Memorias en femenino: testimonios de mujeres sobrevivientes de la dictadura Argentina

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes testimonial accounts by female survivors of the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983) in the form of cultural productions that started to appear from the 1990s to the first decade of the 2000s. In my dissertation, I examine how representations of traumatic memories change over time, and are affected by the gender of the witness. Furthermore, I study the way in which women survivors move from the position of the victim to that of the witness, constructing new subjectivities that strive to incorporate the traumatic past. My analyses show that women’s testimonial accounts do not hide the silences and gaps that are present in all testimonies to the horror of traumatic experiences, but instead they put them to “work” so that these silences are transformed from merely mute to eloquent. Thus, calling the listener to hear these eloquent silences, and to respond to them ethically. By exploring this social and symbolic field, my dissertation affirms the transformative value of testimonial narratives both for the listener and the narrator, while contributes to the literary field of cultural studies by analyzing the testimonial accounts through the category of gender.