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Queering Kinship. The Performance of

Blood and the Attires of Memory
Cecilia Sosa
Version of record first published: 24 Jul 2012

To cite this article: Cecilia Sosa (2012): Queering Kinship. The Performance of Blood and the
Attires of Memory, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies: Travesia, 21:2, 221-233
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569325.2012.694807

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Cecilia Sosa
QUEERING KINSHIP. THE PERFORMANCE

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OF BLOOD AND THE ATTIRES OF MEMORY

This essay focuses on the emergence of a non-normative lineage of mourning in the wake of
Argentinas last dictatorship (1976 1983). It looks at Mi vida despues (Lola Arias,
2009), a play based on the real stories of six actors who were born during the dictatorship.
By challenging Marianne Hirschs idea of postmemory, forged in order to address the
experiences of the second generation of survivors, I consider how personal testimonies can
travel off the stage to build new affiliations in the present. I suggest that Mi vida despues
offers an expanded machine for the exploration of memory that also includes the bodies of
the audience. Among the testimonies, I focus on the story of two non-biological siblings: the
actor Vanina Falco and Juan Cabandie, the son of a murdered activist couple who was
abducted from ESMA by Luis Falco, a police officer working for the military. I address how
Vanina relates to her father-appropriator, recently condemned to eighteen years of
imprisonment. In so doing, I show how the performance of blood can help to conceive a
broader idea of being affected by violence. Ultimately, I suggest that traumatic pasts are
also attires that can be adopted in the context of spectatorship.

Act 1: About victims, blood and theatre

In the wake of Argentinas last dictatorship (1976 1983), memory struggles have
mostly followed the trope of a wounded family. Seemingly, only those related by blood
to the missing were entitled to ask for justice. Jacques Derrida argues that the first figure
of an archive is topological. It is the violence of a power, a lineage, a place, a domicile: It
is thus, in this domiciliation, in this house arrest, that archives take place.1 Drawing upon
this I would like to suggest that in Argentinas post-dictatorship the relatives of the
victims have commanded the house of mourning. To some extent, they have been the
guardians of the archive. This right has been animated by the power of blood. My
intervention wishes to show how in recent years the domiciliation of the archive has begun
to be displaced. From 2003 onwards, the Kirchnerist administrations have adopted the
lineage of the victims transforming mourning into a national commitment. In fact, during
his inaugural speech before the United Nations General Assembly in December 2003,
Nestor Kirchner introduced himself as the son of the Mothers and Grandmothers of
Plaza de Mayo.2 By casting himself within the wounded family, the former president
adopted the lineage inaugurated by violence. His wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner,
who took office in December 2007, successfully continued this process. On 23 October
2011 she was re-elected for a second period with 54% of the votes. In the context of
Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 June 2012, pp. 221-233
ISSN 1356-9325/print 1469-9575 online q 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569325.2012.694807

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unprecedented human rights policies, the discourse of blood became a new moral order
that was expropriated from its biological basis. The current administrations have also
provided the impulse to overrule the laws that granted immunity to the military. From
2006, massive trials started, prosecuting those responsible for the dictatorships human
rights violations.3 Encompassing this change of direction, I argue that the experience of
loss has managed to create a new sense of kinship that goes beyond bloodline settings.
And this process largely exceeds the margins of duty.
In order to illustrate this, I shall focus on Mi vida despues, a production directed by
Lola Arias which was released in Buenos Aires in 2009 and toured local and
international circuits for three years. Following Lauren Berlants argument that the
autobiographical is not the personal, I will show how the stories featured in this show
can emerge as the stage for broader publics.4 Among the testimonies included in
Ariass production, I will focus on one case. More than an individual story, it is the
story of two siblings and their abductor-father: the actor Vanina Falco, daughter of the
police officer Luis Falco, and her non-biological brother, Juan Cabandie. While
bringing these lives back on stage, I will respond to Diana Taylors biological reading of
Argentinas aftermath of violence. I will also map-out the post-memory controversy
in the country while suggesting how this perspective may help to understand the
transmission of trauma among wider audiences.

Act 2: Curtains up!

