Bodies in Resistance | Encuerpando Resistencia | Conversation with Clara M. García
14th October 2022Bodies in Resistance | Encuerpando Resistencia is a series of interviews and research focusing on the body as a site of resistance in feminist and performance practices. It is a series in dialogue with artists, activists, and those sitting in spaces of embodied practice, referencing the legacy of feminist Latin American movements and their work choreographing resistance. This evolving conversation-as-research aims to connect practices across the Abya Yala diaspora, linking performance/political practices as well as body/minds across borders. It is convened by Anahi Saravia Herrera from performingborders.
Clara and I met over feminist organizing, as migrants, Spanish speakers, and people who are transient across cities and territories, we have been thinking about what it means for feminist practices to cross-borders and bring with them new terms and knowledge. We have been thinking about feminismos transfronterizos. Throughout this piece we are translating the term transfroterizo which translates to transboder but also cross-border, sometimes also substituted with transnational. The word is made up of trans + fronterizo, coming from frontera which means border. We have chosen to keep transborder/ cross-border or use the Spanish term where possible, as it feels like it has the closest resonance to a term looking beyond the nation state.
If you are accessing the interview in English, know that our conversations exclusively happen in Spanglish – and if you are reading the interview in Spanglish, expect slippages and code-switching as we speak across languages and terms.
Clara is a feminist, a compañera, and a union organiser. She has devoted her time within leftist organising to contaminating all spaces with feminist methods and also to thinking critically about translation and language justice. We hope to one day work on a feminist dictionary of cross-border terms, a publishing project which is taking shape through conversations, to hopefully be manifested at a later date.
It felt important to have this conversation as part of the research for this series as much of my thinking on feminist praxis has developed in dialogue with those I share assembly spaces with, drawing from collective and individual experiences. Clara has been there for much of this, as someone else who is learning through practice. My understanding of embodiment, transborder practice, and the plurality of feminisms come from these spaces (as well as others such as the Feminist Assembly of Latin Americans, where I am also learning), and so laying this out alongside other research felt like an essential anchoring for my thinking on feminist performance.
This conversation was held over time. I sent Clara a series of questions for her to consider and answer in writing before meeting again, to discuss and record our conversation. The transcript below is woven from these encounters and is an excerpt from a wider conversation, not all of which can be entirely held by one initial text. What you will read is a porous interpretation of our conversation and a mix of both written and spoken reflections.
This conversation was initially conducted in Spanish & English, the English translation is below.
Clara M. García : Cuando hablo del feminismo, hablo en Español. Yo creo que es porque es mi casa política y para mi el feminismo era mi primera experiencia de politización. Entonces, como que la he pensado y la he vivido y la he sentido en Español.
Al responder tus preguntas, me parecío [un poco] raro que tú ponías las preguntar en Inglés yo *tack tack tack* respondía en Español.
Anahi Saravia Herrera: No, no es raro porque en fin es como encontrarse entre medio de todo. ¿Por qué no empezamos con una pequeña introducción? Con lo que escribí como primera pregunta:
Describe your practice at the moment, what you are thinking about & what questions feel live in your work right now.
The word practice comes from artistic practice, but I’m interested in how you describe your work as a political person too.
CMG: Sí, es interesante. Yo si considero que ‘práctica’ se refiere a una práctica política también. Como decía, yo entiendo el feminismo como mi casa política, como mi primera experiencia de politización. Se siente muy natural en mi forma de pensar en mi forma de estar en el mundo.
Whereas I think right now, I’m at a point of inflexión because I don’t have a feminist space to be in and collectively think with, and it’s been a challenge because every political space that I am a part of feels really hard to engage with.
Creo que es también porque me he alejado de espacios y de colectivos feministas. Me he alejado de teoría feminista, desde que he dejado de aproximarme a conceptos e ideas, o de estar tan imbuida en eso. En un primer momento me interesaba mucho leer teoría, y creo que es interesante este paralelo entre la práctica y la teoría y como se van alimentando. Me interesaba mucho leer teoría porque me explicaba mi vida y me daba sentido a lo que estaba experimentando y nombraba muchas de las violencias y de los procesos que estaban pasando. Entonces, era casi una necesidad, ¿no? La teoría no era solo un análisis que me ayudase a explicar el mundo, sino también me ayudaba a explicarme a mí misma también.
En los últimos años, muchas de mis compañeras hablaban de el rol de los sindicatos o de cómo sus trabajos se relacionaban con su política y creo que eso me dio curiosidad ver la intervención feminista en las políticas institucionales o partidarias, [algo que ahora define mucho mi practica]. Ahora estoy trabajando en un sindicato y todavía estoy intentando definir qué significa eso para mí y hacia donde quiero llevar este trabajo.
Creo que eso tiene mucho que ver con la práctica transnacional, el estar en espacios transnacionales y aprender de otras compañeras y otros territorios. El rol de los sindicatos, [yo los he hablado] sobre todo con compañeras de Argentina y Chile, y me he dado cuenta de la necesidad de tener una pluralidad en el movimiento y de tener una capacidad estructural también de cambiar. [Por ejemplo], como en el proceso constitucional de Chile, desde el 2019 hasta ahora el rol del movimiento feminista ha sido de vanguardia para guiar este cambio. Y muchas de las compañeras como que tenían ea [responsibilidad].
