Militantes que son mujeres : Margaret Randall, produção intelectual e o testemunho das cubanas e nicaraguenses em contextos revolucionários

Abstract

In this dissertation, we aim to analyze the voices of Latin American women in revolutionary contexts through the testimonies collected by the U.S. poet, intellectual, and activist Margaret Randall in Cuba and Nicaragua between 1972 and 1984. As sources, we examined her testimonial books; opinion pieces published in books, newspapers, and magazines; testimonies transcribed in newspapers and magazines; issues 22, 23, 28, 29, 30 and 31 of the bilingual Mexican magazine El Corno Emplumado/The Plumed Horn (1962–1969); Randall’s two memoirs, I Never Left Home (2020) and My Life in 100 Objects (2020); interviews available on several digital platforms; and three interviews conducted by the author of this dissertation with Randall between August 2023 and May 2024 at her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA). A significant portion of the material consulted is available at the Margaret Randall Papers Archive at the Center for Southwest Research (CSWR), at the University of New Mexico (USA). In order to achieve our objectives, our research relies on the methodology of Intellectual History and the History of Intellectuals, including a view of intellectual networks from a transnational perspective. Yet, this dissertation is also based on the theoretical and methodological frameworks of Gender Studies and Decolonial Theory as counter-hegemonic alternatives to investigate the Cuban and Sandinista revolutionary contexts, relying on feminism as a useful analytical category to observe and reflect upon these processes, engaging with the historiography of feminisms and Latin American revolutions. We began this dissertation with an analysis of Randall’s personal and intellectual trajectory, with special attention to the period in which she lived and worked politically, artistically, and intellectually in Latin America between 1962 and 1984. The understanding of her role as a transnational mediating intellectual, along with her perception regarding her public action as such, was the perspective through which we observed her synthesis on the situation of Latin American women. From these questions and the testimonies, we question the “waves” narrative in feminist historiography. This research focuses on understanding how Randall: used testimonio as a vehicle; developed a methodology and gave meaning to her work with orality; and engaged with a broader context of testimonial production in Latin America. These issues are foundational to the interpretive lens through which we analyzed the testimonies of Latin American women recorded by Randall, with the goal of identifying how Cuban and Nicaraguan women participated militantly in the political and intellectual formulation in the insurrectionary processes of their respective countries. The central points analyzed were: how this integration and participation of Latin American women in armed and political struggle happened; what revolutionary agenda they defended in the process of constructing a “new society”; what project of revolution they supported; what relationship they established with revolutionary organizations and governments, and their leaders. These points were observed since the tension with a feminist debate enunciated from the global North in the second half of the twentieth century; and reflecting on the impact of revolutionary contexts on the lives of Cuban and Nicaraguan women.