Abstract

This chapter presents a historiographic debate on the role of women in the armed conflicts that shaped the Paraná Tri-Border Area (between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay). It starts with a discussion of the analytical categories underpinning the “gender turn” in the historiographic perspective, which was fostered by the feminist debates in this field. It also investigates these categories’ interpellation with the studies of gender violence in Latin American border regions. After these introductory debates, the chapter delves into historiographic studies, reviewing how the colonial period intensified the patriarchal patterns of abuse towards native women in the territories of the Paraná and Iguazú river basins, showing the confluence between racist and civilizational discourse and attacks on the female body. Furthermore, its review deepens, focusing on studies of the nineteenth-century conflicts, given the importance the War of Paraguay (1864--1870) had on defining the borders between the three countries and the identity, gender, and racial ideologies regarding Paraguayan women. In the closing remarks, we propose some reflections that correlate our historical reconstruction with the debate on gender violence in border areas.