Mujer magia, transformando el dolor en arte. Una investigación acción participativa feminista con mujeres que han vivido violencia de género.

Abstract

The myths of romantic love legitimize violent relationships, perpetuate hegemonic gender roles and female submission. Intimate partner violence is the most common, dangerous and normalized in the Ecuadorian context.

In this research my objective is to analyze the personal trajectories of a group of twelve women survivors of intimate partner violence. My research questions are: What myths of romantic love have marked the personal trajectories associated with gender violence? How to deconstruct the myths of romantic love from and Feminist Participatory Action Research (IAPF) process? What counter-hegemonic conceptions emerge from artistic productions made by survivors of violence?

I used the epistemological positions of situated knowledge proposed by Donna Haraway (1995), the Feminist Decolonial perspective (Lugones, 2008), for the methodology, I made two participatory approaches, the IAPF and narrative productions.

Together with the participants, we elaborated narrative productions about each experience in which we found that the myths of romantic love allowed problems such as: control, harassment, blackmail, victimhood, blame, damage to their honor, use of their bodies, malicious questioning of their physique or intelligence, coercion, disorders, abandonment, domestic slavery, intentional contagion of the TSI's, threats against their integrity and that of third parties, beatings, coercion for the use of drugs, rejection of identity sexual confinement, rape, induced abortions and attempted femicide. All practices of classified violence and others that are not covered by the theory.

From these experiences, we carry out a process of individual artistic creation as a form of symbolic reparation and an alternative to the complaint. We also managed to create support networks that have transcended the group with which we have carried out this process and which currently includes more than 400 women.