Spazi di eccezione nel Cile di Pinochet: un’analisi di genere delle violenze sessuali nei centros de detención (1973-1989)

This article aims to examine the sexual violence occurred in Chilean centros de detención during the Pinochet regime (1973-1989) by drawing on Giorgio Agamben's deinition of the State of Exception (1995). With the intent of showing the continuity between the Neoliberal turn of post-Pinochet Chile and the separation of masculinity and femininity in the prison camps, both the statements of the victims – men and women – and the testimonies published by the Commissions of Truth in the years following the military regime will be analyzed. In this way, the biopolitical purpose of sexual violence will be emphasized: this approach intended to ix on the victims' bodies a deined gender identity and to which a process of separation between private and public spheres had to correspond. Finally, the article will explain how sexual violence the result of a broader operation of political refounding of Chile after the coup was