Abstract
The triangular green scarf is the symbol of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Free and Safe Abortion in Argentina. After being used in grass-roots activism for more than a decade, during 2018, the symbol tainted in green color the massive mobilizations during the first parliamentary debate on abortion legalization and was adopted in several Latin American countries. In this chapter, I analyze this process of symbolic “contagion” in Chile and Argentina considering the role of emotions and affects. The green scarf was key for the creation of “attunement” and intense affective atmospheres in public protest. Also, in both countries, feminist artistic activism reinvented the symbol and took its affective force and significance even further. All in all, this chapter emphasizes the relevance of affects to understand how movement symbols for reproductive rights and justice can spread across national borders and be a crucial catalyst for political action.
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Acknowledgement
I am especially grateful to the artistic activism groups featured in this article: Nosotras Proponemos. Asamblea Permanente de Trabajadoras del Arte and Trabajadoras del Arte y la Cultura de Chile . I also thank Angie Mendoza Araneda, Barbara Sutton, Francesca Santoro Orge, Gimena Castellón Arrieta, Karina Granieri, Lieta Vivaldi, and María Alicia Gutiérrez for their input, support, and collaboration. English translation by Mallory N. Craig-Kuhn.
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Vacarezza, N.L. (2021). The Green Scarf for Abortion Rights: Affective Contagion and Artistic Reinventions of Movement Symbols. In: Macón, C., Solana, M., Vacarezza, N.L. (eds) Affect, Gender and Sexuality in Latin America. Gender, Development and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59369-8_4
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