Queering Acts of Mourning in the Aftermath of Argentina’s Dictatorship: The Performances of Blood by Cecilia Sosa (review)

The inauguration of Raul Alfonsín in December 1983 marks the beginning of a new democratic phase in Argentine politics. Seven years of military dictatorship had resulted in the disappearance of 30,000 people and left a profound mark in the country. A vast literature has examined the aftermath of the dictatorship and the ways through which Argentine society has dealt with the violence and the sense of loss. Queering Acts belongs in this growing literary corpus.

The study is an investigation into the politics of memory and identity in post-dictatorial Argentina. The book presents an archive of unconventional acts of mourning that underscores new forms of participation and engagement with the past. The author convincingly argues that these performing acts have created a more inclusive space in which those not directly related by blood or kinship to the victims of the dictatorship could mourn and make sense of the past.

The book revolves around the ways in which contemporary Argentine society experienced the trauma and violence of the last military dictatorship. In order to address these issues, the author has critically engaged with queer theory, kinship, and performance studies, and she offers the reader a catalog of performing acts that includes human rights sights and practices, films, a theatrical production, and a novella. Sosa uses these acts as a platform to provide a sophisticated analysis of the different ways through which Argentine society dealt with the violence of the past. Engaging with these cultural productions, the author concludes, becomes a transformative experience for the broader society.

The book is divided into six chapters, each focusing on a different cultural expression, that can be read independently or as part of the larger narrative. In the first chapter, Sosa presents the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo as a departing point for her analysis: they contested the biological normativity that restricted suffering to only those affected directly by the violence. The activism of HIJOS (Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio). reinforced the expansion of the circle beyond the “wounded family” through escraches. These acts of public shaming enabled the active participation of the broader society, thus making social justice a more collective experience. The group also developed its own way to deal with grief by relying on a dark sense of humor that, according to Sosa, served as an empowering tool of survival.

In the third chapter, Sosa examines two films and a documentary that challenged the traditional victimizing filmography of post-dictatorial Argentina. Her sophisticated analysis illuminates the ways in which Argentine society is dealing with memory, guilt, denial, and loss in the aftermath of the dictatorship. In the following chapter, the analysis focuses on the cooking lessons led by Hebe Bonafini at the ESMA (the former military-run detention center). The author convincingly argues that these sessions should be understood as performances that provided unconventional forms of mourning through food sharing and at the same time served as a means for civil society to re-occupy a space formerly associated with death.

In Chapter 5, the author provides an insightful analysis of a theatrical production that engages with the politics of memory. This theatrical piece expands the experience of trauma to the spectators and enables the creation of non-biological memory communities. In the last chapter, the author examines a novella that uses dark humor and satire, tools employed by HIJOS, to challenge and reveal the limits and contradictions of the idea of “wounded family.”

Sosa not only has compiled a rich archive of performing acts that runs across different groups and generations, but also proposes an alternative and innovative theoretical perspective from which to examine them. This original and highly readable book represents a valuable contribution to both the literature on post-dictatorial Argentina and to those studies concerned with...