Description
Book SynopsisIn
The Force of Witness Rosa-Linda Fregoso examines the contra feminicide movement in Mexico and other feminist efforts to eradicate gender violence. Drawing on interviews, art, documentaries, and her years of activism, Fregoso traces the micro and macro scales of misogyny and the patterns of state complicity with gender violence. She shows how different forms of witnessing—from activist-mothers’ bearing witness to the memories of their daughters and expert witnesses in court cases to communal witnessing and a scholar-activist-citizen witnessing her own actions—are key to resisting feminicidal violence. Fregoso situates these forms of witness in the histories, contexts, structures, bodies, and intersectional struggles they emerge from. By outlining the complexities of feminicidal violence in relation to witnessing processes, Fregoso challenges the notion of witness as an individual or autonomous subject inscribed solely in the legal or religious arenas. Rather,
Trade Review"Fregoso masterfully and poignantly combines theory, scholarship, and activism in this volume, thereby bearing witness and accompanying others in their struggles for justice. Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- I. Coronado * Choice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Prelude 1
1. Chronicles of Witness 13
Interlude 1: Re-Memory for the Dead 58
2. Mexico’s Longest War 63
3. The Artist and Witness 96
Interlude 2: Redressing Injustice 115
4. The Art of Witness 119
5. Witnesses to Mexico’s “Living Dead” 138
Interlude 3: Flor de Arena 159
6. Stolen Lives and Fugitivity 163
Postlude 183
Notes 185
Bibliography 211
Index 229
