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

该项目旨在改变我们对女性政治犯的概念化方式。它将侧重于西班牙佛朗哥独裁统治时期（1939-1975年）、阿根廷和智利军事监狱（分别为1976-1983年、1973-1990年）以及当今美国和英国的ICE和移民遣返中心的被监禁妇女所制作的监狱文本。我将分析诸如多纳·胡安娜·希门尼斯的《夜晚与黑夜》（1978）之类的小说，诸如安赫莱斯·加西亚·马德里的《我的西班牙人的生命》之类的诗歌（poemas desde la carcel）（1977）和Veronica de Negri的Definiciones（1992），集体历史，如Tomasa Cuevas的Presas（2005）和选集Refugee Tales（2016），以及法律的证词，如希拉·卡西迪的《智利的酷刑》（1976）。这一系列文本将使我能够追溯过去世纪各种政治局势中的女政治犯的形象，并将为分析妇女关于其性别监禁经历的证词提供基础。我特别感兴趣的是通过对证词文本的理论方法来检查这些监狱文本，集中在对自己的经历进行真实见证的想法上，我打算为这项研究汇集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叙述。英国和美国的加入也将使我能够解决今天的全球移民危机所提出的问题，其中妇女的身体和妇女的证词往往被拘留和沉默。这个拟议的项目将建立在我目前的硕士论文，佛朗哥监狱中的妇女文塔斯妇女写作，探讨西班牙内战后文塔斯监狱的女政治犯的文学作品。本研究的重点是监狱写作和证词在佛朗哥的西班牙，特别是建立女性监狱文本作为一种违法的文学实践，质疑其时间的主导社会和政治等级制度（哈洛，1987年）。因此，它将为我进一步扩展对女性监狱文学的研究提供必要的理论基础。我还在本科论文中探讨了历史记忆的问题，研究了西班牙人对内战的集体记忆。我已经与几个潜在的研究合作伙伴取得了联系，包括英国组织“正义之旅”（M4 C文化合作伙伴），我希望与他们合作这个项目。

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.