ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8860-2070
Date of Award
Fall 2025
Language
Spanish
Embargo Period
11-29-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College/School/Department
Department of Africana, Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies
Program
Spanish - Latin American, Caribbean, and Latina/o Studies
First Advisor
Alejandra Bronfman
Committee Members
Gabriel Hetland; Ilka Kressner; Kaysha Corinealdi
Keywords
Women cultural managers, women artists, feminism, Panama, Panama Canal Zone, militarism
Subject Categories
Latin American History | Latin American Languages and Societies
Abstract
This dissertation explores the political activism and leadership of women cultural managers and visual artists in Panama City between 1970 and 1985. I pause to analyze instances in which Panamanian women managers and visual artists led cultural activities aimed at implementing cultural policies during the Omar Torrijos Herrera regime. These cultural policies were aimed at strengthening Panamanian nationalism in response to the political, economic, and military presence of the United States government in the Canal and the Zone. In this dissertation, I suggest that professional artists, women cultural managers, and visual artists were the principal architects of the proclamation of national sovereignty. In the generation of multiple cultural agendas, I demonstrate that the military regime did not exclusively conceive the cultural policies. In the conception and implementation of cultural policies in Panama, several actors were involved; at times, they work in harmony, and at others, they impose their individual motivations, political stances, and even biases regarding gender. In this dissertation, I argue that while the signing of new treaties between Panama and the United States that would return sovereignty to Panama over the Canal and the Zone was possible as a result of the diplomacy led by the Panamanian diplomats with a prolific career in diplomacy and in the legal field, The achievement of Panamanian sovereignty was also possible through the determination of women who held leadership positions in the military regime's bureaucratic system, women capable of advancing their professional careers while ensuring the well-being of Panamanian families. They embraced the cause of sovereignty over the Canal and the Zone, seeing themselves not only as defenders of the territory but also as protectors of the future Panamanian citizens who would live in a territory free of U.S. presence. Women cultural managers such as Marcela Camargo, Reina Torres de Araúz and the women members of the Board of Directors of the Panamanian Institute of Art (Panarte), whom I called as, Non Aligned Panamanian Women (Panameñas No Alineadas)were central figures in the creation of spaces and government actions aimed at disseminating many cultural products and visual art not always aligned to the cultural policies promoted by the military regime to traditionally marginalized sectors who were secluded from these cultural spaces before the establishment of the National Institute of Culture. In this research, I demonstrate that, through their actions, the Non-Aligned Panamanians complicate this notion of the revolutionary mother woman perpetuated in the discursive and visual constructions of the military regime. The creativity of the women who are part of this research led them to develop a visual art that did not exclusively explore notions of gender or sovereignty. Instead, it proposed unconventional topics, such as monstrosity, science fiction, or body fragmentation. The cultural managers and visual artists who participated in implementing cultural policies did not always follow either the guidelines established by the military regime or a suffocating feminist agenda. Instead, they took advantage of the space granted by the military regime to advance their own professional goals, implementing cultural activities, including museum projects, and creating a vibrant community cultural agenda that expanded audiences and sought to bridge the gap between urban and rural Panamanians.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Miranda Pestana, Andrea C., "Panameñas No Alineadas: Mujeres Gestoras Culturales y Artistas Visuales durante el Régimen Militar de Omar Torrijos Herrera 1968-1985" (2025). Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present). 339.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/etd/339