Global Mafalda: Latin America, Cultural Contestation, and Transnational Connections

ISABELLA COSSE

Nueva York

Workshop; Workshop of the Institute of Latin American Studies; 2016

Columbia University

How have Mafalda, the rebellious little girl from BuenosAires,  become so famous? What factors can help us understand sucha phenomenon of transnational cultural dynamics? With these questions, this text seeks to examine the place that the cultural productions of Third Worldcountries to use a category from that time occupy in international flows and inglobalization. The numerous studies that have been written on Mafalda eitheraddress the comic strip as an artistic expression in the field of socialcommunication or as an expression of certain social phenomena, such as familydynamics in the 1960s or the characteristics of Argentine national identity. The paper analyzes Mafalda´s transnational circulation and re-significations. Fromthis perspective, tracing its circulation and appropriations in Italy and Spainprovides insight into the specific channels that made that possible and into theways in which Mafalda contributed to an antiestablishment sensitivity that, ina direct but at the same time flexible way, was part of a progressive andleft-wing culture at the global level.