Art as refuge and protest: Autobiography of a young political prisoner in Argentina

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Abstract
Through the use of the case study method (Wallace & Gruber, 1989) I will examine the development of moral responsibility through creative expression under extreme, life‐threatening, conditions. As the title of this article suggests, there exist various enterprises which at times serve different affective functions and become integrated in creative acts of moral responsibility at some peak of the process of maturation of the individual. This article argues for the occurrence of five phases in the development of my moral consciousness in relation to creativity. I passed through these five phases in the development of moral responsibility in the course of my own experience as a political prisoner in Argentina during 4½ years of incarceration. I will examine these stages as they were manifested under extreme conditions. In political prisons in Argentina, for example, the moral obligation of the individual was to preserve the physical and psychological integrity of the self. The five phases developed here were thought out during the course of 7 years following my imprisonment, when I was able to reflect on my experience with some distance. I developed the idea for the five phases not only through my own experience but also through discussions with fellow political prisoners about their own moral development through creative acts.

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