Sharing the Pronoun. Extreme violence, social resistance and the shaping of cultural memory in Spanish American contemporary documentary poetry

Project Information

SHAPE

Grant agreement ID: 101061978

DOI

10.3030/101061978

Project closed

EC signature date 29 September 2022

Start date 1 February 2023

End date 31 January 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 284 877,20

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SHAPE (Sharing the Pronoun. Extreme violence, social resistance and the shaping of cultural memory in Spanish American contemporary documentary poetry)

Reporting period: 2023-02-01 to 2025-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SHAPE proposes a groundbreaking cultural approach to the study of 21st-century Spanish American documentary poetry, examining its role as a form of social and community resistance in shaping a collective memory of extreme violence in Latin America. This unique poetic genre integrates a wide range of external sources—ethnographic records, historical archives, chronicles, visual and audiovisual materials, and virtual documents—none of which have been created by the poet. The incorporation of these external texts into poetry, a traditionally intimate and non-mimetic form, generates a stylistic short circuit that has manifested in diverse ways across Latin America. In this context, documentary poetry has emerged as a powerful means of articulating the tragic consequences of systemic, institutional, and non-institutional violence against marginalized communities, including women, migrants, Indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Despite its crucial social function and increasing prominence in Latin American literature, no comprehensive study has yet examined this genre in depth. SHAPE aims to fill this critical gap by developing a model of interpretation that situates documentary poetry not only as an aesthetic expression but also as a fundamental tool for preserving and constructing social memory around suffering and resistance.
To achieve this, SHAPE adopts an interdisciplinary methodological framework that bridges literature, cultural studies, cultural history, and ethnography. This approach will allow for an in-depth investigation of how documentary poetry contributes to acts of resistance against extreme violence while fostering new cross-cultural reflections on institutional and social oppression in Latin America. Additionally, SHAPE seeks to explore literature’s potential as a means of countering racial and social discrimination. The project is being developed in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, strengthening its international and cross-disciplinary scope.
SHAPE is the first comprehensive study to examine Spanish American documentary poetry about extreme violence from a cultural perspective. Its overarching goal is to assess the capacity of this poetry to construct and sustain social memory while functioning as an act of political and social resistance. To achieve this, the project investigates the following key objectives:
a) The Ontological Status of Documentary Poetry as a form of Engaged Art
SHAPE explores documentary poetry’s dual role as an artistic form and a political instrument, examining its ability to engage with pressing social realities. The project critically analyzes the relationship between documentary and poetry, focusing on how the inclusion of factual elements shapes the artistic dimension of the genre. Central to this inquiry is an exploration of intertextual appropriation and de-appropriation—how documentary poetry navigates the ethical complexities of speaking for and with marginalized voices.
b) The Role of Documentary Poetry in Constructing Social Memory and Identity
SHAPE investigates how documentary poetry has developed in Spanish America as a means of building a shared cultural memory of violence and shaping the identities of vulnerable communities. From a Cultural History perspective, the project examines the intersections of violence, the body, language, and representation, identifying how documentary poetry not only gives voice to the silenced but also reinforces the urgency of collective remembrance. Beyond academic discourse, this poetry has influenced social activism, inspiring public initiatives such as writing workshops that engage communities in shared acts of social storytelling. SHAPE will incorporate an ethnographic perspective to analyze these participatory literary practices and their role in fostering solidarity and historical consciousness.
c) The Stylistic and Structural Characteristics of Contemporary Spanish American Documentary Works
To construct a systematic model of interpretation, SHAPE examines a corpus of ten contemporary Spanish American documentary works that address forms of extreme violence. The project will analyze how poets employ key literary strategies such as intertextuality, intermediality. By integrating textual and socio-political analysis, SHAPE seeks to demonstrate how documentary poetry transcends conventional literary boundaries, emerging as an active form of political intervention.
By combining literary analysis with interdisciplinary insights, SHAPE aims to establish a new theoretical framework for understanding the intersection of poetry, documentary material, and social activism in Latin America as a priviledge way to promote a broader discussions on memory, resistance, and the role of art in confronting historical trauma.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