Lola Arias was born in 1976, the year of the military coup in Argentina. She has no
relatives who are disappeared. To some extent, her upcoming trajectory had run
outside the narratives of blood.5 Mi vida despues features the stories of six professional
actors on stage. Although they were all born during the dictatorship, their backgrounds
are very different. Alongside descendants of guerilla activists, exiled intellectuals, and a
police officer working for the military, the production also includes testimonies of those
who are not usually considered as victims. The play is based on the personal experiences
of these actors, their real stories. A pile of clothes works as medium to step into a timemachine. The premise is simple: to put on their parents clothes so as to re-enact the
experiences of their youths. As if it were a science-fiction film, the actors alternate
between motor racers, priests, guerrillas, and bank employees to perform the most
spectacular stunts of their parents lives. Although these personal testimonies are first
presented separately, eventually the show will bond these lives together (Picture 1).
Drawing upon this production, I will show how the imaginative investments to
recall the past, which Hirsch usually attributes to second-generations of victims, can be
also thought in ethical relation to those who were not direct witnesses of traumatic
events.6 I want to suggest that Mi vida despues introduces a novel machine for the
transmission of trauma in the context of spectatorship; one that advocates a broader
understanding of what it is to be affected by violence. Furthermore, I argue that Ariass
show responds to a secret risk that haunts second-generations recollections, that of having
their own stories and experiences displaced and even evacuated by those of a previous
generation.7 By contrast, Ariass production features a generation not only telling their
own stories, but also producing them. In so doing, Mi vida despues proposes a high-tech
performance of blood in which the scripts are this time on the side of the descendants.

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VANINA FALCO, THE DAUGHTER OF A PERPETRATOR

PICTURE 1

Mi vida despues (2009), Lola Arias production was released in Buenos Aires

in 2009. It features the real lives of six professional actors born during the dictatorship.
Photograph courtesy of Lorena Fernandez.

Act 3: Pictures in flesh

Ariass production operates through the objects that the actors inherited from their
families: pictures, home-made videos, old tapes, letters, toys, books, pictures, even a
turtle. They are not only individual spoils, but also cultural treasures. In her turn,
Vanina brings a picture on stage. It was taken in 1978, at the height of the dictatorship.
This image portrays a smiling middle-aged woman giving a bath to a new-born baby in
the living room of an ordinary home. Standing next to the woman, a girl stares at the
scene. For some reason, she looks like a spy, as if she were witnessing a spectacle in
which she had no part to play (Picture 2).
While the audience examines the picture projected on a big screen, Vanina
explains:
This is me when I was three, watching my mum bathe my brother. In the photo
you can see that Im happy but confused, I dont quite understand where my
brother came from, because I dont remember seeing my mum pregnant.8
When she was 21, Vanina left home with a black eye: her father discovered that she
was in love with a girl. Seven years later she discovered that her brother was the son of
an activist couple murdered at ESMA. She came to know that during the dictatorship
her father was not a medical representative but a police officer working for the military

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PICTURE 2

On stage, Vanina Falco shows a picture taken in 1978. It portraits her mother

giving a bath to a baby while she stares at the scene. The baby was the son of an activist
couple murdered at ESMA. Photograph courtesy of Lorena Fernandez

who stole that baby from the former detention camp. My whole life became fiction,
says Vanina on stage.9
More than three decades later, the ostensibly blameless picture comes to the
foreground. Like a fleeting Benjaminian recollection, the scene of the baby-bath flashes
back to reveal the secrecies that were not known at the moment that it was taken. Now
that Vanina knows that this baby is not her biological brother, the poignancy of the
event is highlighted. The picture becomes a public document that transforms the
domestic space into the scenario of national trauma. The baby-bath picture also
reconfigures the actors relation to her own childhood, when she was still dads
favourite.10 The image becomes the touchstone of a previous life that finished by the
end of 2003, when the DNA tests confirmed that her alleged brother was the son of an
activist couple. The baby in the picture now bears his original name: Juan Cabandie. He
is the same young man who, three months after discovering that his identity had been
falsified, stood next to former President Nestor Kirchner during the act of ESMAs
transference to civil society on March 24, 2004: I am my biological parents, argued
Cabandie that evening. Since then, he embarked upon rapid political ascent and now he
is a main figure of the official party.
I would like to suggest that within the context of theatre a single photo can be
conceived as a document in which evidence is at the same time hidden and revealed.
It can show how, as Benjamin would say, nothing is lost for history.11 It works as if the
picture of that baby-bath carried an image of the past that is still looking for redemption.
This demand becomes iterated during each performance, as if the pervasive here and
now of theatre could work as a progressive chain of judgement days.

