Project Description
The research is being undertaken by a team consisting of Professor Catherine Davies (Director, Nottingham), Dr Hilary Owen (Co-director, Manchester), Dr Claire Brewster (Research Associate, Nottingham), Charlotte Liddell (PhD student 2001-2004, Manchester, researching on Brazil), and Iona MacIntyre (PhD student 2002-2005, Nottingham, researching on Argentina). IT support for the project is provided by Teri Browett (Humanities Research Centre) and Sze Yeung, IT Systems Information Services, Nottingham. The database was originally set up by Dan Smith, University of Manchester, with amendments by Graham Watson, University of Nottingham. Jennifer Edmond was website manager from January 2004 until July 2005.
The published output will consist of a monograph, a database, articles in refereed journals, working papers, and editions of rare works.
Research Questions: The project is a textual and historical study that investigates the ideas and activities of women who, as a social group, contributed to the making of public culture in early nineteenth-century Latin America but were largely excluded from it. This necessitates an examination of how gender shaped the political discourses of Latin American independence. Some of the research questions are: What were the links between politics and sexual difference? How were women constructed as subjects and objects in contemporary political discourse? What was women's political culture and associational life, where was it, how was it manifested? How did women respond to Republican discourses of individual rights? What were the contradictions in Latin American political discourse arising from its formulations of gender categories?
Methodology: The methodology is interdisciplinary and text-based involving archival retrieval and discourse analysis. The research scope is continental. Research has been undertaken in Latin America; Buenos Aires, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, and Quito. We will establish a principal corpus of texts by retrieving relevant published and unpublished material. They will identify and examine gendered political discourse. Women's political culture will be investigated through enquiry into women's family-based or community networks. The database registers women's participation, writings and organizations.