Sex, Gender, and the Making of the Enemy Within in Argentina, 1960--1976

MANZANO, VALERIA

New Haven

Conferencia; Yale Research Initiatives in the History of Sexualities 2010-11 Series; 2010

Yale University, History Department & History of Sexualities Program

This presentation shows that, while echoing similar developments in the Americas, the gendered and sexual making of the “enemy within” was at the center of an authoritarian and culturally conservative project that, rather than being a state prerogative, permeated Argentine society and set significant limits to the claims for, and the actual unfolding of change in its interrelated cultural, political, and sexual meanings. In looking at that project, I expect that this—incipient and quite schematic—study will contribute to the new cultural and social history of the Latin American Cold War, especially to those approaches that seek to broaden the scope for analyzing authoritarianism and anticommunism by looking not only at the State but also at the ways in which—and the reasons why—civilian actors engaged with those them.