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Abstract

This dissertation discusses, through a comparative analysis, the representation of female guerrillas who fought against the Brazilian and the Argentinian military dictatorships (1964-1985). Drawing on French philosopher Michel Foucaults notion of docile bodies that are regulated by discursive practices, I suggest the idea of a disciplined memory as a way to understand how the identity of a female guerrilla fighter is constructed, elevated, and erased in cultural productions. The existence of a disciplined memory occurs because of the temporal distance between the facts and the narration, who is (re)telling the story, and, as Elizabeth Jelin (2002) points out, the listening conditions of the time. In addition, I redefine the term "guerrilheira" to encompass not only the women who are known to have participated in the guerrilla movement, but also all those who resisted using alternative weapons, such as performative actions to collect information, and writing as way to denounce the horrors done by these oppressive regimes. Therefore, I claim the word "guerrilheira" as a symbolic space that represents a place of resistance, resignifing its usage as an insult. In order to analyze the construction of female guerrilla fighters, I examine seven narratives. First, I compare the female guerrilla figure in two novels, "As Meninas" and "Conversacin al Sur," proposing that the character of the female guerrilla is "memorinvented" through the dialogues related to them. Then, I analyze "A Revolta das Vsceras" and "Sueos Sobrevivientes de Una Montonera: A pesar de la ESMA," discussing how the female guerrilla fighter constructs herself in testimonies through the absence of a male figure, having her guerrilla identity marked by mourning and melancholy. Finally, I look at the female guerrilla fighter as a spectral figure as well as the target of the objectifying male gaze in the works "A Guerrilheira," "Guerrilheira," and "Recuerdo de la Muerte". I propose that a fixed and coherent representation of this figure does not exist. Female guerrilla fighters are constructed in many layers, many versions that are intrinsically connected to whomever is representing them.

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