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VANINA FALCO, THE DAUGHTER OF A PERPETRATOR

In this sense, Ariass performance offers a fascinating example of the relation of

theatre to the world. In fact, the show eventually helped to re-write the story. When
Cabandie discovered that his identity had been falsified, he took his abductor to court. In
early versions of the show, Vanina complained that she could not make her own
statement, since Argentinas law used to prevent descendants from testifying against
their parents. Even so, in December 2009 a judge considered that the actors part in the
show was enough of a precedent, and Vanina was finally allowed to testify. Ironically,
the intervention of the three-year-old girl of the picture was crucial for Falcos
imprisonment. This judicial decision, which was taken on December 23, 2009, was not
only crucial for Vaninas case but also enabled other abducted children to present cases
against their parents.12 The case stands as an excruciating example of the ways in which
performance can influence the law or promote social and political change. Ariass
production not only brought real lives on stage. It also contributed to the forging of an
alternative future.

Act 4: From first-hand to accidental tourists

The picture of the three-year-old Vanina witnessing the baby-bath also sheds light on a
heated debate. It mainly concerns whether Hirschs meditations on post-memory can be
translated from the Holocausts descendants to contemporary Argentina. Local scholars
such as Nicolas Casullo and Hugo Vezzetti have strongly resisted this framework as the
hermeneutical model to approach the Argentinas post-dictatorship.13 In particular,
Beatriz Sarlo has argued that the category of post-memory does not have any added
heuristic potential and tends to transform the political dimension of History into a
storage of personal banalities.14 Local artists and activists have also argued that the
categories of second generation or second witnesses, as first formulated by Hirsch,
are not completely accurate to acknowledge the experience of the children of the
disappeared. In fact, the image of the baby-bath shows how the generation of those who
are now in their thirties were not second but first-hand witnesses of traumatic events.
Although their recollections might be fragmentary, many of these current youngsters
were present at the moment of their parents kidnapping, were kidnapped with them,
or were born in captivity at clandestine detention centres.15
Notwithstanding the aforementioned critiques, I would like to suggest that the
concept of post-memory remains productive to an understanding of how trauma can be
adopted by successive generations and transferred to others in the Argentine context.
This not only refers to the imaginative investment through which new generations
relate to the past.16 But rather, as Jens Andermann argues, it sheds light on how postmemory can be considered as the very act of witnessing, the empathic adoption of the
trauma of the first generation by subsequent ones.17 This process of transference does
not only concern first-hand witnesses, but rather any accidental viewers who, for
instance, share the image of the baby-bath projected in a theatre hall. In this sense, postmemory emerges as an ethical perspective, which allows audiences to see through the
others eyes.18 In these cases, as Andermann suggests, the intrafamilial and transgenerational component of post-memory becomes stressed as a form of commonality
through the work of mourning.19

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Different from photography, in theatre images are not static but part of a mobile
and collective forum. The performance studies scholar Nicholas Ridout suggests
considering theatre as a vibratorium in which the circulation of affects works as a
radiation that goes back and forth within the audience that bears witness by being
seated at the other side of the stage.20 Precisely at this threshold, Ariass production
builds an intergenerational artefact of transmission of trauma in which the spectators
are invited to take part. They may not have been directly affected by violence, but still
they can adopt those stories and fill them with their own experiences. By creating a
fleeting intimacy, Mi vida despues shows how performance can be a medium for the
adoption of trauma, as in following the uncanny vibrations of an old picture, which
takes over the stage. In so doing, it proposes a re-domiciliation of the archive of
mourning, to draw again upon Derridas expression.

