Mujeres truchas: urban girls redefining smartness in a dystopic global south

Set against colonial narratives of border women and neoliberal ideologies increasingly permeating school systems around the world, this article maps out ways in which a group of young women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico embody and reconstruct notions of smartness. I draw on Chicana feminist theory to introduce the concept of mujeres truchas, a set of intelligences that stem from a life at the margins and a struggle for survival and hope. Further, they challenge Cartesian dualisms about knowledge by incorporating the rational and critical thought but also the physical and spiritual knowledges generated by everyday life in the barrio. This form of smartness also counters the individualism in post-feminist discourse by emphasizing decolonizing, healing, and collective goals.