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Surviving State Terror: Women's Testimonies of Repression and Resistance in Argentina
Honorable Mention, 2019 Distinguished Book Award by the American Sociological Association Sex & Gender Section.
Honorable Mention, 2019 Marysa Navarro Book Prize by the New England Council of Latin American Studies.
A profound reflection on state violence and women’s survival
In the 1970s and early 80s, military and security forces in Argentina hunted down, tortured, imprisoned, and in many cases, murdered political activists, student organizers, labor unionists, leftist guerrillas, and other people branded “subversives.” This period was characterized by massive human rights violations, including forced disappearances committed in the name of national security. State terror left a deep scar on contemporary Argentina, but for many survivors and even the nation itself, talking about this dark period in recent history has been difficult, and at times taboo.
For women who endured countless forms of physical, sexual, and emotional violence in clandestine detention centers, the impetus to keep quiet about certain aspects of captivity has been particularly strong. In Surviving State Terror, Barbara Sutton draws upon a wealth of oral testimonies to place women’s bodies and voices at the center of the analysis of state terror. The book showcases poignant stories of women’s survival and resistance, disinterring accounts that have yet to be fully heard, grappled with, and understood. With a focus on the body as a key theme, Sutton explores various instances of violence toward women, such as sexual abuse and torture at the hands of state officials. Yet she also uses these narratives to explore why some types of social suffering and certain women’s voices are heard more than others, and how this can be rectified in our own practices of understanding and witnessing trauma. In doing so, Sutton urges us to pay heed to women survivors’ political voices, activist experiences, and visions for social change.
Recounting not only women’s traumatic experiences, but also emphasizing their historical and political agency, Surviving State Terror is a profound reflection on state violence, social suffering, and human resilience—both personal and collective.
Honorable Mention, 2019 Marysa Navarro Book Prize by the New England Council of Latin American Studies.
A profound reflection on state violence and women’s survival
In the 1970s and early 80s, military and security forces in Argentina hunted down, tortured, imprisoned, and in many cases, murdered political activists, student organizers, labor unionists, leftist guerrillas, and other people branded “subversives.” This period was characterized by massive human rights violations, including forced disappearances committed in the name of national security. State terror left a deep scar on contemporary Argentina, but for many survivors and even the nation itself, talking about this dark period in recent history has been difficult, and at times taboo.
For women who endured countless forms of physical, sexual, and emotional violence in clandestine detention centers, the impetus to keep quiet about certain aspects of captivity has been particularly strong. In Surviving State Terror, Barbara Sutton draws upon a wealth of oral testimonies to place women’s bodies and voices at the center of the analysis of state terror. The book showcases poignant stories of women’s survival and resistance, disinterring accounts that have yet to be fully heard, grappled with, and understood. With a focus on the body as a key theme, Sutton explores various instances of violence toward women, such as sexual abuse and torture at the hands of state officials. Yet she also uses these narratives to explore why some types of social suffering and certain women’s voices are heard more than others, and how this can be rectified in our own practices of understanding and witnessing trauma. In doing so, Sutton urges us to pay heed to women survivors’ political voices, activist experiences, and visions for social change.
Recounting not only women’s traumatic experiences, but also emphasizing their historical and political agency, Surviving State Terror is a profound reflection on state violence, social suffering, and human resilience—both personal and collective.
330 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 28, 2014
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June 5, 2018
Surviving State Terror focuses on the complex and powerful voices of 52 women survivors of state-run clandestine detention centers (CDCs) in 1970s and 80s Argentina. The book highlights the central and less acknowledged role of women as survivors and agents in the context of state terror. Sutton reminds us that these voices are central to the collective memory project, and our ability to reflect upon and acknowledge gendered state violence and how it has been countered. Indeed, without the ability to hear and reflect on these stories, Cynthia Enloe reminds us, we will be unable to create sustainable democracy.
Given the #MeToo movement in the U.S., alongside contemporary discussions of human rights abuses in prisons and immigrant detention centers, Sutton’s engaging book comes at a perfect time to meditate on how gendered institutions perpetuate cultures of violence and how women caught in these institutional cultures are survivors and political agents, not simply victims.
Sutton is a scholar of gender, it is her “key analytic,” in this project, and she does a fine job of complicating gender essentialism and naming cis privilege, while also emphasizing the value of a focus on women’s embodied experiences to understand the scale and gendered nature of state violence. Sutton’s methodology section is particularly fascinating; she describes this work as “a sort of collaboration” between the survivors themselves, the oral archive researchers who collected and recorded these testimonies, and her role as a listener and mediator. Sutton describes the level of emotional intimacy she feels in viewing and memorializing these testimonies, despite never interacting in person with the women themselves (except for one unbelievable chance encounter in a busy theater district in Buenos Aires). This section is crucial for anyone researching the spectrum of violence, as she reflects on informant protection (avoiding re-traumatization) and self-care in the context of traumatic testimonies and the ways in which she as listener, witness, and researcher is implicated in the suffering and the context of state terror, coining a new term, “implicated research.”
Sutton’s excellent analysis of testimonies helps us to see how bodies are marked by gendered torture (both internally and externally). At the same time, readers can begin to make distinctions between agency and resistance, become aware of survivors coping with coercive conditions (such as using pregnancy as a vehicle for resistance) and expressing small acts of solidarity. All in all, in a highly readable book that is hard to put down, Sutton brings out women’s unique complex layered experiences in Argentinian clandestine detention centers, and picks up on and hopefully furthers the momentum of human rights organizing to achieve historical, judicial, and social justice.
Given the #MeToo movement in the U.S., alongside contemporary discussions of human rights abuses in prisons and immigrant detention centers, Sutton’s engaging book comes at a perfect time to meditate on how gendered institutions perpetuate cultures of violence and how women caught in these institutional cultures are survivors and political agents, not simply victims.
Sutton is a scholar of gender, it is her “key analytic,” in this project, and she does a fine job of complicating gender essentialism and naming cis privilege, while also emphasizing the value of a focus on women’s embodied experiences to understand the scale and gendered nature of state violence. Sutton’s methodology section is particularly fascinating; she describes this work as “a sort of collaboration” between the survivors themselves, the oral archive researchers who collected and recorded these testimonies, and her role as a listener and mediator. Sutton describes the level of emotional intimacy she feels in viewing and memorializing these testimonies, despite never interacting in person with the women themselves (except for one unbelievable chance encounter in a busy theater district in Buenos Aires). This section is crucial for anyone researching the spectrum of violence, as she reflects on informant protection (avoiding re-traumatization) and self-care in the context of traumatic testimonies and the ways in which she as listener, witness, and researcher is implicated in the suffering and the context of state terror, coining a new term, “implicated research.”
Sutton’s excellent analysis of testimonies helps us to see how bodies are marked by gendered torture (both internally and externally). At the same time, readers can begin to make distinctions between agency and resistance, become aware of survivors coping with coercive conditions (such as using pregnancy as a vehicle for resistance) and expressing small acts of solidarity. All in all, in a highly readable book that is hard to put down, Sutton brings out women’s unique complex layered experiences in Argentinian clandestine detention centers, and picks up on and hopefully furthers the momentum of human rights organizing to achieve historical, judicial, and social justice.
Displaying 1 of 1 review