María Marta Quintana

María Marta Quintana holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires and is a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), based at the Patagonian Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (IPEHCS, CONICET–Universidad Nacional del Comahue). Her research focuses on performativity, affects, subjectivation and memory, as well as on political articulations between human rights activism and sex-gender activism in post-dictatorship Argentina. She leads a research project on critical trans-queer-feminist epistemologies (UNCo) and directs a postgraduate program in Gender Studies at the Universidad Nacional de Río Negro.

The project

Title: Study of Argentine and Latin American Travesti–Trans Activism as a Site of Theoretical and Political Production Situated in the Global South.

"This project examines Argentine and Latin American travesti-trans activism as a site of theoretical and political production situated in the Global South. It focuses on three interrelated dimensions. First, it seeks to delineate the contours of Latin American Travesti Theory (TTL) as a collective and embodied form of knowledge grounded in travesti experiences and activism. Second, it explores travesti-trans memory practices in response to colonial, racial, and cis-heteropatriarchal violence, with particular attention to the Archivo de la Memoria Trans (Argentina) and to non-pathologizing approaches to trauma, memory, and affect. Third, it examines coalitional practices and forms of agency developed by travesti-trans activism, including its articulations with human rights and feminist movements."

Hosting institution: Centre Population et Développement (CEPED)

Selective Bibliography

• Cabrapan Duarte, Melisa, and María Marta Quintana. 2026. “Mapuche Resurgences and Decolonial Travesti Theory: Critique (and Failure) of the Hetero-Wingka-Patriarchy.” Oxford Intersections: Gender Justice. Oxford University Press.
• Quintana, María Marta. 2022. “Arte, afecto y concepto en la teoría travesti-trans latinoamericana de Marlene Wayar.” El lugar sin límites 4 (7): 100–121.
• Azarian, Fidela, and María Marta Quintana. 2024. “La (bio)politización de la identidad en Argentina: reflexiones sobre las luchas de Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo y del activismo travesti/trans.” In Laboratorio de resistencias frente al neoliberalismo, edited by Andrea Torrano, Fidela Azarian, and D. Scarcella, 103–128. Córdoba: Ediciones CIECS (UNC/CONICET).
• Morales, Virginia, and María Marta Quintana. 2022. “Legado, amistad y performatividad. Un análisis de los vínculos entre los activismos de derechos humanos y sexogenéricos en la Argentina de posdictadura.” Revista de Historia 23: 115–139.
• Quintana, María Marta. 2022. Derivas de la sangre. Performatividades discursivas en Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Villa María: Eduvim.