Empoderamiento económico y organizativo de las artesanas macaneras de la “Asociación de Producción Artesanal Macana Paño Fino (APROMA) del cantón Gualaceo"

Abstract

It is through a gender perspective that this research project determines how exogenous and endogenous factors influence the economic and organizational empowerment of artisan women from the APROMA association. The study begins with a historical context, in compliance with the institutional links of the public sector, which undermines a theoretical approach on gender, power, and women's empowerment; feminist economics, popular and solidarity economy principles, and gender mainstreaming. The applied methodology is qualitative, descriptive, and participatory. The results show that from the exogenous point of view, there is a lack of incorporation of the gender perspective when planning for the protection of the macana, the prevalence of the effective extension between domestic and productive artisan work, the self-perception of empowerment due to the historical dynamics of gender roles as a result of male emigration. As for the endogenous, the quality of the participation of artisan women in the association's activities is insufficient; therefore, the organizational and economic empowerment of APROMA is not strengthened; thus, prevailing the notion of power from the institutions for decision making. There is no evidence of popular and solidarity economy practices which cause deficient economic autonomy at an organizational level. Finally, through a collective construction with the artisan women and the recommendations with a gender approach, lines of action are proposed to promote empowerment from the individual to the collective. It is through this approach that they lead their initiatives and become the managers of substantial changes as women in the economic and organizational sphere.