Blogs

This week our class is covering the topic “Speaking Truth to Power”. Alexander Dawson makes note of several important events, topics, people, and groups, but for this week’s post, I would like to focus on one group in particular who I am always drawn to every time they are brought up in conversation or inContinue reading "Week 12: Speaking Truth to Power" read full post >>

Through this week’s reading and videos, it was very powerful to see how las madres de plaza de mayo used... read full post >>

This weeks documents demonstrated the ways in which people attempted to appeal to their authoritarian regimes. I was surprised how imaginative and diverse they were: from a student flashmob to political movements. Furthermore, I was surprised about how cheerful and catchy the Chilean "No" campaign's song was, taking into account its context and that it was mocking the dictatorship. 

However, as I did my research assignment on the Argentine dirty war, I thought the videoclip about the Abuelas was powerful in conveying the pain and anxiety they were experiencing. Those women served as a way of turning statistics into real people and real loss that could be faced by basically anyone. Their requests don't seem much when they're asking to know if their children are alive or dead. However, in my short research assignment (and I think this was also mentioned in the lecture videos), I found that people were kept "disappeared" and their fates undisclosed in order to maintain psychological distress and uncertainty. The Abuelas were then effective in bringing the issue to the surface and holding the officials accountable. 

Something interesting I found was that the book Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, which later was made into a TV series, was partly inspired by the Argentine military regime. It is located in a dystopian world where the fertility rates have decreased and fertile women are converted into slaves whose primary task is to give birth to infertile couples. The handmaids lack any rights to their own children and live strictly under the control of their "owners". If someone hasn't watched the show, I will post its trailer below. Although it is not a direct description of what happened in Argentina, I can see how it might have inspired the creation of an ultra-catholic dystopian country that lives under strict totalitarianism.

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This weeks documents demonstrated the ways in which people attempted to appeal to their authoritarian regimes. I was surprised how imaginative and diverse they were: from a student flashmob to political movements. Furthermore, I was surprised about how cheerful and catchy the Chilean "No" campaign's song was, taking into account its context and that it was mocking the dictatorship. 

However, as I did my research assignment on the Argentine dirty war, I thought the videoclip about the Abuelas was powerful in conveying the pain and anxiety they were experiencing. Those women served as a way of turning statistics into real people and real loss that could be faced by basically anyone. Their requests don't seem much when they're asking to know if their children are alive or dead. However, in my short research assignment (and I think this was also mentioned in the lecture videos), I found that people were kept "disappeared" and their fates undisclosed in order to maintain psychological distress and uncertainty. The Abuelas were then effective in bringing the issue to the surface and holding the officials accountable. 

Something interesting I found was that the book Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, which later was made into a TV series, was partly inspired by the Argentine military regime. It is located in a dystopian world where the fertility rates have decreased and fertile women are converted into slaves whose primary task is to give birth to infertile couples. The handmaids lack any rights to their own children and live strictly under the control of their "owners". If someone hasn't watched the show, I will post its trailer below. Although it is not a direct description of what happened in Argentina, I can see how it might have inspired the creation of an ultra-catholic dystopian country that lives under strict totalitarianism.

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This week was mainly focused on the terror in Peru and the rule of Alberto Fujimori. Alberto Fujimori’s approach as... read full post >>

The content covered in this week’s lecture was very heartbreaking to listen and read about, to the point where I felt numb after completing all the material. Through the testimonios, we can begin to grasp what certain aspects of life were like, this is why the main focus of my blog for this week will beContinue reading "Week 11: The Terror" read full post >>

SOURCE#1: ‘Feminicide’ in Honduras    Menjívar, C and Walsh, S D. The Architecture of Feminicide: The State, Inequalities, and Everyday Gender Violence in Honduras. Latin American Research Review. 2017; 52(2), pp. 221-240. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.73  Although the focus of our presentation will likely be on Mexico, it is important to analyze gender violence in other Latin […] read full post >>

Week 5: Caudillos Versus the Nation State Terror of the Caudillos/Rosas.   Source 1 The first source I will be... read full post >>

Sarita Ponce November 17, 2020   The research that I am doing for this video project is to establish a concise biography for General Antonio López de Santa Anna.  The following resources should give an idea of who Santa Anna was and his role in the battle of San Jacinto.   This first resource comes […] read full post >>

Sarita Ponce November 17, 2020   The research that I am doing for this video project is to establish a concise biography for General Antonio López de Santa Anna.  The following resources should give an idea of who Santa Anna was and his role in the battle of San Jacinto.   This first resource comes […] read full post >>