South American Independence: Gender, Politics, Text

The struggles for independence in Latin America during the first half of the nineteenth century were accompanied by a wide-ranging debate about political rights, nationality and citizenship. In South American Independence, Catherine Davies, Claire Brewster and Hilary Owen investigate the neglected role of gender in that discussion. Examining women writers from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Colombia, the book traces the contradictions inherent in revolutionary movements that, while arguing for the rights of all, remained ambivalent, at best, about the place of women. Through studies of both published and unpublished writings, South American Independence reveals the complex role of women in shaping the vexed ideologies of independence.

Catherine Davies is a Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies and the former Director of the Institute of Modern Languages Research at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Claire Brewster is a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham. She is author of Responding to Crisis in Contemporary Mexico (University of Arizona Press, 2005). Hilary Owen is a Professor Emerita in Portuguese and Luso-African Studies at the University of Manchester and a Research Fellow in the Sub-Faculty of Portuguese Studies at the University of Oxford.