Act 5: A question of make-up

I would like to focus now on the relationship between Vanina and her father. If the
modes of interdependency are hardly chosen and never precisely easy, Vaninas
circumstances stage a particular piercing example of this. In a documentary produced
by the BBC, the actor referred to her father:
If blood was a mandatory regime I would already have been condemned. I do not
wonder if my father will die in jail [ . . . ] for me this is a minor thing. Its bearing
this link that I dont like. It is something that you cannot change. He is my father,
and even though I have made a cut and I feel him as sort of stranger, it is still a great
pain. At some point, it is like being an orphan. It is not something that makes me
feel bad or lonely. I dont feel the lack of any fundamental bond. It is more like this
scar, see? [she shows a wound on her arm] When I was 8, I went through a window
glass and saved my tendons by miracle. Of course, it doesnt hurt any more, but it
is a tremendous wound. Sometimes I have to put some make-up on it. With my
father it is more or less the same. [ . . . ] I would love to have another father.
However hard or wrong it may sound, its true. To honour my father is just to be
what I am [she laughs], and if Dad does not like it, it is Daddys problem. I do not
like my Dad either and I choose to be myself.21
Vaninas testimony draws on a major tension: at the time that she resists the idea of
biology determining the only line of kinship, she also acknowledges that there is
something irreducible about bloodline ties. This conflict becomes embodied by the
physical presence of a scar, an enduring wound that reminds the actor of the pervasive
presence of her father.
Sara Ahmed provides an interesting perspective for exploring the image of this
wound. Drawing on Freuds assessment of melancholia as behaving like an open
wound, she suggests that the figure of the melancholic provides us with a wound.22 I
am interested in how this us is constituted. Still, Vaninas case is quite different. Her
wound is clearly visible and tremendous, as she says, but it does not bleed any more.
Moreover, she has learned to apply make-up to it. In her case, this operation involves
concealing not only a wound but also a repudiated father. I would like to suggest that

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VANINA FALCO, THE DAUGHTER OF A PERPETRATOR

her gesture of making-up the scar sheds light on a strategy that goes beyond
cosmetics, one that speaks about the possibilities of working through the experience of
trauma via performance. By this, I do not mean that Vaninas condition of being an
actor makes her more prepared for this task, although it may. Indeed, Mi vida despues
presents actors in the double sense of the word, both as performers and as agents of
their own circumstances. Vaninas case is an enhanced example of this. Still,
performance does not necessarily refer to any form of insincerity, but rather to the
expanded possibility of offering an account of oneself through the rehearsal of trauma. I
suggest that through Ariass production, Vaninas experience of injury is also offered to
the audience. Precisely, her wound becomes the path that constitutes a new us in the
context of spectatorship. This us ultimately refers to all those second-hand witnesses
who can share and be transformed by the experience of trauma as the affective
emergence constituted in the space of performance.
Still, Vaninas case introduces a tension that cannot be easily avoided. It refers to
the uncertain feeling of being injured and put at risk by violence. She does not only
cover up her wound but also she has made a cut with her father. Although affective,
this cut is no less physical. It defines the constitution of her body as much as the scar.
During an interview conducted in March 2010, Vanina said: When I found out about
Juan, my reaction was worse than when I had to confront my father about my sexual
decision.23 Drawing on this, I suggest that the gesture of making-up the scar can be
framed as an act of critique and responsibility. As it is clear from her testimony, Vanina
defines herself in tension with her repudiated father. It is precisely against this
conspicuous figure that Vanina constitutes herself in the present. To honour my father
is just to be what I am, and if Dad does not like it, it is Daddys problem. I do not like
my Dad either and I choose to be myself, she says. Against this bond, Vanina comes
into being. The tension is alive. Her case provides a rich example of how, in Judith
Butlers terms, the possibility of giving an account of one self is always a form of
putting oneself at risk. In fact, while exploring how bodies come into being, Butler
contends that this obtrusive alterity against which the body finds itself is surely linked
to that primary dependency which is before and against our will.24 In this sense, the
same situation that puts Vanina at risk is the one which enables her to build a sense of
responsibility for the present.
Furthermore, Vaninas case also undermines the idea of performance of blood as
introduced by Diana Taylor. In her well-known study on cultural memory in the
Americas, the feminist scholar contends that Argentinas post-dictatorship scene is
embedded in what she calls a DNA performance, a biological and self-repetitive
paradigm of public presentation based on biological kinship.25 Although her analysis is
rich and provocative, it has also introduced an arguably authoritative reading on
Argentine performativity in the Anglosphere. By contrast, I contend that the country
has recently witnessed a performance of blood that largely exceeds conventional family
settings.
Vaninas case helps to frame this argument further. Certainly, in her case blood
does not bring companionship or security but an obtrusive alterity. Biological kinship
can be envisioned here as sort of house arrest that leaves her helpless and exposed to
violence. Blood is Vaninas unchosen world. Still, the repudiated relationship with her
father also animates a sense of duty before which she chooses not to be. Vaninas
response to what she feels is insupportable also shapes her pleasures and conditions her

