“Alza tu mirada, alza tu voz: Alchemizing Violence towards an Epistemic of Liberation”

• In Event: Mexicana Spacemaking Practices: Creativity, Defiance, and Courageous Vulnerabilities

Abstract

In this presentation, I discuss the importance of Mexicana, Indígena, Chicana, Latina, and Black feminist praxis of disruptive affect as an alchemizing force that can transform the harmful impacts of interpersonal and structural violence to make way for genuine coalition-building. In looking to the significant events that impacted the Danza Azteca communities in Minneapolis, MN from 1998-2000, I offer an example of the ways that migrantes Mexicanas responded to violence within their danza community and began to model a Mexicana feminist counterspace, creating a new model for spiritual and cultural expression, thus alchemizing violence into a catalyst for change.

Presenter

• Idalia Robles De León, University of California, Santa Barbara