of escrache is deeply linked to the desire for justice. It is a re-signified practice that has re-emerged in the ongoing rebellion of women and feminists as an honest and boisterous way to break the silence.
It’s important to point out that, as a practice in movement, escrache is a way of naming our truth. Its conceptual framework is rooted in anti-patriarchal spaces of struggle. Depending on the community or collective, it can be called escrache, escracho or funa.
Most escraches stem from individual accusations. Yet together, the accusing voices produce a common possibility, encouraging others to break the silence and to speak out. In that way, it turns into a shared experience that becomes collective.
Revealing truth as means to freedom
When formal reports are filed with state institutions in charge of “regulating violence,” each woman must “be aware that she will suffer more violence,” Icla K. explains.
Making formal complaints with the state is not and will never be an easy experience. That is why many victims of violence prefer to speak out on social media and use escrache as a tool to amplify their own voices.
Other stories of collective expression recount that in last year's massive mobilizations in Bolivia (March 8 and November 25), feminist actions attracted women and adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18.
During the mobilizations, women and teenagers found the embrace and support they needed in order to call out sexual violence in their homes and families. Outspoken women used those spaces to build a platform of enunciation for themselves.
Social media provide effective platforms for sharing accusations, which in some cases go viral. “Forgetting is not the answer,” said Flor de Guanto, a feminist from Cochabamba, who described escrache as being a kind of cry for help. “Speaking out is the beginning, but justice can only be done by healing ourselves,” she said.
The contradictions of escrache
As the complex experience of public accusations takes shape, escrache has at times been confused with revenge or public shaming.
Serious emerge when escraches are depoliticized. Natalia describes how some women used her collective to get back together with their abusive partners.
“We would publish the escraches, and as a result, the abusers would ask for forgiveness and try and get back together with the women. The accusations against them were false. This really affected us,” she said. This misuse of escrache created two problems: first, the credibility of the escraches was called into question. Second, those who supported these escraches were at risk of criminal charges for defamation.
Escrache can be “a double-edged sword,” according to Natalia. Her collective has had to face a counter-offensive, including the possibility of a counter-escrache, which is when the aggressor exposes members of a collective on social media, instigating physical and online harassment.
The counter-offensive against feminists who expose abusers is a constant risk. That’s why most of the women we interviewed requested confidentiality.
These contradictions arise when the purposes of an escrache aren’t clear, when an escrache is exploited for ulterior motives, or when the struggle around the effects and consequences of the accusation isn’t politicized. Things get especially complicated when, in disputing these narratives, verification methods aren’t clearly understood by those carrying out the escrache.
As a self-defense strategy, feminist collectives have created guidelines to double check cases they take up. In this process, testimonies of the victims provide crucial information. The collective will check to see if there are formal complaints against the abusers and determine if they are repeat offenders. Most abusers tend to have more than one complaint, formal or otherwise.
What’s next in the search for justice?
What is the political work we need to continue to do so that those carrying out escraches don’t lose their sense of awareness, and so that it continues to represent a radical practice?
In feminist spaces, struggles against all forms of violence are being politicized. New debates about justice are taking place, leading us to question how we are addressing legislation, law enforcement, punitivism and its limits.
Throughout Bolivia, escraches are being lived as part of grassroots struggles that produce different outcomes. These processes are gradually taking shape, and are politicizing the pain inflicted by the violence we carry in our bodies.
“We must recognize that women used to stay silent,” said Flor Naranja, a feminist from Cochabamba. “Now, together with younger women, we’re learning that we must speak out, because a rapist will always rape again.”
Maybe the practice of escrache will teach abusers and rapists that repeat offenses will not go unpunished. Victims and survivors are already disobeying the mandate of social silence. Escraches are a call to memory, so that these accusations and harms are not forgotten. Icla K.’s struggle is now a collective struggle, and together, we refuse to forget.
