Reconceptualising the Female Political Prisoner: 100 Years of Women's Imprisonment

这个项目旨在改变我们对女性政治犯进行概念化的方式。它将侧重于西班牙佛朗哥独裁政权(1939-1975)、阿根廷和智利军事独裁政权(分别为1976-1983年、1973-1990年)以及当今美国和英国的ICE和移民遣送中心的被监禁妇女制作的监狱文本。我将分析唐娜·胡安娜·希门尼斯的小说(1978年)、诗歌如洛杉矶·加西亚·马德里的Al Quiebro de mis Espas(Poemas De La Carcel)(1977)和Veronica de Negri的Definiciones(1992)，集体历史如托马萨·奎瓦斯(Tomasa Cuevas)的《普雷萨斯》(Presas)(2005)和文集《难民故事》(2016)，以及法律证词，如希拉·卡西迪(Sheila Cassidy)的《智利酷刑》(1976)。这一系列文本将使我能够追踪过去一个世纪各种政治局势中女性政治犯的形象，并将为分析妇女对其监禁经历的性别经历的证词提供基础。我特别感兴趣的是通过证词文本的理论方法来审查这些监狱文本，重点是为自己的经历提供真实的证人这一想法，我打算让这项研究结合历史和文学学科的概念，以创建一个新的理论框架，通过它来分析女性政治犯的第一人称陈述。英国和美国的加入也让我能够解决当今全球移民危机提出的问题，在这场危机中，女性的身体和女性的证词经常被扣留和沉默。这个拟议的项目将建立在我目前的硕士论文《佛朗哥监狱中的女性写作》的基础上，这篇论文探索了西班牙内战后文塔斯监狱女性政治犯的文学创作。这项研究的重点是佛朗哥统治下的西班牙的监狱写作和证词，特别是将女性监狱文本确立为一种越轨的文学实践，质疑当时占主导地位的社会和政治等级制度(Harlow，1987)。因此，它将为我提供必要的理论基础，以进一步扩大我对女性监狱文学的研究。我还在我的本科论文中探讨了历史记忆的问题，这篇论文考察了西班牙人对内战的集体记忆。我已经联系了几个潜在的研究合作伙伴，包括英国组织正义之旅(M4C的一个文化合作伙伴)，我希望与他们在这个项目上合作。

This project aims to transform the way in which we conceptualise the female political prisoner. It will focus on prison texts produced by incarcerated women from the Franco dictatorship in Spain (1939-1975), the military dictatorships of Argentina and Chile (1976-1983, 1973-1990, respectively), and ICE and Immigration Removal centres in the present day USA and UK. I will analyse novels such as Dona Juana Jimenez's Desde la noche y la niebla (1978), poetry such as Angeles Garcia Madrid's Al quiebro de mis espinas (poemas desde la carcel) (1977) and Veronica de Negri's Definiciones (1992), collective histories such as Tomasa Cuevas's Presas (2005) and the anthology Refugee Tales (2016), and legal testimonies such as Sheila Cassidy's Tortured in Chile (1976). This range of texts will allow me to trace the figure of the female political prisoner in various political situations throughout the past century, and will provide the basis from which to analyse women's testimony of their gendered experience of imprisonment. I am particularly interested in examining these prison texts through theoretical approaches to the testimony text, centred upon the idea of bearing authentic witness to one's own experiences, and I intend for this research to draw together concepts from the disciplines of both history and literature in order to create a new theoretical framework through which to analyse the first-person accounts of female political prisoners. The inclusion of the UK and USA will also allow me to address questions raised by today's global immigration crisis, within which women's bodies and women's testimony are often detained and silenced.This proposed project will build upon my current Masters thesis, Mujeres de Ventas Women's Writing in Franco's Prisons, which explores the literary production of the female political prisoners of Ventas Prison after the Spanish Civil War. This study focuses on prison writing and testimony in Franco's Spain, specifically on establishing the female prison text as a transgressive literary practice that calls into question the dominant social and political hierarchies of its time (Harlow, 1987). It will therefore provide me with the theoretical foundation needed to expand further my research into female prison literature. I also explored questions of historical memory in my undergraduate dissertation, which examined the collective Spanish memory of the Civil War. I have already made contact with several potential research partners, including the UK organisation Journey to Justice (an M4C cultural partner), with whom I hope to work on this project.