Far beyond what is Measured: Governance Feminism and Indicators in Colombia

This article analyzes how power feminism, a mainstream feminist trend
in international legal discourse, was incorporated into the Colombian
legal system through the process of design and discussion of indicators to
measure the Colombian government’s compliance with the Constitutional
Court’s orders regarding internal forced displacement in the country. To
do so, this paper examines the participation of Corporación Sisma Mujer,
one of the most well-known Colombian women’s rights NGOs, in the debates
inside and outside the Constitutional Court that led this Court to adopt
a battery of indicators to track internally displaced women’s effective
enjoyment of rights, and in general a women-sensitive approach to forced
displacement. To unveil the theoretical foundations of Corporación Sisma
Mujer’s interventions and strategies before the Constitutional Court, this
article combines a theoretical approach with documentary research and
interviews. Nancy Fraser’s paper Rethinking the Public Sphere, and Janet
Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, Hila Shamir and Chantal Thomas’ concept
governance feminism constitute the basic theoretical framework. Documents
drafted by Sisma Mujer and Constitutional Court decisions that accepted,
appropriated and transformed Sisma’s claims are analyzed through the
lens of Fraser and Halley, Kotiswaran, Shamir and Thomas’ theoretical
contributions. Interviews with Sisma’s staff, and with other relevant actors
complement what is found in documents and judicial decisions