Nota: Ahora que releo la pregunta pienso en practica como practica de baile/coreografia, de ensayo y error, como un espacio al que vuelves con disciplina y la intuición del cuerpo te va guiando, y también entiendo así los espacios políticos
ASH: Ok – let’s talk about the first question:
We have been thinking about ‘embodiment\encuerpar’ in the context of feminist practice – what does this mean to you? How do you relate embodiment to feminism and how we articulate our politics with our bodies/ spaces?
CMG: Acuerpar como concepto feminista lo utilizo para describir una lucha desde las subjetividades, las experiencias (en lo individual) pero también tiene un resuene colectivo. Partir del cuerpo, desde donde transgredimos y transformamos, a través de la autoconciencia de nuestra realidad/histórica para reverberar en los espacios colectivos donde tejer resistencias y transformar. ¿Nos acuerpamos en asambleas no?, muchas veces nos escuchamos decir: una asamblea de cuerpas. Que tu subjetividad forme parte de un espacio colectivo quiere decir que, en la asamblea, la suma de las partes desborda, creando una subjetividad colectiva, una visión, una práctica.
Creo que acuerpar también se relaciona con la idea de sentipensar y con esta visión de que somos cuerpo-territorio, localizadas y situadas. Todo son conceptualizaciones legadas y tomadas del feminismo latinoamericano, que a mi me ayuda a repensar mi práctica política, a darle nombre a un sentimiento y una intuición de cómo hacer política.
Sentipensar tiene una resonancia sobre el lugar que ocupan nuestras emociones, relaciones, intuiciones en el movimiento. Tiene que ver con la interdependencia y la vulnerabilidad. Cuerpo-territorio tiene que ver con la representación de un espacio y una temporalidad en la que somos, nuestras historias de vida, los legados de los que venimos, las conexiones intergeneracionales, pero también las culturas desde las que nos encuadramos, los rituales con los que nos relacionamos, los contextos de los que venimos. Cuerpo-territorio nos recuerda a esa conexión, el enraizamiento de nuestra subjetividad con nuestra historia.
Son conceptos, consignas y prácticas que tomamos desde otras epistemologías/cosmovisiones, otras formas de entender/ser en el mundo, y que van haciendo eco en el moviemiento feminista transnacional porque va carvando otra forma de hacer política desde las prácticas. Vienen de la pluralidad del feminismo comunitario, del feminismo popular, el feminismo Indígena, del feminismo de los cacerolazos, las ollas populares, el feminismo que teje redes y las resistencias en las calles. Y es en ese entramado que tiene sentido. Estas consignas van más allá de una forma de entender la política, porque integran esa pluralidad en el enunciado, ayudandonos a conceptualizar la relación entre feminismos y las luchas por la defensa de los territorios, la vivienda, el trabajo digno, la vida.
Estos términos están presentes en el feminismo Latinoamericano y han ido tomando espacio para dar nombre a nuestra práctica de feminismo ahora. Y creo que a lo mejor de ahí vienen muchas de las claves de cómo traducir estos conceptos, porque al final lo que reflejan es una cosmovisión, una forma de entender el mundo y reflejan un tipo de conocimiento muy específico que describe no solo una forma de hacer política, pero una forma de ver el mundo.
Pero bueno, ¡todo esto es la forma que yo lo entiendo, la forma en la que yo uso estos términos, a mí nadie me lo ha explicado! No sé si realmente esto es como la gente lo entiende, porque es verdad que son conceptos que he ido leyendo e intuyendo.
ASH: You use your intuition as a really big part of your practice, which is interesting because it’s a very different way to approach things than through theory or ‘political discourse’. I often think that western leftist political movements (and probably all political work in the west) works on a paradigm of ‘Enlightenment’, where everything is very theoretical and very logical and that’s seen as the way to arrive at all the solutions. So, it’s interesting that you use intuition to access theory as well and try to intuit what terms and theories mean not just generally, but what they mean to you. Not necessarily trying to replicate what these theories say but also trying to understand what contextually made them viable and important in the feminist movements.
CMG: Cuando hablo de intuición es porque justamente yo no he llegado a la teoría política a través de mi carrera o a través de leerla. Yo he llegado (y creo que esto lo dice bell hooks) al feminismo por necesidad. Esta es la experiencia de muchas compañeras feministas, y es justamente la potencia del feminismo, ¿no? Tú no necesitas explicarle a ninguna mujer o persona no binaria [o trans] cuáles son las experiencias de violencia que experimentan. Porque tú ya tienes esa intuición – you already have those discomforts, when you grow up, when you are on the streets, when you occupy public space, when you have that relationship with your partner, when you are thinking about the relationship with your family. So, it all has to do with your self-awareness, your self-criticism and your autoconciencia ¿no? Y tambien por eso estoy muy interesada en la práctica de auto conciencia como una forma de politización, porque está completamente ligada a la práctica política y [nuestras] experiencias de vida.
