INVESTIGADORES
JELIN Elizabeth
capítulos de libros
Título:
The past in the present. Memories of past violence in contemporary Latin America
Autor/es:
ELIZABETH JELIN
Libro:
Memory in a global age. Discourses, practices and trajectories
Editorial:
Palgrave McMillan
Referencias:
Lugar: Londres; Año: 2010; p. 61 - 78
Resumen:
In the following, I will present an
overview of the historical transformations of the struggles around the meaning
of a conflictual political past. I focus specifically on the experience of the
countries in the Southern Cone of Latin America Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, and particularly Argentina in
the aftermath of the dictatorships that pervaded in the region during the 1970s
and 1980s. The key question to be addressed refers to the ways in which social
and political actors deal with, and try to make sense of, the past (while often
remaining in the realm of non-sense). These processes take place on multiple
levels and layers: from personal processes of healing and/or the maintenance of
open wounds amongst survivors, through symbolic representations and cultural
performances, to institutional practices such as trials, investigative
commissions, economic reparations, monuments and territorial markers, and
commemorations.
If the recent past is marked by political conflict
that involved harsh state repression, it may be followed by many attempts to
find closure, to solve and suture the past wounds and ruptures, and to come
to terms with the past. In this process, different actors express their will
to present one unified narrative of the past, trying to make their own
interpretation the hegemonic, legitimate, official or normal one, with the
hope that it will become part of common sense, accepted by large parts of the
population. However, struggles develop among conflicting and competing
interpretations and memories of the past, and debates ensue on where these
understandings and memories should be located in the democratization process.