Bodies in Crisis

Born and raised in Argentina and still maintaining significant ties to the area, Barbara Sutton examines the complex, and often hidden, bodily worlds of diverse women in that country during a period of profound social upheaval. Based primarily on women’s experiential narratives and set against the backdrop of a severe economic crisis and intensified social movement activism post-2001,Bodies in Crisisilluminates how multiple forms of injustice converge in and are contested through women’s bodies. Sutton reveals the bodily scars of neoliberal globalization; women’s negotiation of cultural norms of femininity and beauty; experiences with clandestine, illegal, and unsafe abortions; exposure to and resistance against interpersonal and structural violence; and the role of bodies as tools and vehicles of political action. Through the lens of women’s body consciousness in a Global South country, and drawing on multifaceted stories and a politically embedded approach,Bodies in Crisissuggests that social policy, economic systems, cultural ideologies, and political resistance are ultimately fleshly matters.

Barbara Sutton is an assistant professor of women's studies at the University at Albany, SUNY, affiliated with the Departments of Sociology and Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies. She is the coeditor of Security Disarmed: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Militarization (Rutgers University Press).