Human Rights in Argentina: Putting in question existing accounts and providing an alternative framework of analysis

MERCEDES BARROS

Colchester, Reino Unido

Conferencia; Third Essex Graduate Conference in Political Theory,; 2002

University of Essex

My aim in this paper is to critically examine some of the most important accounts of the human rights movement and discourse in Argentina and explain why an alternative analysis seems to be necessary if a comprehensive and substantive understanding of the movement’s emergence and constitution is to be achieved. To do this, I will start by presenting a brief description of the existing approaches, dividing the relevant literature in three broad groups. Afterwards, I will proceed to a more detailed analysis of the writings looking at how the process of emergence and constitution of the movement and the discourse it articulates has been explained by the literature. Having done this, I will draw my attention to some of the difficulties and limitations that the various approaches present. In this regard, I will put special emphasis on the lack of explanation regarding the conditions that made possible the emergence of the human rights discourse in the country. That is, I will show how these approaches fail to explain when and how the groups of the relatives could in fact articulate their claims in a human rights’ language, and how as a result of this, they also fail to show how the human rights movement was constituted. Finally, bearing in mind this problem and the other limitations it brings about, I will present the elements of an alternative theoretical framework through which a more adequate reading of the movement and the human rights discourse can be constructed