That’s what I mean when I say I went into theory because I needed to, not because I wanted to. [As a woman], theory was something that other people would do and talk about. For instance it was something my male partners would do – they theorize and write articles – in a way that I do not engage with. One of the things that brings me this discomfort is my positionality and relation to the room, I do not like being in a forum where I am hearing from and am seen as the expert. I don’t like writing articles [singularly], and I also don’t like this positivism and the theoretical hierarchies of the west, which are so hegemonic que transpiran a todo, a nuestras practicas e incluso cómo nos relacionamos en los espacios políticos. Y eso me hace muy incómoda también, en este territorio en particular donde [muchas veces] la gente que ha llegado a los espacios políticos because they are seeking to be ‘intellectually challenged’ by them or for them to be a forum of discussion but not because they believe this the way to counterfight and resist, because it is a struggle for their lives.
So that’s why I talk a lot about intuition – because you already know these things. You come to theory because it puts some words into what you have already lived. That’s why we need political spaces where to intervene and commit to do politics.
ASH: I think this is a good point to move on to the second question. As you know in this context I am interested in feminism and the body, looking at feminist performance happening in activism contexts. Particularly in Latin American strands of feminism, performance has always been a really salient way to name and embody structures of power. This isn’t something I’ve seen at all really in the UK. In Latin America feminists have also become performers, and I’m interested in how and why that’s the case, which I think has a lot to do with the fact that the politics are embodied from the beginning.
One of the artists I am talking with (Thais Di Marco) describes her practice and work as speaking to “choreographies of power that perform algorithmic maintenance of the status quo through our bodies” – I actually think this is a great way of describing what activists try to intervene in moments of direct action, where we place our bodies on the streets in a choreography of resistance. Do you think activism can be a kind of embodied performance? Or is it something else?
CMG: Esta cita es interesante en este contexto de pensarnos desde nuestros cuerpos, y le da continuidad a esta idea de encuerparse. En diferentes contextos cuando hablamos del poder que construimos y disputamos hablamos de cartografías feministas o de feminismos en los territorios e incluso de nuestra relación con los objetos (como la queer phenomenology de Sarah Ahmed). Este imaginario de la coreografía del poder y resistencia explícita que este es un terreno de lucha.
Pensar nuestras luchas desde coreografías de resistencia da otra capa de significado a la necesidad de encuerparnos en las calles, por la connotación colectiva de esta idea y también por lo visual que se hace al encontrar simbología, gritos y canciones en común. Pienso en momentos clave como la performance de ‘un violador en tu camino’ de Las Tesis en Chile, también en la resignificación del coro feminista de Bilbao de la canción ‘a la huelga’ o la construcción de ‘monumentas’ en CDMX. Si la presencia de nuestros cuerpos en las calles asienta el terreno para la coreagrafia, la multiplicidad de cantos y consignas (que además se transforman en cantos transnacionales) son la sintonía desde la que nos politizamos.
Pienso también en lo que ha perdido el movimiento feminista en estos dos últimos años de pandemia, cuando nuestro terreno de lucha se ha cohibido. Hemos tenido pocas experiencias exitosas para reimaginar esta coreografía de resistencia. Pienso ahora en las compañeras Italianas ‘hilando’ los espacios públicos y de lo que supone ‘ocupar’ espacios públicos.
Y por último también creo que esta coreografía de poder se ve clara en el sentido en el que muchxs compañerxs queer hablan del cuerpo como espacio de lucha y resistencia, sabiendo que la mera existencia/presencia en el espacio público es una intervención en el status quo.
Una de las cosas que se hace mucho en el 25 de Noviembre en España, que es el Día Internacional contra la Violencia contra las Mujeres y Niñas, es hacer procesiones, grieving the ones that are missing. [Which is interesting because it taps into] el rol del ‘grief’ en todos los movimientos feministas, como Ni Una Menos por ejemplo. This is the contact that we have with choreographies of power, which is a very direct violence that our bodies are experiencing. Esta imagen me marco mucho a la hora de relacionar estas violencias individuales que yo estaba sintiendo con la violencia colectiva, y con el feminismo. Y como que dije: Ah estoy literalmente en una procesión por las asesinadas, and having that concious for the collective, what does that mean?
ASH: I also know you have a lot of feelings about translation and lanaguage which I wanted to talk about.
We have been talking about translation the past few days and months, and the inherently political work that is taking feminist practice from one context to another. How does language hold plurality for you? How does being bilingual allow you to access different realities and knowledge?
On the other hand, for me, another sites of translation is also the body and how different feminist spaces FEEL, and how they hold space and relationships- what do you think of this?