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LATIN AMERICAN CULTURAL STUDIES

survival. In this sense, her strategy to make-up that scar emerges as a non-normative act
of grief. In Ariass production, the experience of violence is also offered to the
audience. As it is, Vaninas wound will remain as a noticeable scar. Some make-up
might be needed. Moreover, this make-up can be conceived as a new outfit, another
layer in the costumes of grief, one that shows that affective reparation is possible.

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Act 7: Unconventional forms of happiness

I suggest that Vaninas and Juans case also establishes an important difference with
traditional narratives staged by the relatives of the victims in Argentina. It may be
impossible to know in advance how bodies could be affected by pain or injury. Yet, the
experience of these non-biological siblings shows how being twisted and turned by
violence might also bring hope for the future. It shows how bad feelings are not simply
reactive but can create affective responses to histories that are nonetheless unfinished.26
The case of these siblings can also be read in tune with Ahmeds critique of
normative forms of happiness. The queer scholar notices that traditional modes of
gratification usually involve a narrative of assimilation in the specific sense of becoming
like.27 To some extent, this idea of happiness as becoming like is also present within
the biological normativity championed by the wounded family in Argentinas postdictatorship. In fact, for the relatives of the missing, contentment has been mostly
attached to blood. For instance, after decades of searching for the stolen newborn, for
the Abuelas, the idea of happiness follows a straight line, the promised future in which the
abducted grandchildren will be recovered.28 By contrast, I contend that Vanina and her
non-biological brothers possibilities of joy do not follow a straight but a queer line.
Their scripts have been twisted. Certainly, sharing a home space brought them together.
Falco worked for them both as father and as appropriator; he was an intimate-abjectedrepressor. Under those conditions of negation and constraints, they made up a queer
bond between each other.29 Loss provided these siblings with a non-familiar script,
different from traditional family narratives. This alternative narrative emerges not as
condemnation, but rather as an alternative life-world beyond the dictates of blood.
Moreover, the case of these siblings also troubles the discourse of being alike in a
different sense. When they were children, Vanina and Juan used to have very similar
features: the same smile, the same eyes; they were alike, as Vanina says on stage.
Afterwards, the reasons for this resemblance responded to a frightening turn. When
Cabandies mother was held in captivity at ESMA, she was seventeen and already pregnant.
As it was finally determined, there were strong resemblances between Cabandies and
Vaninas mothers: they were both blonde, with delicate complexions, blue eyes. This was
the reason why Falco finally decided to steal the baby and bring him home, as an
improbable gift to his wife who could not have more children. He probably thought that
this peculiar similarity could protect the secret, deflecting unwanted suspicion.
In all these overlapping ways, the case of these siblings queries heteronormative
narratives. It proposes a self-created foundling narrative that illuminates unconventional
forms of love and hope. Queer and kinship studies have been interested in identifying
alternative kinship narratives, which are not organized by the desire for reproduction,
or the desire to be like other families, as Ahmed frames it.30 Precisely, the case of these
siblings suggests a reworking of kinship that follows a different path from being like.

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VANINA FALCO, THE DAUGHTER OF A PERPETRATOR

PICTURE 3

An appropriate sentence: On May 18, 2011, Luis Falco was sentenced to

eighteen years imprisonment, the harshest punishment ever applied to an appropriator.

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In so doing, it suggests an oblique form of wilfulness. Their bond was constituted despite
blood, or better, coming up against blood. Their case points towards new attachments
built from conflict, disorientation and loss. It embodies a disobedient energy which
pursues unconventional forms of happiness.

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Final act: Curtains down . . . and up!

