Lucero

“Un violador en tu camino” is a protest-performance that combines language and movement to indict the state and expose its role in the perpetuation of violence against women. Created by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis, it was first performed in Santiago in November 2019. In the months following, it quickly spread beyond the borders of Chile, having been performed in cities from London to Istanbul to New Delhi to Mexico City to Montreal, and beyond the Spanish-speaking world, translated into over a dozen languages. This paper considers an attempt by incarcerated women at Santa Martha Acatitla Women’s Penitentiary in Mexico City to perform their own version of the protest within the prison walls. Through “Un violador en tu camino” the women at Santa Martha resist carceral discipline and produce an affectual connection with the outside that unsettles carceral space. This power of the protest lies in the coordination of voices and bodies in a combined affect, rendering it, as this paper argues, a manifestation of Spinozan potentia. Through the lens of Latin American feminist theory and drawing on recent work in performance, embodiment, and new materialisms, this paper aims to celebrate the power (potentia) of the women at Santa Marta by considering the theoretical stakes of their collective reclamation of body and voice. The reticence, fear, and ultimate refusal by prison authorities to authorize the performance of “Un violador en tu camino” within the prison walls speak to the power of their combined affect.