I want to also contextualize this a bit and say that Xav from performingborders is looking into performance and translation in their research too. They’re looking at what the role of language is in translating performance, what it means to use multiple languages in a performance and how that speaks to different pluralities. They did an interview with someone called Ana Rocha who is a dramaturg from Portugal, and they had a conversation about the fact that out of necessity, part of working in a European context means bringing work across countries. One of the things she said that was really interesting is that the constant element across all these shows, usually none of which are happening in the local language, is the bodies of the performers. And in many ways, this is what holds the performances together – bodies in a room enacting something. I think artists in Europe (and probably globally) know that from the moment they become an artist they’re going to need to be open to the idea of working outside of their local contexts (more so if you’re based in a country where resources for the arts are low), and this level of foresight and understanding of work trespassing borders is not at all something that is shared by artists in the UK.
CMG: Bueno, lo primero es que para mucha gente, translating is a way of making things accessible. For me, this is a wrong understanding of the purpose of translating, and a very ‘from above’ perspective. I do not translate things to allow people to ‘be heard in the room’ but to understand their plurality. So specifically when we’re translating Global South practices into the Global North, a lot of the times people in political spaces [are thinking]: “we have to have voices from the South” – which is important and I acknowledge it’s crucial to realize whose voice is not in the room, but I am more interested in [using translation] to understand diverse contexts and experiences in a way that is not simply performative.
So for example the term ‘cuerpo-territorio’ / ‘body-territory’ is a concept that you can translate but it will never have the same significance or resonance because no one in this room can relate to it in the same way that someone from the Global South has lived it. And for me, this is why translation becomes very political, because it’s not only trying to manifest someone in the room but also trying to understand the coloniality of power, language and knowledge.
Entonces, me gusta mucho la pregunta de: How does language hold plurality for you? Because when I think about body-territory, that term is holding plurality for me and knowledge, que viene de los feminismos populares, comunitarios, decoloniales, Indígenas. These are not labels, these are practices and knowledges, and we need to hold them to that standard. That’s where the Global North or generally western-centric spaces make the mistakes in terms of translating. There’s something political in who’s voices are heard but also in HOW you’re understanding them when they’re here.
And thinking about bodies: Cuál ha sido la potencia del movimiento feminista en los últimos cinco años? Y porque se ha convertido en una potencia trasnacional? Creo que ha sido porque a pesar de no tener esa relación de traducción con las cosmologías y con los conocimientos de las prácticas del Sur Global, sí que se podía entender la potencia de los cuerpos en las calles. Y eso ha sido muy fácilmente traducido. Esa imagen/potenciaha sido muy fácilmente traducida. Entonces, ahora vemos como han ido reverberando2 en cada territorio como se han ido expresando de forma diferente. Creo que ahí es cuando se ha podido expandir esta práctica feminista y me parece muy interesante porque no la había pensado así. Al final, si es cierto que no traducimos los conceptos, pero el cuerpo ya está haciendo una comunicación, ya está haciendo una coreografía de poder y de resistencia.
2: Revenberar también se refiere a traducir de vuelta, porque traducir no va solo en una dirección sino que luego traduces esas prácticas de nuevo a tu territorio, poniendolos en dialogo con los codigos y practicas propios
ASH: And to finish, We have been thinking about artistic practices that take “border-as-method” – which to me speaks a lot to practicas feministas transfronterizas, what do you think of this term/ frame (explained below) and how does it speak to feminist practices you’ve encountered?
‘Method for us is as much about acting on the world as it is about knowing it. […] it is about the relation of action to knowledge in situations where many different knowledge regimes and practices come into conflict. Border as method involves negotiating the boundaries between the different kinds of knowledge that come to bear on the border and, in so doing, aims to throw light on the subjectivities that come into being through such conflicts. […] the border is for us not so much a research object as an epistemological viewpoint that allows an acute critical analysis not only of how relations of domination, dispossession, and exploitation are being redefined presently but also of the struggles that take shape around these changing relations. The border can be a method precisely insofar as it is conceived of as a site of struggle.’
Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013
Revisiting this quote at the end of this conversation actually really speaks to what you’re saying and so I’m interested in how you relate this to your practice.
CMG: Nunca le había puesto este nombre de ‘metodología’ [a lo transfronterizo]. Lo tranfronterizo tiene esta idea de pensarnos más allá de las fronteras y pensar nuestras potencias saliendo del territorio nacional. Por eso no hablamos de lo ‘internacional’ porque eso no describe una relación, no es una práctica. En lo ‘internacional’ primero se conceptualizan [ideas] desde un territorio local y luego se pasan a una relación internacional de traducción. [En cambio, en lo transfronterizo] se piensa ya desde este nivel transnacional, y se piensa ya desde la mirada holística que entiende que nuestros feminismos son plurales.
Es interesante pensarlo como un método porque sí puedo decantar cuáles son las prácticas de feminismo transnacional que son metodologías muy características. Por ejemplo, [tal vez sea un ejemplo] muy simplista, pero una de las primeras conversaciones trasnacionales que tuvimos con las compañeras en una asamblea [transfronteriza] tenía como 62 compañeras de 30 y pico territorios. Al principio hubo un proceso de definir cuáles eran las características del espacio y qué tipo de políticas, queríamos representar. Estábamos hablando sobre cuál era el rol de los sindicatos y si las compañeras que pertenecían a los sindicatos podían formar parte de este espacio. [En la asamblea habían] prácticas muy diferentes, en el sentido que las compañeras de Italia y de España estaban muy en contra de tener sindicatos, porque en su experiencia y en su memoria histórica, dentro de sus territorios y de sus movimientos sociales, los sindicatos eran parte del estado, en el sentido de que no eran actores políticos que se iban a movilizar, mientras que las compañeras del sur global pensaban que los sindicatos [traían] una metodología y una estructura al ambiente que aportaba una riqueza en diversidad.
