Body/Images - Foreign/Gazes: (Feminine) Territoriality and CorpoGraphy in Latin American Graphic Narratives
Lead Research Organisation:
The University of Manchester
Department Name: Arts Languages and Cultures
Abstract
In the last two decades, graphic narratives have become a prominent artistic space of feminist resistance in Latin America. Although the comics scene is still dominated by male artists and readers, women are increasingly using the medium to question hegemonic and heteronormative social structures and repressive visualities. This examination of (neo)colonial relations, patriarchy, and reproductive rights in Latin America is taking place in a region whose history and geographic toponomy is marked by the allegorical 'feminization' of lands and territories. Many of these processes are carried out through repressive visualities, not least in comics, a medium where women's bodies have historically been subjected to the (White) male gaze. Nevertheless, the graphic language of comics, with its multimodal nature, allows for a critical but also ironic and playful subversion of hegemonic visual and textual traditions. These reasons indicate why comics have become a highly effective artistic tool for diverse political movements such as the Argentinean 'green wave' protests.
This project has a three-fold dimension: (A) It explores the publishing and gatekeeping strategies as well as platforms Latin American women use to circulate their graphic art, paying special attention to the role of social media and to the formation of transnational collectives. (B) Through an extensive archival research, it examines the transmedial dialogues established with hegemonic/colonial art traditions, repressive visualities, and Indigenous and African iconographies, focussing especially on the representation and resignification of the female body. Finally, (C) the project asks how these comics contribute to feminist protest culture and political resistance in the Global South, pointing to the leading role that Latin America has in fourth-wave feminism and showing how the graphic forms of protest have become a role model internationally.
This project has a three-fold dimension: (A) It explores the publishing and gatekeeping strategies as well as platforms Latin American women use to circulate their graphic art, paying special attention to the role of social media and to the formation of transnational collectives. (B) Through an extensive archival research, it examines the transmedial dialogues established with hegemonic/colonial art traditions, repressive visualities, and Indigenous and African iconographies, focussing especially on the representation and resignification of the female body. Finally, (C) the project asks how these comics contribute to feminist protest culture and political resistance in the Global South, pointing to the leading role that Latin America has in fourth-wave feminism and showing how the graphic forms of protest have become a role model internationally.
Publications
Jasmin Wrobel
(2024)
"'Na noite de São Paulo você esquece que o dia vai nascer': Visiones de la periferia urbana en narrativas gráficas brasileñas"
in IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal
Wrobel J
(2024)
Una conversación con Powerpaola sobre su cosmovisión comiquera: pinceladas telepáticas, diálogos artísticos y encuentros inter-especies
in Revista de Estudios Colombianos
Wrobel J
(2024)
Comics und Intersektionalität
Wrobel J
(2023)
Künste des Dazwischen: Graphische Literatur und visuelle Poesie der Romania als Genres 'en marge' Einleitung
in apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania]
| Title | geschichte/n über/zeichnen: comics und schwarzer widerstand. re/traçar história/s: quadrinhos e resistência negra |
| Description | Bilingual (Portuguese/German) artists' catalogue featuring both comics by and interviews with Afro-Lusophone comics artists. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | The catalogue is directed at both German and Portuguese speaking comic readers as well as pupils; the featured comics deal with Afro-Lusophone history and contemporary challenges. |
| URL | https://pbi.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/sites/pbi/user_upload/Caderno_HQ_ebook.pdf |
| Description | The project began with the hypothesis that graphic narrative has become a prominent artistic space of feminist resistance in Latin America over the last two decades, and that women (understood inclusively) are increasingly using the medium to challenge hegemonic and heteronormative social structures and repressive visualities. The fellowship (which had to be concluded early due to a professorship appointment) enabled two research trips that provided crucial insights into a) how comics are used as artistic tools of resistance and means of expression in both Afro-Latin American and Indigenous communities (Bogotá + Cali, Colombia) and b) the collection and archiving of around 80 feminist comic zines from across the region (University of Iowa, USA). Through exchanges with local artists and academics, it became clear that the circulation networks that have developed over the last twenty years are shaped and informed by different actors: