Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/213492

Title

Emotions, deep memory and haunting: overcoming entrenched ideological and political divisions in Argentina

Author(s)

Stockwell, Jill

Abstract

Though thirty-five years since the military took power, Argentina still grapples with how to remember the period of political violence and state terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s. In the past several decades, moral and political claims about how this past should be collectively remembered by the nation have caused deep political and societal divisions. Little attention has been paid to how societies rework the past through exploring individuals' emotions and affect and their role in constituting group identity and the attachments that bind communities. This paper draws on first-hand oral testimonies taken from two groups of Argentine women who 'stand for' two antithetical versions of the recent Argentinian past, two versions that have actively sought recognition and legitimacy amidst intense ideological battles in the political, social and cultural arenas over who has what rights to determine what should be remembered and how, and over the ownership of historical memory. In the paper I aim to deepen the discussion about how we can move beyond such seemingly entrenched ideological and political divides that seek to perpetuate themselves in various cultures of public remembrance by acknowledging and exploring the role played by individual emotions and affect in generating and shaping collective emotions and affects, thereby producing new forms of antagonism and solidarity within memorial cultures.

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology

Source

Paper presented at the 2012 Historical Justice and Memory Conference, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 14-17 February 2012

Publication year

2012

Keyword(s)

20th century history;  Argentina;  Collective memory;  Cultural memory;  Deep memory;  Emotions;  Group identity;  Haunting;  Historical memory;  Identity constructions;  Ideology;  Military rule;  Political divisions;  Political violence;  State terrorism

Publisher

The Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology

Publisher URL

http://www.historicaljusticeandmemoryconference.net/

Copyright

Copyright © 2012.