Esta forma de navegar conversaciónes donde tienes prácticas muy diversas [se centra en], a través del diálogo, [conseguir] entender y no [necesariamente] llegar a un acuerdo. La metodología transfronteriza en cada territorio y en cada colectiva tienen sus propios acuerdos y sus propias prioridades, pero esa diversidad se acepta en las asambleas como práctica y se acomoda en lo que luego el espacio va a hacer. Para mí, el encuentro transfronterizo quiere decir este encuentro de disensos y conflictos tambien. Y este encuentro de pluralidades no es para llegar a una homogenización, este diálogo [es para llegar a entender] por qué en diferentes espacios, diferentes estrategias tienen sentido.
ASH: Lo que dices me resuena lo que dice aquí en el texto:
Border as method involves negotiating the boundaries between the different kinds of knowledge that come to bear on the border and, in so doing, aims to throw light on the subjectivities that come into being through such conflicts.
Es verdad – there’s conflict that “borders” imply and necessitate, because there’s going to be different groups involved. And I think it also draws out the idea that border is a method because it’s a site of struggle. So, looking at the struggle and understanding it as a form of collective liberation is what is so powerful about transborder organising. In focusing on the conflict, struggle and misunderstandings, and working through them, you’re actually arriving at a collective liberation because you’re attempting to figure out how all of these things are connected and if the solution doesn’t address the variety of experiences then it’s potentially not a liberatory solution for all.
CMG: What is important to me is that you are not trying to impose a method or a practice, to me transborder organising is an acknowledgement that there are different knowledges, practices, and tactics which work in particular ways in specific territories. [I think about this as a process of contamination] and of bringing new strategies or new ideas to our practices and learning from them.
Ultimately, it’s enriching for us because it pushes us to be creative, and to be thinking about those choreographies of resistance and how we want to or can enact them in our territories.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Clara M. García: When I speak about feminism, I speak in Spanish. I think I do this because it’s my political home, feminism was my first experience of politicization. So, I have kind of thought about, lived, and felt it in Spanish.
When answering your questions, I found it [a bit] funny that you put the questions in English and I immediately *tack tack tack* answered in Spanish.
Anahi Saravia Herrera: No, it’s not strange because in the end, it’s like finding yourself in the middle of everything!
Why don’t we start with a little introduction? With what I wrote as the first question:
Describe your practice at the moment, what you are thinking about & what questions feel live in your work right now.
The word practice comes from ‘artistic practice’, but I’m interested in how you describe your work as a political person too.
CMG: Yes, it’s interesting. I do consider that ‘practice’ also refers to a political practice. As I was saying, I understand feminism as my political home, as my first experience of politicization. It feels very natural in my way of thinking, and of being in the world.
When talking about my practice, right now, I’m at a point of inflection because I don’t have a feminist space to be in and collectively think with, and it’s been a challenge because every political space that I am a part of feels really hard to engage with.
I think it is also because I have distanced myself from feminist spaces and feminist collectives. I’ve distanced myself from feminist theory, I’ve stopped approaching concepts and ideas, or being so immersed in them. I used to be really interested in reading theory, I think this parallel between practice and theory is interesting and particularly how they feed each other. I was very interested in reading theory because it explained my life and gave meaning to what I was experiencing, and named many of the violences and processes that were happening. So it was almost a necessity, wasn’t it? Theory was not only an analysis that helped me explain the world, but it also helped me explain myself as well.
In the last few years, a lot of my compañeras were talking about the role of unions or how their work related to their [feminist] politics and I think this made me curious to see [how we could make] feminist intervention in institutional or party politics, [something that now very much defines my practice]. Now I’m working in a trade union and I’m still trying to define what that means for me and where I want to take this work.
I think [these types of conversations about our work] have a lot to do with transboder practice and being in tranborder spaces, where we learn from other compañeras and other territories. [I have spoken about] the role of trade unions with comrades from Argentina and Chile especially, and I have realised the need to have a plurality and a structural capacity to change in the movement. [For example], as with the new constitutional process in Chile, from 2019 until now the role of the feminist movement has been at the forefront in guiding this change. And many of the comrades held that [responsibility].
Note: Now that I re-read the question, I think of practice as in dance or choreographic practice, practice as in rehearsal, as a space where you can return with some discipline and where the intuition of the body can guide you, I also understand political spaces to work in this way.
ASH: Ok – let’s talk about the first question:
We have been thinking about ’embodiment’ in the context of feminist practice – what does this mean to you? How do you relate embodiment to feminism and how we articulate our politics with our bodies/ spaces?
