Women at war: visual culture, gender relations and citizenship in South America (1864-1884)

• Grant number: 25/07567-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Plastic Arts
• Principal Investigator: Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni
• Grantee: Nathan Yuri Gomes
• Supervisor: Monica Raisa Schpun
• Host Institution: Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: École Des Hautes Études En Sciences Sociales, France
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/05220-3 - Women at war: visual culture, gender relations and citizenship in South America (1864-1884), BP.DR

Abstract

The doctoral research aims to identify and catalog images (paintings, drawings, engravings, photographs, sculptures, etc.) depicting women involved in the war against Paraguay, considering the different roles they occupied in the conflict's imaginary: warriors, nurses, vivandières, victims, enemies, etc. The goal is to understand not only the contexts of production, circulation, and reception of these images but also their relationship with gender and power dynamics in the countries involved in the war. The investigation is a critical reflection on the role of visual culture in the process of redefining gender relations within South American societies at the end of the 19th century. Another dimension of the research involves analyzing how women's participation in the war was represented outside the Platine context, both in illustrated press coverage and through the circulation of photographs between America and France. In this transatlantic relationship, cultural transfers between the Plata countries and France are of particular interest, given the strong tradition of representations of the woman-war binary in French visual culture during the 18th and 19th centuries. Thus, the research project seeks to conduct a systematic investigation in museums and archives in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and France. The objective is to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon (the link between the female imaginary in war and social gender dynamics) through a comparative analysis of different national contexts, while considering the relationship between the creation of these images and the transformations in the production and consumption of images in South American societies at the end of the 19th century.