Wronged bodies: gendering human rights abuses in contemporary Greek poetry

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article surveys the ways in which contemporary Greek poetry unveils human rights abuses in Greek society in order to push for law and social policy reforms that protect gender identity, expression, and freedom as well as holding governments and institutions accountable for their enforcement. In the context of feminist, anti-fascist, and queer rights activism in Greek culture and society, this analysis discusses how poetry that exposes femicide and queer violence challenges the provisions of both Greek law and the universality of human rights. Stemming from post-human feminist and queer critiques of dominant ethno-patriarchal structures, poetry becomes a medium of collective mourning, public commemoration, and justice-seeking for victims of hate crime, homophobia, racism, and misogyny. For the past decade, such interventions have reinforced the formation of a counter-archive of poetry responding to the aftermath of violence and hatred levelled at LGBTQ communities, women, and immigrants in Greece. Aiming at rendering visible the lives and deaths of victims of gender-based violence such as Zak Kostopoulos/ Zackie Oh, Eleni Topaloudi, and Vaggelis Giakoumakis, this article seeks also to examine how the horizon of poetry can be reformulated as one of social sustainability that interrogates the crisis of biopolitical survival.