CMG: “Acuerpar” [*can be translated to embodiment] is a feminist concept I use to describe a struggle from subjectivities, experiences (in the individual), but it is also a term that has collective resonance. Starting from the body, from where we transgress and transform, through a self-awareness of our reality/history and how it reverberates in collective spaces where we weave resistances and transformations. We are embodied in assemblies, aren’t we? We often hear ourselves say: an assembly of cuerpas1 . [*can be translated to bodies, but with a feminine inflection pointing to feminized bodies] The fact that your subjectivity is part of a collective space means that, in the assembly, the sum of the parts overflows, creating a collective subjectivity, vision, and practice.
I think that acuerpar is also related to the idea of sentipensar [*mix of two verbs: feel(sentir) and think(pensar)] and to this vision that we are a cuerpo-territorio[*body-territory], localised and situated. These are all conceptualisations inherited and taken from Latin American feminism, which help me to rethink my political practice, to give a name to a feeling and an intuition of how to do politics.
Sentipensar resonates with our emotions, relationships, and intuitions in the movement. It is about interdependence and vulnerability. Cuerpo-territorio has to do with the representation of a space and a temporality in which we are, our life stories, the legacies we come from, the intergenerational connections, but also the cultures that frame us, the rituals we relate to, the contexts we come from. Cuerpo-territorio reminds us of these connections, the rooting of our subjectivity in our history.
These are concepts, slogans and practices that we take from other epistemologies/cosmovisions, other ways of understanding/being in the world, and that are echoing in the transboder feminist movement because they are carving out another way of doing politics from practice. They come from the plurality of community feminism, popular feminism, Indigenous feminism, the feminism of the cacerolazos [* a form of popular protest where cacerolas/pots are used to create noise, popularised in Latin America], the feminism that weaves networks of resistance in the streets. And it is in this interweaving that it makes sense. These slogans go beyond a way of understanding politics, because they integrate this plurality of experiences in the terms themselves, helping us to conceptualise the relationship between feminisms and the struggles for the defence of territories, housing, decent work, and a life worth living.
Adding to what I wrote, I think these terms are present in Latin American feminism and have been taking space in our politics in order to name our practice of feminism now. I think that maybe that’s where many of the keys for how to translate these concepts come from, because in the end what they reflect is a cosmovision, a way of understanding the world and they reflect a very specific type of knowledge that describes not only a way of doing politics, but a way of seeing the world.
But, well, all this is the way I understand it, the way I use these terms, nobody has explained it to me! I don’t know if this is really how people understand it, because really these are concepts that I have been reading and intuiting from.
1:Quizás problematizar o señalar aquí la feminidad de la cuerpa. Del mismo modo que hablamos de colectivas, dejando marcas en nuestro lenguaje sobre esas subjetividades que están presentes, y las que no. O cuales dominan el espacio y la narrativa.
ASH: You use your intuition as a really big part of your practice, which is interesting because it’s a very different way to approach things than through theory or ‘political discourse’. I often think that western leftist political movements (and probably all political work in the west) works on a paradigm of ‘Enlightenment’, where everything is very theoretical and very logical and that’s seen as the way to arrive at all the solutions. So, it’s interesting that you use intuition to access theory as well and try to intuit what terms and theories mean not just generally, but what they mean to you. Not necessarily trying to replicate what these theories say but also trying to understand what contextually made them viable and important in the feminist movements they come from.
CMG: When I speak of intuition it is precisely because I didn’t come to political theory through my career or by reading about it. I came (and I think this is what bell hooks says) to feminism out of necessity. This is the experience of many fellow feminists, and this is precisely the power of feminism, isn’t it? You don’t need to explain to any woman or non-binary [or trans] person what it is to experience violence they have lived through. Because we already have that intuition – we already have those discomforts, they’re there when you grow up, when you are on the streets, when you occupy public space, when you have that relationship with your partner, when you are thinking about the relationship with your family. So, it all has to do with your self-awareness, your self-criticism, and your self-consciousness, right? And that’s why I’m very interested in the practice of consciousness-raising as a form of politicization because it’s completely linked to political practice and [our] life experiences.
And so, that’s what I mean when I say I went into theory because I needed to, not because I wanted to. [As a woman], theory was something that other people would do, for instance, it was something my male partners would do – they theorize and write articles – in a way that I do not engage with. I do not like being in a forum where I am hearing from or am seen as the expert. I don’t like writing articles [singularly], and I also don’t like positivism and the theoretical hierarchies of the west, which are so hegemonic…. It transpires into everything we do, even how we relate to each other in political spaces. And that makes me very uncomfortable too, in this particular territory where people who have come into political spaces, have done so because they are seeking to be ‘intellectually challenged’ by them or for them to be a forum of discussion but not because they believe this the way to counter fight and resist, because it is a struggle for their lives.
So that’s why I talk a lot about intuition – because you already know these things. You come to theory because it puts some words into what you have already lived. That’s why we need political spaces where to intervene and commit to do politics.
