Critical Times / The Earth Trembles

Abstract

This text shows how the strike has been appropriated and reinvented by feminist movements to politicize the problem of violence against women and to link it to broader social, economic, and political issues. It underscores how a wide variety of unexpected alliances and coalitions have been enabled by the strike and how they have multiplied its impacts and meanings. This political process has involved efforts to forge a new internationalism, with precarity as a common concern, but one that takes singular forms in concrete conflicts. In this way, feminist struggles are producing new images of counter-power, of a popular sovereignty that challenges faith in the state, of insurgencies that have renewed the dynamics of decision and autonomy, and of self-defense and collective force.

The Political Aesthetics of Vulnerability and the Feminist Revolt

“…As Gago re marks, the meet ings, as sem blies, and marches "have al ready pro duced new im ages of count erpow er, of a pop u lar sov er eignty that chal lenges faith in the state, of in sur gen cies that have renewed the dy nam ics of de ci sion and au ton o my, and of selfde fense and col lec tive force." 27 As I have sugested, con tem po rary strug les such as NUM's re veal and ques tion dif er ent dem o cratic imaginaries, foregrounding in dif er ent ways the vul ner a bil ity of bodily life, expressed through al ter na tive means and coun ter cul tural forms in me dia, online, and in the streets. By pointing to a change in sen si bil i ty, we can see how the form in which these claims are ar tic u lated might con trib ute to a rad i cal i za tion of dem o cratic imaginaries and to the pro duc tion of en hanced and more egal i tar ian un der stand ings of bodily free dom and jus tice.…”

“…24 As Veronica Gago, a schol ar, ac tiv ist, and key mem ber of NUM, points out in ref er ence to the con cep tion of, and marches that ac com pa nied, the wom en's strike: "We took precarity to be a shared con di tion, but one dif er en tially dis trib uted along class ist, sexist, and rac ist lines." 25 And in ref er ence to vul ner a bil ity un der stood as the ca pac ity to af ect and be af ect ed, par tic u larly in em bod ied ways, she con tin ues:…”

“…A cry at once very old and brand new, connected to a way of breath ing. 26 These brief par a graphs give us a sense of the role that cor po real life is ac quir ing in con tem po rary wom en's and fem i nist po lit i cal strug les. The way in which the strike has been reappropriated by NUM and other fem i nist move ments on a trans na tional scale shows that claims made on be half of the cor po real life of fem i nized and nonnormatively gen dered and sex u al ized bod ies dis obey con ven tional scripts that pre sup pose the model of lib eral de moc ra cy, and chal lenge both in di vid u al is tic and state vi o lence and forms of sov er eign ty.…”

“…The pop u lar trans na tional fem i nism that NUM en vi sions-as NUM in sists, they want to make of fem i nism a pop u lar move ment 38 -en tails an emancipatory el e ment, ap par ent in some man i fes ta tions of the fem i nist re volt. In the case of NUM, their claim for jus tice is as so ci ated with the oc cu pa tion of pub lic space and with their scarves (with white, green, or ange, and red sig nal ing dif er ent de mands).…”

“The heat of a multitudinous assembly”: Striking short fiction and the rise of feminist potencia

“…Enríquez's depiction of the body as a vehicle of collective socialization also draws narrative energy from what Gago describes as the “idea force of body‐territory”, a notion which “de‐liberalises the notion of the body as individual property” and “expands our way of seeing, based on bodies experienced as territories and territories experienced as bodies” (Gago, 2020, p. 85). As Gago notes, the “body‐territory” has energised a new wave of Latin American feminisms, who have deployed the term as “a tool” to link “machista violence to the political, economic, and social violence that results from the complex but fundamental logic of current forms of exploitation, which are making women's bodies into new territories to conquer” (Gago et al., 2018, p. 61). In viewing the body and territory as interwoven sites of struggle against the “new enclosures” of neoliberalism, the “Burning Women”’s ceremonies are fuelled by the political discourse of the “body‐as‐battlefield”, which sees “each body [as] a territory of battle, an always‐changing assemblage, open to becoming; it is a fabric that is attacked and needs to defend itself; and at the same time, it is remade in those confrontations, persisting as it practices alliances” (Gago, 2020, p. 87).…”