My research question is: How did gendered violence in Argentina’s Dirty War lead to the development of the female-led Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement, and how has gender affected the way this movement has been perceived? This research is significant because the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is still an active human rights and peace organization today, continuing to work on issues of justice and family reunification left over from the Dirty War. The family reunification issue is especially tied to gender-based violence during the conflict, so investigating this violence is important for understanding the origins of the Mothers’ movement and their continued activism today. I also hope to investigate how this female-led movement has been perceived by different groups such as the Argentine government, society, or the international community over time and how that has affected their work.
Primary Source:
Sternbach, Nancy Saporta, Zelia Brizeno, and Hebe de Bonafini. “Interview with Hebe De Bonafini: President of Las Madres De Plaza De Mayo.” Feminist Teacher 3, no. 1 (1987): 16–21.
Secondary Sources:
Actis Munú, Cristina Aldini, Liliana Gardella, Miriam Lewin, and Elisa Tokar. That Inferno: Conversations of Five Women Survivors of an Argentine Torture Camp. Translated by Gretta Siebentritt. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006.
Bonner, Michelle D. Sustaining Human Rights: Women and Argentine Human Rights Organizations. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007.
Bouvard, Marguerite Guzman. Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo. Lanham, MD: SR Books, 1994.
Burucua, Constanza. Confronting the “Dirty War” in Argentine Cinema, 1983-1993: Memory and Gender in Historical Representations. Suffolk, UK: Woodbridge, 2009.
Your research questions are very specific. Las Madres y Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo are important organizations during and after the dictatorship era to find their lost children and grandchildren back. These organizations also changed people’s perceived gender roles in the Argentine society. It is important to provide the antecedent of how women were perceived before the dictatorship era. The recent government actions are important to consider, as it gets harder when time goes on. A good movie to look at is “La Historia Oficial” that reflects a grandma finding her grandchild. Also, I heard a real story at the memorial site about a guy finding his biological family under the Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. I can share the story with you, if you’d like to.
I have primary sources such as pictures of the Centro de Identidad, news reports, white handkerchiefs and the former detention center in Buenos Aires. Also, I took a photo of Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo demonstrating in Mendoza while traveling. I can help by providing a photo that is a memorial about a child being taken from Scalabrini Ortiz St and a photo in Bariloche downtown with names of disappeared family members.
This seems like a really interesting topic to explore, I think I have heard of this movement before but I don’t know much about it. It could be interesting to look at social media to see how the movement is being discussed there and also looking at international media coverage of this movement. Good luck!