Human Rights and the Memory of Political Violence and Repression: Constructing a New Field in Social Science

ELIZABETH JELIN

Rethinking Development in Latin America

Pennsylvania State University Press

Lugar: University park, Pennsylvania; Año: 2005; p. 183 - 201

The paper deals with the emergence of a new research area in Latin American social sciences: human riths and societal memories of repression and political violence. This interdisciplinary field emerged out of the transitions from dictatorships in the Southern Cone during the nineteen eighties. The paper presents the conceptual roots and the historical conditions leading to this field, tracing the genealogy from the sixties. It shows how the changes in socio-political realities in teh region presented interpretive challenges, leading to shifts in frameworks and paradigms in the social sciences.