Violence and patriarchy as a literary faces of a pedagogy of cruelty in Latin America

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss, based on decolonial criticism, the marks of patriarchal violence bequeathed by the colonial process as a constant in the works of Latin American writers. To this end, we intend to undertake the analysis of the representation of feminicide in three literary works by contemporary authors: Ponciá Vicêncio, by Conceição Evaristo; Black Romance with Argentines, by Luisa Valenzuela; and Never Fire Never, by Diamela Eltit. A critical reading of the works demonstrates that the violence exerted on the female body since the conquest process has decisively affected the marks of a pedagogy of cruelty (Segato, 2018) that reverberates in the reproduction of gender violence in the socio-cultural context of Latin America. The work has theoretical support from decolonial political feminisms (Vergès, 2020) and indicates that Latin American women's literature acts as a possible form of counter-pedagogy of cruelty, in the form of denunciation or protest.