Negotiating spaces: Gender, economy, and cultural politics in post-Sandinista Nicaragua

The 1990 elections in Nicaragua marked the loss of the Sandinistas to a coalition government that overturned many of the revolutionary changes of the last decade and introduced a series of neoliberal measures to return the country to a capitalist path. Despite the initial despair experienced by many Nicaraguans over that outcome and the economic crisis that followed, a number of political and cultural openings emerged to allow for independent social movements to grow in opposition to both the new government and to undemocratic practices on the left. Women have been central to these developments, as those most harshly affected by recent economic policies and as activists in newly organized movements. Based on research in Managua over a six-year period, this essay considers these apparently contradictory tendencies and calls for an analysis that attends to both political economy and cultural politics.