SHAPE has introduced the study of 21st-century Spanish American documentary poetry as a form of social and community resistance in shaping a collective cultural memory of extreme violence in Latin America. Methodologically, SHAPE has prioritized the analysis of this poetic form through the lens of Cultural Studies, redefining aesthetics within a more engaged political, social, and economic framework. This approach allows poetry to be understood not merely as an intellectual or introspective exercise but also as a dynamic political and social practice. SHAPE began by exploring the aesthetic interplay between documentary and poetry, as well as the role of factual elements in shaping the artistic dimension of documentary poetry. Analyzing these foundational concepts has been essential to understanding the aesthetic rupture created by incorporating documentary materials into a genre traditionally seen as intimate and non-mimetic. SHAPE has demonstrated that this rupture challenges the intertextual act of appropriating the voice of the other. The central question posed is: to what extent does the act of speaking on behalf of victims of violence risk perpetuating a new form of harm? Rather than merely blending factual content with lyrical expression, documentary poetry creates a material battleground on the page—one that interrogates the ethics of representation and the necessity of granting these voices genuine agency. These voices do not require reproduction; their resistance must simply be unleashed through a text that does not speak for them but alongside them. In this context, SHAPE has examined how documentary poetry contributes to the formation of vulnerable subjects' identities and responds to the urgent need for constructing a shared cultural memory of extreme violence. This distinctive function of documentary poetry has also given rise to social initiatives beyond academia, including public workshops. An ethnographic perspective has been adopted to analyze the dialogical nature of these activities and their role in fostering discourse at the intersection of literature, culture, political ideology, and society.
With base on this theoretical core, SHAPE has studied a corpus of ten contemporary Latin American poets who address violence against vulnerable communities—including migrants, women, Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and LGBTQ+ individuals—through documentary poetry. This research spans Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Argentina. In particular, SHAPE has investigated how these poets employ strategies such as intertextuality, intermediality, defamiliarization, archival materials, and ethnographic sources. This model of interpretation seeks to demonstrate how documentary poetry functions as a form of political practice rather than a solipsistic form of writing.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

SHAPE has successfully introduced an innovative methodology for investigating documentary poetry, integrating interdisciplinary approaches from Literary Studies, Cultural History, and Ethnography. This framework addresses the pressing need to construct and preserve social memory in response to systemic violence, highlighting the crucial role literature plays in this process. Rather than limiting itself to a philological analysis of poetic texts, SHAPE’s approach provides a broader and more nuanced perspective, allowing for a deeper engagement with the structural and institutional forms of violence that persist across Latin America.
The findings so far demonstrate that an interdisciplinary understanding of documentary poetry—as a form of collective resistance against extreme violence—can be extended beyond poetry to other literary genres, including narrative and theatre. By doing so, SHAPE is challenging conventional interpretations that regard the use of documentary elements merely as a tool for enhancing textual verisimilitude. Instead, the project has contributed to a growing scholarly movement that views documentary poetry as an art form that does not simply reflect reality but actively interrogates it. This perspective compels readers to shift their focus from what a text is to what a text does—particularly in relation to its political and social impact beyond the literary sphere.
SHAPE is thus opening new critical avenues for examining this shift toward an ethical and socially engaged dimension of poetry. To fully grasp this transformation, the project has demonstrated that the inclusion of documentary material within poetic texts is not just a strategy to reinforce realism but a means of critically problematizing the relationship with the "other." The incorporation of documents into poetry carries not only an aesthetic function but also a profound political and ethical significance. This process involves the re-use and recontextualization of materiality—both the physical document and its mediated existence in archives—highlighting the tensions inherent in representing the voices of others.
In this sense, SHAPE’s contributions extend beyond the study of poetry, offering valuable insights into broader cultural and political questions. The project’s findings have the potential to inform future research on the relationship between literature and various forms of activism, shedding light on the ways in which literary texts can serve as sites of resistance, remembrance, and social transformation. By foregrounding the ethical stakes of documentary poetry, SHAPE underscores the power of literature not only as a means of storytelling but as an active participant in shaping historical memory and political discourse.

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