Sexual Violence in the Argentinean Crimes against Humanity Trials: Rethinking Victimhood

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

The origin of Sexual Violence in the Argentinean Crimes against Humanity Trials: Rethinking Victimhood can be found in the resistance that, using a traditional feminist perspective, alleges that testimonies of sexual violence in the context of Argentinian crimes against humanity trials inevitably re-victimize victims. It is our understanding that such interpretation not only forgets to pay attention to what victims have to say about their experiences but also bases its allegation on dualistic and patronizing conceptions of female agency. This book argues that the role of affect in the experiences of those women who decided to testify as well of those who refused to do it shows to be a useful tool in order to analyze the sexual violence issue from a thought-provoking and heterodox perspective. Cecilia Macn presents her argument through philosophical debates paired with testimonies of victims and analysis of works of art devoted to express these problems. Recommended for scholars of Latin American studies, philosophy, history, and sociology.

Reviews

Cecilia Macn is a brilliant representative of a new generation of philosophers in Latin Americapolitically-engaged, feminist, and informed by the latest critical theory in cultural studies. Her analysis of sexual violence during the Argentinian military dictatorship brings new insights into the topic of victimage in the modern, bio-political treatment of the bodies of political subjects. -- Hayden White, University of California
In researching and writing this painful and timely book, Cecilia Macn is forced to reassess her preconceptions about gender, violence, subjectivity, survival, agency, victimhood, testimony and affects. In this brilliant examination of affect and sexual violence in the Argentine trials against humanity, Macns readers are made to reevaluate their own preconceptions in a reading experience that is as uncomfortable as it is rewarding. -- Andrea Noble, Durham University
Cecilia Macns insightful study of the accounts of sexual violence against female detenidas-desaparecidas during the last Argentine dictatorship sheds much-needed light on the complex emotions and queer temporalities of bearing witness to trauma. Rigorous, politically committed and provocative, this challenging book is essential reading for anyone interested not only in the legacies of state terror in Argentina, but also in the ways that these types of crimes against humanity are being exposed around the world. Macns original use of affect theory to challenge the victim/agent dichotomy and to illustrate the empowering and emancipatory outcomes of the testimonies of the survivors and the affects attached to them (shame, hope, fear, anger, guilt), opens up new and important paths of enquiry for scholarship on post-authoritarian societies. -- Jordana Blejmar, University of Liverpool

Author Bio

Cecilia Macn is lecturer in philosophy of history in the Department of Philosophy at University of Buenos Aires.