Davila, Leslie
(2019)
GUATEMALAN FEMALE ARTIVISTS ENVISAGE
VIOLENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY:
REGINA JOSÉ GALINDO, ROSA CHÁVEZ, AND DENISE PHÉ-FUNCHAL.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation is the first systematic critical study that examines the language of violence against women as is produced by machista discourse vis-à-vis the language expressed in the works of Regina José Galindo, Rosa Chávez and Denise Phé-Funchal. Following Mary Louise Pratt and Judith Butler’s speech act theories, I argue that Galindo, Chávez and Phé-Funchal redistribute the power that the discourse on violence attempts to have over women’s bodies and social existence in language. Across seven chapters I analyze how Machistañol, a term I coined to define the language spoken by machistas, who commit acts of violence against those perceived to be inferior to them, has intentionally made feminicide an unintelligible phenomenon. By producing insurrectionary speech acts, the artists in this study respond to the current violent reality of Guatemalan women. They meticulously clarify the nuances of violence and the actors and systems that function by violence, to ultimately disarticulate Machistañol. In chapter one, two and three, I set the historical background of Guatemala as well as the theoretical tools that frame my analysis. In the fourth chapter I analyze how Rosa Chávez’s poetry presents a Maya woman in a constant process of transformation that defies the discriminatory predominant discourse today. In chapter five and six, I examine a selection of Regina José Galindo’s performances and poetry which shows us how both her body and word contest the power dynamics of Machistañol. In the seventh chapter, I trace how in Denise Phé-Funchal’s poetry and short stories, woman speaks up in patriarchal spaces that attempt to invisibilize her. In the context of the emerging scholarship on feminicides and violence against women, my dissertation contributes to a reflection on literature and art’s relationship to these broader sociopolitical processes. If the male-dominated language used to talk about violence against women was meant to be understood and spoken only amongst men, the artivists in this study are intervening, visibilizing, and bringing a sense of justice to a phenomenon the State is incapable or unwilling to provide for women.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
25 June 2019 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
5 April 2019 |
| Approval Date: |
25 June 2019 |
| Submission Date: |
11 May 2019 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
319 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Hispanic Languages and Literatures |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Guatemala, feminicide, performance, machismo, violence, speech act, machistañol, violence against women |
| Date Deposited: |
25 Jun 2019 21:22 |
| Last Modified: |
25 Jun 2019 21:22 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/36719 |
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