The creation of a feminist archive: decolonial feminisms in the testimonial work of the publishing collective sisters in the shadows and the searchers of El Fuerte [La creación de una archiva: Feminismos descoloniales en la obra testimonial de la Colectiva Editorial las Hermanas en la Sombra y las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte]

Bell, Lucy and Whitfield, Joey ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9589-7329 2023. The creation of a feminist archive: decolonial feminisms in the testimonial work of the publishing collective sisters in the shadows and the searchers of El Fuerte [La creación de una archiva: Feminismos descoloniales en la obra testimonial de la Colectiva Editorial las Hermanas en la Sombra y las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte]. Cartaphilus 20 , pp. 5-39. 10.6018/cartaphilus.543211

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Abstract

In a key work for literary studies, Myth and Archive (1990), González Echevarría demonstrates the fundamental presence of history, between myth and archive, in Latin American literature over the centuries. What he omits, however, is the role of female voices and writing in this narrative construction. In this article, we address the question of the relationship between literature, testimony and archive from a decolonial feminist perspective in order to investigate what the archive might mean for women in Latin America today. To approach the question of the archive in contemporary women's literary production, we focus on two Mexican collectives (connected through a collaborative project) whose work centres on the writing of imprisoned women and the search for their disappeared relatives, respectively: the Colectiva Editorial las Hermanas en la Sombra and the Rastreadoras de El Fuerte. Analysing three of their testimonial texts through two conceptual and practical frameworks – theories of testimony and the archive from Latin America, the United States and Europe, and decolonial feminist Latin American feminist theories-praxis – we offer a reconceptualisation of what we call the "archiva" (the feminine and feminist archive) founded on a communal, collective, subjective, affective, and bodily labour.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Modern Languages
Language other than English:	Spanish
Publisher:	Universidad de Murcia
ISSN:	1887-5238
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	8 March 2023
Date of Acceptance:	8 March 2023
Last Modified:	12 May 2023 16:49
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157610

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