Political voice as an embodied practice in the construction of feminist memories

Abstract

Through an exploratory analysis, this paper presents some notions of the concept of voice to review them from a feminist perspective. This reflection is situated within the context of two significant women's movements in twentieth-century Chile: the early century movement of women workers and the women's movement that arose during the Chilean dictatorship. Through interdisciplinary discussion, this paper explores patriarchal conceptions that have historically constrained women's opportunities to take the floor, reflects on the different practices that involve voice and its documentation, and argues that the concept of voice can be fruitful for studying and constructing feminist memories. Consequently, in this essay, voice is conceptualized as a category historically associated with female bodies. As such, the notion of voice has been subjected to the same attacks, biases, and silencings as the bodies that produce it.