ASH: I think this is a good point to move on to the second question. As you know in this context I am interested in feminism and the body, looking at feminist performance happening in activism contexts. Particularly in Latin American strands of feminism, performance has always been a really salient way to name and embody structures of power. This isn’t something I’ve seen at all really in the UK. In Latin America feminists have also become performers, and I’m interested in how and why that’s the case, which I think has a lot to do with the fact that the politics are embodied from the beginning.
One of the artists I am talking with (Thais Di Marco) describes her practice and work as speaking to “choreographies of power that perform algorithmic maintenance of the status quo through our bodies” – I actually think this is a great way of describing what activists try to intervene in moments of direct action, where we place our bodies on the streets in a choreography of resistance. Do you think activism can be a kind of embodied performance? Or is it something else?
CMG: This quote is interesting in the context of thinking about ourselves from our bodies, and it gives continuity to this idea of being embodied. In different contexts, when we talk about the power we construct and dispute as feminists, we talk about feminist cartographies or feminism embedded in territories and even feminism in relation to objects (such as Sarah Ahmed’s queer phenomenology). This image of the choreography of power and resistance makes explicit that this is a terrain of struggle.
Thinking about our struggles through choreographies of resistance gives another layer of meaning to being embodied on the streets because it underlines the collective connotation in this idea, and also highlights the visuality of this coming together in our symbols, cries, and songs that tie us together. I think of key moments such as the performance of ‘un violador en tu camino’ by Las Tesis in Chile, as well as the re-signification by the Bilbao feminist choir of the song ‘a la huelga’ or the construction of ‘monuments’ in Mexico City. If the presence of our bodies in the streets lays the groundwork for choreography, the multiplicity of chants and slogans (which also become transborderchants) are the symphony from which we politicise ourselves.
I think also of what the feminist movement has lost in these last two years of pandemic, when our terrain of struggle has shrunk. We have had few successful experiences in reimagining this choreography of resistance. I think now of the Italian comrades ‘weaving’ in public spaces and what it means to ‘occupy’ public spaces in different ways.
And finally, I also think that this choreography of power is clear in the sense that many queer comrades speak of the body as a space of struggle and resistance, knowing that mere existence/presence in public space is an intervention in the status quo.
One of the things that is done a lot on the 25th of November in Spain, which is the International Day against Violence against Women and Girls, is to do processions, grieving the ones that are missing. [Which is interesting because it taps into] the role of ‘grief’ in all feminist movements, like Ni Una Menos for example. This is the contact that we have with choreographies of power, which is a very direct violence that our bodies are experiencing. This image marked me a lot when it came to relating these individual violences that I was feeling with collective violence, and with feminism. And I thought: Ah I am literally in a procession for the murdered women. Having that consciousness for the collective, what does that mean?
ASH: I also know you have a lot of feelings about translation and language which I wanted to talk about.
We have been talking about translation the past few days and months, and the inherently political work that is taking feminist practice from one context to another. How does language hold plurality for you? How does being bilingual allow you to access different realities and knowledge?
On the other hand, for me, another sites of translation is also the body and how different feminist spaces FEEL, and how they hold space and relationships- what do you think of this?
I want to also contextualize this a bit and say that Xav from performingborders is looking into performance and translation in their research too. They’re looking at what the role of language is in translating performance, what it means to use multiple languages in a performance and how that speaks to different pluralities. They did an interview with someone called Ana Rocha who is a dramaturg from Portugal, and they had a conversation about the fact that out of necessity, part of working in a European context means bringing work across countries. One of the things she said that was really interesting is that the constant element across all these shows, usually none of which are happening in the local language, is the bodies of the performers. And in many ways, this is what holds the performances together – bodies in a room enacting something. I think artists in Europe (and probably globally) know that from the moment they become an artist they’re going to need to be open to the idea of working outside of their local contexts (more so if you’re based in a country where resources for the arts are low), and this level of foresight and understanding of work trespassing borders is not at all something that is shared by artists in the UK.
CMG: Well, the first thing is that for many people, translating is a way of making things accessible. For me, this is a wrong understanding of the purpose of translating, and a very ‘from above’ perspective. I do not translate things to allow people to ‘be heard in the room’ but to understand their plurality. So specifically when we’re translating Global South practices into the Global North, a lot of the times people in political spaces [are thinking]: “we have to have voices from the South” – which is important and I acknowledge it’s crucial to realize whose voice is not in the room, but I am more interested in [using translation] to understand diverse contexts and experiences in a way that is not simply performative.
So for example the term ‘cuerpo-territorio’ / ‘body-territory’ is a concept that you can translate but it will never have the same significance or resonance because no one in this room can relate to it in the same way that someone from the Global South has lived it. And for me, this is why translation becomes very political, because it’s not only trying to manifest someone in the room but also trying to understand the coloniality of power, language and knowledge.
So, I really like the question of: How does language hold plurality for you? Because when I think about body-territory, that term is holding plurality and knowledge, which comes from popular, community, decolonial, Indigenous feminisms. These are not labels, these are practices and knowledges, and we need to hold them to that standard. That’s where the Global North or generally western-centric spaces make the mistakes in terms of translating. There’s something political in who’s voices are heard but also in HOW you’re understanding them when they’re here.
