Keywords
Abstract
Issue 24 of Políticas de la Memoria and the fifth installment of the section Sexo y Revolución finds us in times of distress and danger. While the previous years presented their own difficulties, it is undeniable (and increasingly evident to those who chose this path, allied with it, or still hold hope) that the effects of the current government (and the political, corporate, and trade union sectors that support it) are devastating. Recession, unemployment, poverty, and hunger are growing at the same pace as the spread of hate speech and direct attacks from those in representative or managerial positions who target feminism and LGTBI+ groups. If we once fought to enforce and expand a set of laws that upheld human rights and fundamental recognition for a democratic life, now we see how we are being blamed for the conservative reaction, how attacks are being normalized, and how we are witnessing the underfunding and direct dismantling of spaces that we maintained with great effort. CeDInCI, and therefore the Feminist Political Memories and Sex-Generics Program, “Sexo y Revolución”, suffer from this generalized situation and redouble efforts to sustain the collective work that brings us together and encourages us to continue.
In this case, we share a bond between Argentina and Chile that is an expression of one of the objectives we set in dialogue with the advisory committee of the founding 2016 meeting for the Program. We always envisioned an open space that would be nourished by the personal and collective experiences that preceded us, and we expressed it as follows:
The Program seeks to establish and consolidate cooperative relationships with other existing or developing archives, especially those dedicated to feminist and sex-generic political memories, as well as with other institutional and/or activist proposals for work, consultation, or interpretation concerning the materials available within CeDInCI. These cooperative relationships will aim to build networks that guarantee both solidary communication and collective critical work, as well as the exchange of tools among the different initiatives dedicated to the systematization of political experiences aligned with the objectives of this Program.
While taking those first steps, we learned about the experience that activist, philosophy PhD, educator, and passionate promoter of cross-Andean exchanges, Panchiba F. Barrientos, was developing in Santiago, Chile. A first shared panel opened up a lasting exchange, as demonstrated by the text presented in this issue. It was a special request to the author, a memory she had not yet written about the Biblioteca Fragmentada and Archivos Feministas projects—two creations that are valuable in themselves and serve as a creative foundation to sustain the flow of ideas, materials, relationships, and experiences related to the activism that brings us together. We can undoubtedly say that these are projects that have inspired us, and with which we are excited to continue the struggles that affect us.
In recent years, both countries have gone through political tremors, sometimes hopeful, like the Chilean social explosion, and sometimes overwhelming, like the persistence of the far-right trying to subjugate us on all fronts. In short, if there is a possible path, it is together, in a dialogue that, without smoothing out differences, grows from common premises and shared plans. The following text speaks to all of this and, above all, to the vibrant enthusiasm of collective projects that, even in the worst isolation, managed to flourish, multiply, and cross borders time and time again.