Maternidades en cautiverio. Experiencias de maternidad, embarazo y parto en centros clandestinos de detención durante la última dictadura militar argentina

Abstract

uring the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983), women accounted for about 30% of the total number of victims of state repression. These detainees suffered a diverse and specific repertoire of gender-based violence. In this context, many women who were abducted pregnant or with their young children were subjected to differential forms of surveillance, control and violence on their bodies. Most of the pregnant women who gave birth in captivity are disappeared and their children were appropriated by army and security forces members. The present paper aims to think over the experiences of mothering in the clandestine detention centers during the last Argentine military dictatorship from a gender perspective. We will inquire into the conceptions about family, motherhood and the social role of women that underlay the actions of the perpetrators of the violence against those women. Based on the analysis of testimonials from surviving women, we will reconstruct the specific repressive modalities applied to pregnant detainees. Finally, we will analyze the meanings that survivors assign in their memories to their experience of mothering in captivity.