On September 30, 2011, Mi vida despues was performed for the last time in Buenos
Aires. La Carpintera, a small venue located at Abasto, was crowded. After three years,
the production had acquired a self-reflective capacity to mutate alongside the lives
involved in it. Most of the public had already seen the show, nonetheless they were
eager not to miss the last performance. For many, that show was breathtaking. It had
the energy of a collective gig. Towards the end, the actors sat as usual on a big sofa.
Vanina was in the middle. In her hands, she had the records of the trial that her brother
initiated against her father. The troupe examined the files while listing the different
pieces of evidence. By the last performance, Falco was already judged. On May 18,
2011, Luis Falco was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment, the harshest
punishment ever applied to an appropriator (Picture 3).31 The saddest thing is that
hes still my dad, said Vanina on stage.32
In this context, a seemingly irrelevant fact came to my attention. The actors were
all very close to each other. They were all together on the same couch. In a very
uncanny way the choreographic disposition of the scene reminded me of a family
picture. It had the atmosphere of an ordinary family posing in a living room for the
camera. Still, that picture did not correspond to any traditional album. The crew
enacted a spectral community that displaced the domiciliation of suffering. By acting
their own stories, the actors welcomed the audience in a narrative of grief that hosted
unexpected affiliations emerging from loss. In so doing, Mi vida despues revealed how
traumatic pasts not only travel along biological lines but can also be re-adopted by
occasional tourists. Moreover, it helped to show how loss not only bleeds from one
generation to another. Rather, it can also be conceived as attire that comes as a gift
from the past, which less affected audiences can also wear for the first time.
Notes
1 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (University of Chicago Press:
Chicago, London, 1998), p. 2. Derridas emphasis.
2 The presidential speech was conducted on September 25, 2003. In the original:
Somos los hijos e hijas de las Madres y Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, accessed
December 13, 2010; http://constitucionweb.blogspot.com/2010/02/discurso-deasuncion-de-presidente.html.
3 In 2005, the Argentine Supreme Court declared the nullity of the so-called laws of
impunity and the prosecutions of military personnel were allowed once again.
4 Lauren Berlant, The Female Complaint (Duke University Press: Durham and London,
2008), vii.
5 For an expanded analysis of Lola Arias work see C. Sosa, Lola Arias: Expanding the
Real in No More Drama (Dublin: Project Press, 2011).

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VANINA FALCO, THE DAUGHTER OF A PERPETRATOR

6 Marianne Hirsch, The Generation of Post-memory, Poetics Today, 29.1 (2008):

103 128, 107.
7 Hirsch, The Generation of Post-memory, 107.
8 All the quotations of the play included in this chapter have been taken from My Life
After (2009), by Lola Arias, translated by Daniel Tunnard (unpublished). Thanks to the
director for permission to quote from the text.
9 Arias, My Life After, n.p.
10 Arias, My Life After, n.p.
11 Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, in Illuminations, ed.
H. Arendt, trans. H. Zorn (London: Pimlico, 1968), 246.
12 See Paula Gimenez, A la izquierda del padre, Pagina 12, accessed December 3,
2011; http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/soy/1-1283-2010-03-21.
html.
13 See Hugo Vezzetti, Pasado y presente. Guerra, dictadura y sociedad en la Argentina (Buenos
Aires, Siglo XX1, 2002) and Nicolas Casullo, Pensar entre epocas: Memorias, sujetos y
crtica cultural (Buenos Aires: Norma, 2004).
14 Beatriz Sarlo, Tiempo Pasado. Cultura de la memoria y giro subjetivo. Una discusion (Buenos
Aires: Siglo XXI, 2005), pp. 134 5 (my translation).
15 A group of descendants of the disappeared is trying to incorporate the category of
nino desaparecido-detenido within the current legal framework, as promoted
by Angela Urondo, leader of this initiative. See Victoria Ginzberg, Por primera vez
el Estado me esta devolviendo algo, Pagina 12, accessed October 12, 2011, http://
www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-178549-2011-10-09.html.
16 Hirsch, The Generation of Post-memory, 107.
17 Jens Andermann Returning to the Site of Horror: the Recovery of Clandestine
Concentration Camps in Argentina in Theory, Culture and Society, 29, 1 (2012): 81.
18 In fact, Marianne Hirsch herself invites to consider this possibility. See M. Hirsch,
Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory, Yale Journal
of Criticism 14.1 (2001): 12.
19 Andermann, Returning to the Site of Horror: the Recovery of Clandestine
Concentration Camps in Argentina, 82.
20 Ridout, Nicholas, Welcome to the Vibratorium, Senses & Society, 3 (2008): 222.
21 In the original: Si la sangre fuera un mandato yo estara condenada. No pienso si mi
padre se va a morir en el carcel, no me importa, no pienso en su muerte, para m es algo
menor. Es el cargar con ese vnculo que no se puede volver atras, y por mas que yo haya
generado un corte y lo sienta ajeno, todava es un gran dolor. En algun punto es una
orfandad de otra ndole. No es una orfandad que me haga sentir mal o sola, porque me
faltan esos vinculos fundantes, para nada. Es como esto, ves? [muestra una herida en el
brazo] a los 8 anos atravese un vidrio y salve mis tendones de milagro. Por supuesto que
ya no duele, pero esta [golpea el brazo]. Es una tremenda herida. A veces tengo que
maquillarmela. Bueno, con mi padre es mas o menos lo mismo. ( . . . ) Me encantara
tener otro padre. Por mas que suene duro y un poco incorrecto, es la verdad. Honrar a
mi padres es justamente ser lo que soy [re]. Yo soy esto y si a papa no le gusta, problema
de papa. Y a mi papa tampoco me gusta y yo elijo ser yo (my translation). See BBC
Mundo, March 25, 2010, accessed November 7, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/
mundo/america_latina/2010/02/100126_mandamientos_honraras_padres_mz.
shtml.
22 Ahmed, Sara, The Promise of Happiness (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 141.