artists, specific cultural institutions and academics. In particular, there are significantly more collaborations between female artists and academics than between male comics creators and academics. Exhibitions, catalogues and genealogies are very often the result of collaborative work between artists and researchers. Trans-regional exchanges are equally striking: there are contacts and creative networks between, for example, Caribbean, Mexican and South American authors. One of the main goals of the project was also to ask how Latin American comics contribute to feminist protest culture and political resistance in the so-called Global South, pointing to the leading role that Latin America has in fourth-wave feminism and showing how the graphic forms of protest have become a role model internationally. The research showed that, indeed, new networks are forming between Latin American comics artists and other regions of the Global South (especially the Arab world and India), a line of research that will be further explored in a newly approved follow-up project on 'Graphic Feminisms from the Global South: Comparative Perspectives on Comics from the Arab Mediterranean and Latin America' (Co-PI Dr Rasha Chatta; funded by Volkswagenstiftung; 2025-2027). One major challenge was the strong and rapid growth of production, especially in online formats. It was also difficult to trace the dynamics of how analogue DIY formats such as comic zines circulate among political activists (or comic artivists). Collecting this material depends heavily on the ability to attend protests, comic and zine festivals on a regular and transnational basis. |
| Exploitation Route | Several articles, an artist catalogue and a themed issue have been published as a result from the project (see Publications). A monograph on "Resisting Lines: Anti-Patriarchal Agencies in Latin American Comics" will be submitted by the end of 2025. South-South solidarities between Latin American and Arab female comic creators will be further explored in a newly approved follow-up project on 'Graphic Feminisms from the Global South: Comparative Perspectives on Comics from the Arab Mediterranean and Latin America' (Co-PI Dr Rasha Chatta; funded by Volkswagenstiftung; 2025-2027). This project is going to feature a living virtual exhibition, opening up and visualising a new field of research which is meant to be continued and extended to other regions of the Global South. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy Education Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Description | The award and the field trips it facilitated enabled the establishment of connections between Latin American comics artists from across the region with European and Arab cultural institutions (notably the University of Manchester, the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin, The Northwestern University in Qatar and the Center for Arab Comics Studies at the American Institute of Beirut).The initiative has given rise to numerous academic and non-academic collaborations, particularly within the South-South context. In collaboration with Dr. Janek Scholz, a bilingual artists' catalogue (Portuguese/German) was published for the interested public, featuring comics by and interviews with Afro-Lusophone artists from Portugal, Brazil, Angola and Mozambique. Subsequent to the publication, an invitation was extended to one of the comic authors to Germany, where she delivered two presentations on Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous comics to the interested public in early 2024. In addition, I had the privilege of accompanying a field trip to Colombia in March 2023, which was organised by the CoRaLa research group (AHRC-funded, PI Prof. James Scorer, UoM). This field trip offered the opportunity to engage with the rich cultural heritage of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian comics in public libraries, museums and cultural institutions in Bogotá and Cali. |
| Sector | Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
| Description | Workshop and roundtable participation "Drawing the South", Northwestern University in Qatar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Drawing the South, a panel hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (#IAS_NUQ), explored the rise of comics as a form of popular art in the Global South and the ways they have both reflected and influenced social, political, and cultural discussions across formerly colonized locales. In the discussion moderated by James Hodapp, assistant professor in residence at Northwestern Qatar, comic artists and academics examined how the legibility of comics as a literary medium and their localized conditions of production have contributed to their global circulation from Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. My talk examined in particular how feminist graphic narratives from Brazil and Latin America, as well as Black American resistance comics, have been used as visual archives to fill gaps in the historiography of the Global South. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.qatar.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2023/2-drawing-south.html |