Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This project focuses on Honduran women’s uses of poetry and storytelling as literary genres to document their vernacular memories (Bodnar, 1992) of protest and resistance in the aftermath of the 2009 coup d’etat, and the 2016 assassination of Berta Cáceres. It aims to identify the types of discourses Hondureñas documented around human rights, creative expression, nationalism, and how their identities were shaped in the poetry anthology Women’s Poems of Protest and Resistance: Honduras (2009-2014) (Elvir Lazo, 2015), and the collection of resistance stories 13 Colores de la Resistencia Hondureña (Cardoza, 2016). These poems and stories capture the sensuality of Honduran revolution led by women, show the emergence and praxis of feminist consciousness, and demonstrate how Hondurans resignified Honduran nationalism during a tumultuous political and historical shift. These testimonies also provide insight into the current increasing migration patterns by Hondurans to Mexico and the United States bringing forth an urgency to understand Honduran histories and their collective and individual memories in transit. These memories articulated through poetry and storytelling create counternarratives towards limited visual and text-based media representations of Honduran identities. Both of these Honduran epistemological artifacts can make contributions in the domains of Honduran memory studies, Honduran rhetorics, Honduran feminist rhetorics, and Central American Studies.