Las "piedades del feminicidio" : indagaciones visuales en torno al dolor, memoria y justicia

• Main Author: Gutierrez Vargas, Jose Ricardo
• Other Authors: Boyle, Catherine Mary ; Rebaza-Soraluz, Luis Alberto
• Published: King's College London (University of London) 2018
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.762386

This research is based on the photographs that register the mothers of the victims of ‘feminicidio’ in Mexico holding portraits of their missing or dead daughters in the same way the Virgin Mary (Pietá) cradles the body of her dead son. Thus, my thesis posits the ‘Pietas of femicide’ as an allegory to identify a self-representation of these mothers that have became activist due to the impunity that prevails in Mexico. This allegorization also aims to consider these mothers’ grief as something that belongs to the community. Throughout years of fighting against corruption and impunity, these mothers have developed a situated knowledge of femicide in Mexico that can be traced in their discourses. Considering this idea, my thesis also analyse the actions and the visual production of these activist mothers. I will argue that these mothers’ visual self-representations help to shed light to comprehend femicide in Mexico from a perspective that takes the victims’ narrations as fundamental element to obtain justice.