“Piecing together a skeleton”: Alternative Frameworks and Re-imaginings Confronting Feminicide

Abstract

Central to Chicas Muertas is the figure of la Señora, a psychic (vidente in Argentinian Spanish) whom Almada consults during her investigation of three feminicides. La Señora frames the narrative, often offering insights into the girls — their dreams, aspirations, and feelings — as well as information that couldn’t have been inferred from the investigation. This thesis investigates the role of subjugated and subaltern practices in relation to feminicide and how these practices create alternatives for communities and identities dismissed by law enforcement. Drawing connections between Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch and the modern practice of witchcraft in central Argentina, I propose that these local practices and networks undermine the role of the police and the often dismissive or sensationalist media narratives through their focus on peripheral voices and non-Western logics. I look at how Selva Almada in Chicas Muertas, Dolores Reyes in Cometierra and performance artists, including LasTesis, center the non-productive body and argue that this narrative focus disrupts not only dominant sociopolitical narratives of these feminicides but also the rationality of law enforcement and official investigations. Ultimately the “irrational” figure of the videntes, the mães-de-santo, and the women on the streets become crucial to humanizing these violent deaths and, as la Señora says, “[gathering] the bones of these girls, [piecing] them together, [giving] them a voice and then [letting] them run, free and unfettered, wherever they have to go”.