#NiUnaMenos: Aesthetics and Performance in Argentina?s Pro-abortion Movement

RULLANSKY, IGNACIO; MONISE VALENTE DA SILVA

New York City

Conferencia; Theft: Graduate Students Anthropology Conference; 2019

The New School for Social Research

In recent decades, women?s rights, sexual diversity, gender and identity politics have been banners for public debate in Global South countries, mobilizing different actors and claims in the public sphere. While these social movements try and transform the bases of democratic participation, they also bring relevant questions of power and corporeality to public attention:who exercises the power to designate, categorize and constrain bodies? How do dissident social identities emerge and how do they acquire political meaning? How are the identities of those subjected to normative policies performed in emancipatory processes? Through which means are they presented in the public sphere? By codifying claims in specific semantics, developing or resignifying repertoires of collective action, social movements ultimately lead us to a major question: which bodies matter and, more importantly, how do different bodies matter in the public sphere and the realm of policy debate?In Argentina, this larger debate is exemplified by a tenacious campaign for the legalization of abortion under the movement called #NiUnaMenos (not one [woman] less). The abortion debate has been thoroughly and widely set in media and social networks throughout 2018, with the participation of politicians, social activists, and specialists from different fields.Massive marches took to the streets both in support and opposition of a bill that proposed the decriminalization of abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. After huge controversy, and a favorable vote by the Congress in June 2018, the Senate refuted the bill that would have made abortion legal in Argentina. While conservative movements celebrated the victory of ?pro-life? arguments, #NiUnaMenos participants saw the bill?s rejection as the deprivation of women?s rights to determine their own will and bodies? fate. This proposal will look at #NiUnaMenos and its opponents with the aim to shed light on two main aspects of their struggle: their aesthetic and performative features. By conducting interviews, analysing newspapers articles and social media posts by both sides of this debate, we will investigate the representation of those involved in collective actions and pro-abortion protests in Argentina. We will reflect on how aesthetics, discourses, gestures and colors became identifying factors of a collective demand, and how they help those claiming for bodily rights perform and express their struggle while bringing their very own bodies to the public sphere.