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LATIN AMERICAN CULTURAL STUDIES

23 In the original: Cuando se desato lo de Juan tuve una reaccion epidermica peor que
cuando tuve que enfrentar a mi padre por lo de mi decision sexual (my translation).
See Paula Gimenez, A la izquierda del Padre, Pagina 12, March 19, 2010; accessed
December 3, 2011, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/soy/11283-2010-03-21.html.
24 Butler, Remarks on Queer Bonds, GLQ, 17. 2-3 (2011): 384.
25 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire. Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas
(Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2003), 175.
26 Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness, 217.
27 Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness, 112.
28 By January 2012, the Abuelas of Plaza de Mayo recovered 105 abducted children.
29 Joshua Weiner and Damon Young, Queer Bonds, GLQ, 17. 2-3 (2011): 223.
30 Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness, 114.
31 See Victoria Ginzberg, Una condena apropiada, Pagina 12, May 18, 2011; accessed
December 4, 2011, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-168409-201105-18.html.
32 Arias, My Life After (2008), n.p.

References
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Arias, Lola. 2009. My Life After, translated by Daniel Tunnard (unpublished).
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H. Arendt, translated by H. Zorn. London. 245 55.
Berlant, Lauren. 2008. The Female Complaint. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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17 (2-3): 381 7.
Casullo, Nicolas. 2004. Pensar entre epocas: Memorias, sujetos y crtica cultural. Buenos Aires:
Norma.
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Press.
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honraras_padres_mz.shtml.
Gimenez, Paula. 2010. A la izquierda del Padre. Pagina 12, March 19, 2010. Accessed
December 3, 2011. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/soy/11283-2010-03-21.html.
Ginzberg, Victoria. 2011. Una condena apropiada. Pagina 12, May 18, 2011. Accessed
October 11, 2011. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-168409-201105-18.html.
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October 9, 2011. Accessed October 12, 2011. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/
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Hirsch, Marianne. 2001. Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of
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Sosa, Cecilia. 2011. Lola Arias: Expanding the Real. In No More Drama. Dublin: Project
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Weiner, Joshua, and Damon Young. 2011. Queer Bonds. GLQ 17 (2-3): 223 41.

Cecilia Sosa is an Argentinean sociologist and cultural journalist. She has recently
finished her PhD in Drama at Queen Mary, University of London with a thesis entitled
Performance, Kinship and Archives: Queering Acts of Mourning in the Aftermath of
Argentinas 1976-1983 Dictatorship. She has published On Mothers and Spiders: A
face-to-face encounter with Argentinas mourning in Memory Studies, A Counter
narrative of Argentine Mourning: The Headless Woman (2008) in Theory, Culture &
Society. She has authored book chapters for Memory of State Terrorism in the Southern
Cone (Palgrave, 2011) and No More Drama (Project Press, 2011). She has also published
articles and reviews in Cultural Studies, E-misferica, New Theatre Quarterly and
Contemporary Theatre Review. She has been the co-organiser of a symposium on Cultural
Memory at ISA, University of London (November 2010).

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