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Mediated Intimacies: Legal, Literary, and Journalistic Textualities of Gender Violence in Post-War Nicaragua

Miklos, Alicia Z
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429722169

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
My dissertation examines representations of femicide as gender violence in legal, journalistic, literary, and online cultural production in contemporary post-war Nicaragua. I begin with the passing of Law 779, the Integral Law Against Violence Towards Women, approved by the Nicaraguan National Assembly in February 2012. The law fills a legal vacuum in the country by codifying femicide, as well as sexual, psychological, patrimonial, and labor abuse into Nicaraguan law as gender specific crimes. Prohibiting the long-standing practice of police and judicial mediation between accusers and aggressors, Law 779 set out to endow women with judicial agency in what had been largely hostile and re-victimizing institutional spaces. The focus of the project is cultural, examining representations of gender violence as part of a social dialogue about Law 779, covering a variety of textual realms. The goal of the project is to explain how different mediums and social actors explain gender violence by studying discourse and narrative modes. The debate centered on Law 779’s re-balancing of power relations and its controversy stemmed from its challenge to existing family structures, which disguise masculine authority and impunity. The inertia of the status quo proved strong, with Law 779 being reformed and regulated between 2012 and 2014, reverting its original radical spirit. The chapters are divided into discursive mediums. In the first chapter I study the legal texts of Law 779: the legislative debates, the law’s original text, the Reform of the law, and the Regulation of the law. I conclude that its eventual deformation resulted from conservative and religious sectors’ anger over the prohibition of judicial mediation, and the reinstatement of mediation constituted a regressive reestablishment of masculine authority—a renewed politics of control over the feminine. The second chapter focuses on the Nota Roja crime section of the Nicaraguan newspaper, El Nuevo Diario, examining how hegemonic notions of femininity determine representations of femicide victims. I also analyze the spectacle of femicide perpetrators, monstrous masculinities portrayed as outside of culture. The third chapter is about contemporary Nicaraguan detective and novela negra fictions by Sergio Ramirez and Franz Galich. I study the “criminal-protagonists,” whose characterization and development include violent intimate implosions that end in femicide, signaling crisis tendencies in Nicaraguan masculinities. Finally, the fourth chapter extracts public comments from the online forums of Nicaraguan newspapers about the Law 779 controversy. These comments reveal fear over balancing out power relations in favor of women, with extreme polarization over the meaning of intimate relations. My dissertation leans on diverse geopolitical expressions of feminist theory that critique the legal, physical, and symbolic manifestations of asymmetrical power relations favoring masculine dominance and impunity. In the same vein of systemic criticism, I turn to inquiries about neoliberal models of thought and social organization that critique their polarizing and binary view of human relations. At this conjuncture in neoliberal governance the law is malleable and subject to partisan maneuverings. This affirms that seeking the protection of the State continues to be a conflictive proposition for feminist movements against gender violence.
Ileana Rodríguez, Dr. (Advisor)
Laura Podalsky, Dr. (Committee Co-Chair)
Ignacio Corona, Dr. (Committee Member)
275 p.
Latin American Literature; Womens Studies
Gender Violence; Central America; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Latin America; Nicaragua; Femicide; Feminicide;

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Citations

  • Miklos, A. Z. (2015). Mediated Intimacies: Legal, Literary, and Journalistic Textualities of Gender Violence in Post-War Nicaragua [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429722169

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Miklos, Alicia. Mediated Intimacies: Legal, Literary, and Journalistic Textualities of Gender Violence in Post-War Nicaragua. 2015. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429722169.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Miklos, Alicia. "Mediated Intimacies: Legal, Literary, and Journalistic Textualities of Gender Violence in Post-War Nicaragua." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429722169

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1429722169
763
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.