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Feminicide as ‘act’ and ‘process’: A geography of gendered violence in Oaxaca
Study
North America
As debates about femicide have emerged in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, the concept has been transformed and enriched. This theoretical intervention is partially captured through the debate that has arisen among Latin American feminist activists and theorists regarding the terms femicidio and feminicidio. In part, the debate that surrounds these two terms highlights tensions between femicide as an act (i.e. a female homicide) and femicide as a process, which draws attention to the structures and patterns that inhere in this form of violence. Feminicidio, which in Spanish invokes this sense of process, sharpens and deepens the political nature of the original term. To clearly demark these transnational (now southern to northern) theoretical engagements, Fregoso and Bejarano (2010) have introduced the term ‘feminicide’ into English.