The (Over)-Embroidered History: Images of Laotian Refugee Women in Latin America

Abstract

This article analyzes the life sustainability strategies, beyond survival, of Laotian refugee women after four decades of their arrival in Latin America, which can be traced in some cultural practices and aesthetic productions. The author, by means of an ethno-geo-graphy –a search focusing on certain practices of the image and stories in relation to their surroundings and trajectories– traces the political and reconstructive capacities of the aesthetics of resistance in the face of deep violence scenarios. The article concludes with some reflections on how the aesthetics of Laotian refugee women constitute a process of settling into and enchantment with reality; a poetics and politics of a relation with the contemporary world chaos.