Mediated Intimacies: Legal, Literary, and Journalistic Textualities of Gender Violence in Post-War Nicaragua

My dissertation examines representations of femicide as gender violence in legal, journalistic, literary, and online cultural production in contemporary post-war Nicaragua. I begin with the passing of Law 779, the Integral Law Against Violence Towards Women, approved by the Nicaraguan National Assembly in February 2012. The law fills a legal vacuum in the country by codifying femicide, as well as sexual, psychological, patrimonial, and labor abuse into Nicaraguan law as gender specific crimes. Prohibiting the long-standing practice of police and judicial mediation between accusers and aggressors, Law 779 set out to endow women with judicial agency in what had been largely hostile and re-victimizing institutional spaces.;The focus of the project is cultural, examining representations of gender violence as part of a social dialogue about Law 779, covering a variety of textual realms. The goal of the project is to explain how different mediums and social actors explain gender violence by studying discourse and narrative modes. The debate centered on Law 779's re-balancing of power relations and its controversy stemmed from its challenge to existing family structures, which disguise masculine authority and impunity. The inertia of the status quo proved strong, with Law 779 being reformed and regulated between 2012 and 2014, reverting its original radical spirit. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).