El Exilio as a Contemporary Issue and Permanent Condition for Nicaraguan and Venezuelan Journalists

Abstract

Our current understanding of exile, or el exilio in the Latin American context, is dominated by historical references, an “illusion of impermanence”, and impersonal conceptualisations which ignore the condition’s complex subjectivities and gendered dynamics. Particularly in the current era of deteriorating press freedom, which forces hundreds of journalists in Latin America and worldwide into exile every year, the conceptual ambiguity of the exilic condition hinders a clear understanding of the challenges and needs of those exiled journalists. Thus, in an attempt to contribute to updating the canon of Latin American exile, I propose an exploration of el exilio as a contemporary, permanent, and inherently gendered journalistic condition based on interviews with currently exiled journalists from Nicaragua and Venezuela.