Displays of Violence in Public Space

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the narratives of 30 Paraguayan women about their experiences in the Paraná Tri-Border Area (between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay). It focuses on the violence they face in the public spaces of Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), at the border crossing, and in Foz de Iguazú (Brazil). It identifies that female mobilities constitute a search to avoid and circumvent these experiences of violence. Furthermore, cross-border movements allow women to access knowledge that is not available to them in Paraguay. However, in these displacements, they undergo a dialectic between the reproduction and the interruption of violence. Although the daily border mobility empowers them to overcome economic dependence and domestic violence in Paraguay, it exposes them to violations at the hands of drug or human trafficking networks or xenophobic and racial discrimination in Brazil. The border crossing enables women to avoid their caregiving and domestic task overload, but this burden is transferred to other women (usually their mothers and sisters). Therefore, female mobility simultaneously deepens the structural and relational dimensions of violence while allowing the women to build resistance mechanisms and empower themselves by negotiating their roles and the meanings of their presence in the private and public spheres.