And thinking about bodies: What has been the power of the feminist movement in the last five years? Why has it become a transborder/cross-border power? I think it’s because despite not being able to translate the cosmologies and knowledge embedded in the practices of the Global South, it was possible to understand the power of the bodies in the streets. And that has been very easily translated. That image has a power that is very easily translated. So, now we see how this power has been reverberating in each territory and how it has been embodied and expressed in different ways. I think this is how feminist practice has been able to expand and I find it very interesting because I hadn’t thought of it that way. In the end, it is true that we don’t translate the concepts, but the body is already communicating, it is already choreographing a choreography of power and resistance. This may be made explicit in our language, but it is understood without the need to conceptualize.
ASH: And to finish, We have been thinking about artistic practices that take “border-as-method” – which to me speaks a lot to cross-border feminist practices, what do you think of this term/ frame (explained below) and how does it speak to feminist practices you’ve encountered?
Method for us is as much about acting on the world as it is about knowing it. […] it is about the relation of action to knowledge in situations where many different knowledge regimes and practices come into conflict. Border as method involves negotiating the boundaries between the different kinds of knowledge that come to bear on the border and, in so doing, aims to throw light on the subjectivities that come into being through such conflicts. […] the border is for us not so much a research object as an epistemological viewpoint that allows an acute critical analysis not only of how relations of domination, dispossession, and exploitation are being redefined presently but also of the struggles that take shape around these changing relations. The border can be a method precisely insofar as it is conceived of as a site of struggle.’
Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013
Revisiting this quote at the end of this conversation actually really speaks to what you’re saying and so I’m interested in how you relate this to your practice.
CMG: I had never given the name ‘methodology’ [to the transfronterizo]. The transfronterizo has this idea of thinking beyond borders and thinking about our powers beyond our national territory. That’s why we don’t talk about the ‘international’ because it doesn’t describe a relationship, it’s not a practice. In the ‘international’ one first conceptualises [ideas] from a local territory and then moves on to an international relation of translation. [On the other hand, in the transfronterizo] we think from this transboder level, and we think from a holistic perspective that understands that our feminisms are plural.
It’s interesting to think of it as a method because I can really pinpoint feminist practices transfronterizas that are very characteristic methodologies of how we organise. For example, [perhaps this is a very simplistic example], but one of the first transborder conversations we had with compañeras in a asamblea transfronteriza/ transborder assembly had about 62 compañeras from 30-odd territories. At the beginning there was a process of defining what the characteristics of the space were and what kind of politics we wanted to represent. We were talking about what the role of trade unions was and whether women who belonged to trade unions could be part of this space. [In the assembly there were] very different practices, in the sense that the women from Italy and Spain were very much against having trade unions, because in their experience and in their historical memory, within their territories and their social movements, trade unions were part of the state, in the sense that they were not political actors who were going to mobilise, while the women from the Global South thought that trade unions [brought] a methodology and a structure to the environment that brought a richness in diversity.
This way of navigating conversations where you have very diverse practices [focuses on], through dialogue, [getting] to an understanding and not [necessarily] reaching an agreement. The transborder methodology in each territory and in each collective has its own agreements and its own priorities, but that diversity is accepted in the assemblies as a practice and is accommodated in what the space will then do. For me, these cross-border exchanges imply an encounter of dissents and conflicts as well. And this meeting of pluralities is not to arrive at a homogenisation, this dialogue [is to come to understand] why in different spaces, different strategies make sense.
ASH: What you say resonates with what it says here in the text:
Border as method involves negotiating the boundaries between the different kinds of knowledge that come to bear on the border and, in so doing, aims to throw light on the subjectivities that come into being through such conflicts.
It’s true – there’s conflict that “borders” imply and necessitate, because there’s going to be different groups involved. And I think it also draws out the idea that border is a method because it’s a site of struggle. So, looking at the struggle and understanding it as a form of collective liberation is what is so powerful about transboder organising. In focusing on the conflict, struggle and misunderstandings, and working through them, you’re actually arriving at a collective liberation because you’re attempting to figure out how all of these things are connected and if the solution doesn’t address the variety of experiences then it’s potentially not a liberatory solution for all.
CMG: What is important to me is that you are not trying to impose a method or a practice, to me transborder organising is an acknowledgment that there are different knowledges, practices, and tactics which work in particular ways in specific territories. [I think about this as a process of contamination] and of bringing new strategies or new ideas to our practices and learning from them.
Ultimately, it’s enriching for us because it pushes us to be creative, and to be thinking about those choreographies of resistance and how we want to or can enact them in our territories.
Clara M. García (she/her) based in London, comes from autonomous feminist traditions. Clara has been organising in cross-border feminist spaces for the past years. She is interested in horizontal and assembly spaces as political practices, in contaminating trade unions with feminist politics, and mainly drawn to thinking of radical care/mutual aid, vulnerability, grief, politics of food, and territorial legacies. At the moment, she is focused on trying to figure out how to grow lemon trees in her garden. @clariklaracler