Illuminating affects: Sexual violence as a crime against humanity. The Argentine case

PDF
Published: Oct 11, 2013
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.251
Keywords:
Affects Sexual violence Gender Testimony Agency
Cecilia Macon
University of Buenos Aires
Abstract

This paper analyses testimonies of sexual violence provided in the context of the current trials in Argentina for crimes against humanity, in order to assess the role played by affects, both in historical representation and in the constitution of agency. Regarding these matters, it is important to stress that the concept of victimisation has been analyzed within the framework of gender theories in radical opposition to that of agency: the passiveness of the injury vis-à-vis the power of the action. It is my understanding that, throughout the analysis of what I call “metatestimonies”, meaning what victims express about their experiences of giving testimony, lies the possibility of challenging such a dichotomy. This is particularly the case when these metatestimonies are scrutinised under the scope of affects. My field research, based on interviews with testifiers and on observations of the trials, seeks to contradict observations that sustain that these testimonies victimise women twice by having them re-enact their trauma.

Article Details
  • Section
  • ARTICLES
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The copyright for articles in this journal is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use (with the exception of the non-granted right to make derivative works) with proper attribution for non-commercial uses (licence Creative Commons 4.0). EKT/NHRF retains the worldwide right to reproduce, display, distribute, and use articles published in Historein in all formats and media, either separately or as part of collective works for the full term of copyright. This includes but is not limited to the right to publish articles in an issue of the Journal, copy and distribute individual reprints of the articles, authorize reproduction of articles in their entirety in another EKT/NHRF publication, and authorize reproduction and distribution of articles or abstracts thereof by means of computerized retrieval systems.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biography
Cecilia Macon, University of Buenos Aires

Lecturer -Department of Philosophy, University of Buenos Aires-

Ph.D., University of Buenos Aires. MSc., London School of Economics and Political Science

References
Kwame Anthony Appiah, La ética de la identidad (Buenos Aires: Katz, 2007). Trans. Lilia Mosconi

Gabrielle Andreozzi, Juicios por crímenes de lesa humanidad en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Cara o ceca, 2011)

Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Diana Coole, “Rethinking Agency: A Phenomenological Approach to Embodiment and Agentic Capacities”, in Political Studies 53 (2005): 124–142.

Melissa Gregg and Gregory Seigworth (eds), The Affect Theory Reader, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010.

Clare Hemmings, “Invoking affect: cultural theory and the ontological turn”, Cultural Studies 19/5 (2005): 548 –567.
Clare Hemmings, Why Stories Matter (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011)

Dominick LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma, (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)

Eléonore Lépinard, “Autonomy and the Crisis of the Feminist Subject” in: Constellations, vol.18, No.2, June 2011, 205–221.

Ricardo Lorenzetti, R and Alfredo Kraut 2011, Derechos humanos:justicia y reparación. La experiencia de los juicios en la Argentina . (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2011)

Heather Love, Feeling Backward. Loss and the Politics of Queer History, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Catherine Lutz, “Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotion as a Cultural Category”, in: Cultural Anthropology. Vol.1, No.3. August, 1986, [287–309].

Cecilia Macón, “Acerca de las pasiones públicas”, in: Deus Mortalis, No. 9, 2010, [261–286].

Lois McNay, Gender and Agency (London: Polity, 2000)

Lois McNay, “Feminism and Post-Identity Politics: The Problem of Agency”, in Constellations 17/4 (2010): 512–525.

Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Elspeth Probyn, “Writing Shame”, in Melissa Gregg and Gregory Seigworth (eds), The Affect Theory Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010)