Marcha das Vadias: performing disidentification in transnational protests

Abstract In 2011, protests against rape culture ignited across the globe. Inspired by SlutWalk Toronto (SWT), organizers planned protests that adapted the rhetorical features of SlutWalk to their local contexts. This article examines the visual rhetoric of Marcha das Vadias (MDV), a series of satellite protests in Brazil. I argue that protestors enacted disidentification as a response to the constitutive rhetoric of SlutWalk, bringing into focus how ideologies of race, class, and religion interact with norms of sex and gender to reinforce rape logic. The translation of “slut” to “vadias” centered the linguistic and cultural contexts of contemporary Brazil while maintaining solidarity with the broader SlutWalk movement. Protestors deploy seven rhetorical personae that resituate the constitutive narrative of the movement. Altogether, their performances of personae enact a rhetoric of survivance, which utilizes collectivity, structural critique, non-linear temporality, and storytelling to resist systems of oppression.