Operación Araña: reflections on how a performative intervention in Buenos Aires’s subway system can help rethink feminist activism

Mariela Méndez

doi:10.1590/s2178-14942020000200004

Abstract

Abstract On July 31, 2018, Buenos Aires’s subway system was overtaken by a public intervention under the name “Operación Araña,” co-organized by Ni Una Menos - a feminist social movement focused on gender violence -, the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, unionized metro workers, and more than seventy organizations, with the overall intention of affirming women’s autonomy and calling attention to several social issues with direct impact on their lives. This study weaves a series of reflections on some of the specific features of the Operación Araña intervention that can shed light on how and why the new feminist wave in Argentina has gained such momentum while gauging its impact on redefining what we understand as activism. Drawing from Judith Butler’s notions on the performative political potential of the assembly (Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, 2015), this article unveils the various forms of embodied resistance staged in the public space by this new surge of activists, popularly called the “green tide” after the color identifying the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion. In claiming a unique and radical performative space wherein to exercise agency and display new forms of organization, the green tide also has by the same token laid claim to a reconfigured public space conducive to new forms of sociality and the preservation of all lives.

Highlights

On July 31, 2018, Buenos Aires’s subway system was overtaken by a public intervention co-organized by Ni Una Menos — a feminist social movement focused on gender violence, the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, unionized metro workers, and more than 70 organizations, with the overall intention of calling attention to a series of social issues with direct impact on women’s lives
The last “Martes Verde” (Green Tuesday), named after the color identifying the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion and adopted in turn by the movement Ni Una Menos, was devoted to Operación Araña (Operation Spider), the subway intervention on July 31
The activists taking to the streets in all these marches have managed to express collectively their extreme vulnerability and how this vulnerability translates into extreme forms of state, judicial, police, and domestic violence. Their bodies have spoken like never before, and through megaphones and via slogans and hashtags written on Operación Araña: reflections on how a performative intervention in Buenos Aires’s subway system can help rethink feminist activism banners, headscarves, flags, and fliers

Summary

Colaboração Especial

Operación Araña: reflections on how a performative intervention in Buenos Aires’s subway system can help rethink feminist activism. Operación Araña: reflexões sobre como uma intervenção performática no metrô de Buenos Aires pode ajudar a repensar o ativismo feminista Operación Araña: reflexiones sobre cómo una intervención performática en el subterráneo de Buenos Aires puede ayudar a repensar el activismo feminista

Introduction

Burning bodies out of hiding