the last place on earth you probably want to be

So, I handed in my essay about the arpilleras movement in Chile. This essay lays the groundwork for a topic of research that I’d like to pursue in more depth. There seems to be an openness in Latin America for women leaders and I’m curious as to what social, political or economic factors contribute to this openness. My initial thought correlates massive oppression and quick recovery to the acceptance of women as leaders — where strong leadership is more pertinent than the gender of the leader. I’m not sure. In any case, here are some of my thoughts about the representation of arpilleras and what it means for Chilean politics.

Subcultures exist as a response to a dominant culture, and are often defined by overt visual markers that identify members as distinct from what is considered “normal”. The arpillera movement in Chile transcends these guidelines, instead uniting its members through the pieces of art produced during a time of extreme oppression. Created by women in secret during the Pinochet regime between 1973 and 1990, the arpillera movement is one that attempted, through craft, to highlight the lies, violence, repression and unemployment¹ they experienced throughout the dictatorship. Jacqueline Adams and Eliana Moya-Raggio take different approaches when discussing the arpillera movement. Adams identifies the power the arpillera had to unite social movement organizations in Chile, while Moya-Raggio gives significance to the movement as a feminist force. Adams references a photograph of men carrying an arpillera during a protest against the regime, but fails to acknowledge its true significance: men carry the arpillera in solidarity with the women who made them. They are not only aware of the clandestine movement, but accepting of women’s active role in the fight for democracy. They use the women’s protest art as a symbol for an entire pro-democracy movement.

The oppressive regime that spurred the beginnings of the arpillera movement was installed with brutal force on September 11, 1973. A military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet (a junta that was trained and funded by the U.S.,²) bombed the Palacio de la Moneda (the Presidential Palace) when socialist President Salvador Allende refused to resign. Allende was killed in the bombings, and Pinochet began his reign over a country that did not elect him. Democratic socialism in Chile met its transient end.

While Chile experienced an economic boom between 1976 and 1979,³ civil liberties, social justice and the due process of law took a backseat to the singular view of the dictatorship. Pinochet was “determined to exterminate leftism in Chile”⁴ and his junta has been “widely condemned for its harsh suppression of dissent”.⁵ Suppression came in the form of arbitrary arrests, kidnappings, tortures and killings. Thousands simply vanished without a trace and were never heard from again. Any professional who could possibly propagate dissent was forced into exile. Massive social oppression and widespread unemployment led dissenters to create clandestine organizations⁶. One of those organizations was that of the arpilleristas.

An arpillera is a small tapestry created by sewing or gluing different materials together to create a pictorial scene. A traditional Chilean craft, arpilleras were adopted as a form of clandestine protest by women who suffered at the hands of the dictatorship. Facilitated by the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, a human rights organization set up by the Catholic Church,⁷ the arpilleras created by women at this time were sold internationally to help them cope with the poverty and unemployment that left them and their children in precarious social and economic conditions. Many of their towns had endured military raids; their husbands were kidnapped or killed, or left without work. Arpilleras document these experiences through both literal and symbolic depictions. The arpilleras represent a generation of women who came together in protest against Pinochet (as opposed to through their skill in crafts) to produce markers of their suffering.

Jacqueline Adams, in her paper “Art in Social Movements: Shantytown Women’s Protest in Pinochet’s Chile”, uses arpilleras as an example of the power of art as a device in social movements that take place under oppressive circumstances.⁸ Discussing their role as information providers, framing devices, and as a unifying symbol, Adams largely ignores the significance of the women who were developing these tools and producing avenues for social, economic and political change. She reduces the women involved to being a handy tool in inspiring empathy internationally, where the arpilleras were sold. An arpillera depicting a soup kitchen “inspires pity by showing…a woman who, in despair, covers her face with her hands and says, ‘There won’t be enough [food]’…The fact that the arpilleras were made by women struggling to feed their families was poignant”.⁹ Adams fails to acknowledge the women’s conscious and autonomous involvement in the clandestine movement, and, in a short paragraph under the heading “Gender Implications”, describes the women’s involvement as a response to “distress and concern for their families’ welfare”.¹⁰ Instead of identifying the women as active agents of change in an oppressive regime, she labels their involvement as circumstantial. This highly undervalues the role of women in the restoration of democratic socialism in Chile.

Eliana Moya-Raggio substantiates the movement’s actions by identifying the conscious decision-making of the arpilleristas. Acknowledging that the movement was indeed “born from the need for solving problems of daily subsistence” she honours the agency of the members by describing the culture as one “whose dynamism is fed by struggle against the dictatorship”.¹¹ The reclaiming of voice that occurred within the arpillera movement transformed a woman from “passive observer to active participant”¹² and in doing so, used a traditionally feminine craft as a tool of testimony. In light of the oppressive nature of the regime, the act of making an arpillera, regardless of whether it was seen, was protest in itself. The urgency to record events of oppression was an attempt to forget nothing and tell everything.¹³ Moya-Raggio acknowledges the women’s roles even in her definition of an arpillera: “The arpilleras incorporate women as active participants in the struggle, and they carry a strong social and human message”.¹⁴ The social and human message was not only propagated internationally “as a sign of veritable diaspora”,¹⁵ but was also spread within Chile, in secret. Despite their continued clandestine existence and complete absence from mainstream visual culture, arpilleras survived as a symbol against the dictatorship.

Jacqueline Adams references a photo in her paper but misses the mark in identifying its significance. It is captioned “Arpillera depicting a dove carried by front-line marchers in a protest”.¹⁶ Adams uses this photo to demonstrate how art in oppressive environments is used as a symbol to unite the many different social movement organizations active in Chile at the time. Adams claims that, “as a symbol, the arpillera was useful because it served to label and lend coherence to the heterogeneous groups that made up the movement during protests”.¹⁷ While this is true, the real significance of the photo lies in who is holding the arpillera. The front-line marchers are men. The men’s participation in the protest indicates awareness not only of the arpilleristas, but the conditions under which they were created. The adoption of the women’s art as a unifying symbol for a number of social movement organizations speaks to an openness toward women’s involvement in the fight against the dictatorship. Women are active participants, and men acknowledge them as equal counterparts in leading the protest.

This photo must be considered in the context of gender politics in Chile prior to and during the Pinochet dictatorship. Chile was, and continues to be, an extremely religious country, with a 1970 census identifying 70% of the population as Catholic. Another 7.1% identified as Protestant.¹⁸ As a result of this religious climate, men and women assumed traditional roles as breadwinner and homemaker respectively. Chile was the last country in the western hemisphere to legalize divorce, in 2004, although annulments were a popular mode of marriage dissolution.¹⁹ The current representation of women in government seems disproportionate to cultural attitudes that dictate social environments.

The women of the arpillera movement helped to establish the representation of women in Chilean politics by asserting themselves as active participants and agents of change during the Pinochet regime. While women still maintain traditional roles socially and economically, they have secured positions in the government (and labour force) traditionally reserved for men.²⁰ This shift reached its pinnacle with the inauguration of socialist Michelle Bachelet, whose election in 2006 was, in itself, a political statement against Chile’s recent dismal past. A divorced, single mother, Bachelet’s father was tortured by the Pinochet regime and died in prison.²¹ Bachelet and her mother spent time in a prison before their exile in Austria, where she earned her doctorate in children’s medicine.²² Before becoming President, Bachelet was the Defense Minister in Chile, considered to be a “high prestige” Ministry in which nine other women served in the 1990s (compared to zero in the 1980s) in all of Latin America.²³ Her political and familial past challenge the position that women held prior to the dictatorship, and exemplify the resolve that women asserted throughout it.

Adams and Moya-Raggio both identify important representational elements of the arpillera movement, although Moya-Raggio describes the women’s involvement as transcending circumstance and as having purpose beyond subsistence. Jacqueline Adams merely covers the usefulness of the arpillera in a social movement without acknowledging the significance of the women involved. An examination of the photograph of front-line protesters reveals a new context in which to understand women in Chile; the fact that men carry the arpillera suggests a bond created out of human suffering that transcends the expected gender code of a country that values Christianity and tradition. While the arpillera movement can’t be identified by the same visual cues as some subcultures, their existence as a response to a dominant (though not necessarily majority) culture remains to be true.

Bibliography
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² “Documents Reveal U.S. Funding for Chile Coup.” CNN. 13 Nov. 2000. 13 Nov. 2007 .
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⁵ “Pinochet, Augusto.” Encyclopædia Britannica.
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⁷ Adams, Jacqueline. “Art in Social Movements”. 30.
⁸ Adams, Jacqueline. “Art in Social Movements”. 22.
⁹ Adams, Jacqueline. “Art in Social Movements”. 35–36.
¹⁰ Adams, Jacqueline. “Art in Social Movements”. 50.
¹¹ Moya-Raggio, Eliana. “‘Arpilleras’: Chilean Culture of Resistance.” Feminist Studies 10 (1984): 277-290. JSTOR. OCAD, Toronto. 30 Oct. 2007. Keyword: arpillera. 277.
¹² Moya-Raggio, Eliana. “‘Arpilleras’”. 278.
¹³ Moya-Raggio, Eliana. “‘Arpilleras’”. 280.
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¹⁵ Moya-Raggio, Eliana. “‘Arpilleras’”. 280.
¹⁶ Adams, Jacqueline. “Art in Social Movements”. 44, Fig. 7.
¹⁷ Adams, Jacqueline. “Art in Social Movements”. 43.
¹⁸ “Chile Religious Demographic Profile.” The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. 15 Nov. 2007 .
¹⁹ “Chile: Divorce Law Goes Into Effect, Creating Avalanche of Requests.” Retanet. 16 Nov. 2007 .
²⁰ Escobar-Lemmon, Maria, and Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson. “Women Ministers in Latin American Government: When, Where, and Why?” American Journal of Political Science 49 (2005): 829-844. JSTOR. OCAD, Toronto. 16 Nov. 2007. Keyword: women in politics, Latin America. 833.
²¹ “Chile Gets First Female President.” CBC. 15 Jan. 2006. 16 Nov. 2007 .
²² “Chile Gets First Female President.” CBC.
²³ Escobar-Lemmon, Maria, and Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson. “Women Ministers in Latin American Government: When, Where, and Why?” 838.