Abstract, Memories between Eras: ANFASEP’s Leaders before and after Peru’s Internal Armed Conflict

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Memories between Eras: ANFASEP’s Leaders before and after Peru’s Internal Armed Conflict

by Mercedes Crisostomo Meza

During Peru’s internal armed conflict (1980–2000), many women formed associations of relatives of victims to demand truth, justice, and reparations. The Asociación Nacional de Familiares de Secuestrados, Detenidos y Desaparecidos del Perú (National Association of Relatives of the Kidnapped, Detained, and Disappeared of Peru—ANFASEP) was the first of these organizations. Accounts by its leaders of their early lives challenge the stereotypes of them employed in previous studies and point to changes in their senses of identity in the postconflict period. Their memories are part of the development of a self-narrative in which new rationales emerge and they are led to question the validity of the characterization of them as poor, illiterate, dependent women unaware of having rights.

Introduction, Brazil’s Crisis of Memory: Embracing Myths and Forgetting History

:::::: Introduction ::::::

Brazil’s Crisis of Memory: Embracing Myths and Forgetting History

by Paulo Simões

In the late evening of Sunday, September 2, 2018, shortly after closing time, a fire broke out in Brazil’s National Museum. In little more than an hour the blaze had completely engulfed the building, gutting its many galleries and storage areas holding priceless scientific and historical artifacts. Though firefighters valiantly attempted to squelch the conflagration, their job was impeded by the fact that the two closest hydrants were inoperative and water had to be pumped from a nearby lake on the property. All hope was lost when its wooden roof, covered in red terra-cotta tiles, caved in, crushing any objects that might have withstood the heat and leaving only the outer shell of the building standing. Though miraculously there were no injuries reported, because the fire took place after closing hours, the depth of the catastrophe did not fully become visible until the dawn hours of the following day, when the remains of what once had been Latin America’s largest natural history museum and, for more than 60 years, the residence of Emperors Dom Pedro I and Pedro II lay in smoldering ruins. Gone were over 20 million irreplaceable specimens of Brazilian flora and fauna and taxidermic animals (many of them the sole examples of now extinct species) collected over two centuries; Egyptian mummies, Middle Eastern clay tablets, and Greco-Roman artifacts brought over from the Old World by the second monarch; Luzia, the oldest known human skeleton found in the Americas; thousands of books, documents, notebooks, illustrations, paintings, and letters; scientific equipment; and the revered building itself, with its frescoed walls and decorated ceilings, once the symbol of the Brazilian monarchy. Senator Marina Silva, the former environment minister, likened this disaster to a “lobotomy of the Brazilian memory.” The museum’s vice director stated sadly that the destruction of the museum was “an unbearable catastrophe. It is 200 years of this country’s heritage. It is 200 years of memory. It is 200 years of science. It is 200 years of culture, of education” (Horton, 2018)

Abstract, The Araguaia Guerrilla War (1972–1974): Armed Resistance to the Brazilian Dictatorship

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Araguaia Guerrilla War (1972–1974): Armed Resistance to the Brazilian Dictatorship
by Janaína de Almeida Teles    

The Araguaia guerrilla war (1972–1974) was an attempt to reconcile armed struggle and political awareness that became a sort of “guerrilla focus” with roots in the peasant population, which assumed a decisive role in the resistance to military repression. This period was characterized by the centralization of operations of information and repression, consolidating the tactic of “political disappearance” in Brazil. The military occupation terrorized the population to mitigate any multiplier effect of the insurgency, and its success reverberated throughout the continent. At the same time, denunciations of its human rights abuses helped to erode the dictatorship.

Abstract, Constructing Memory through Television in Argentina by Claudia Feld

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Constructing Memory through Television in Argentina 
by Claudia Feld

Television represents Argentina’s recent past through three specific links with social memory: as an “entrepreneur of memory,” shaping public agendas, as a vehicle of intergenerational transmission of past events, and as a creator of meaning through images, sounds, and words, a “stage for memory.” An analysis in terms of the links between television and the memories constructed around the forced disappearance of persons during the 1976–1983 military dictatorship reveals the complex way in which the obstacles when narrating an extreme experience are combined with the attempt to sell a product and entertain the spectator.

Abstract, Constructing Memory through Television in Argentina by Claudia Feld

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Constructing Memory through Television in Argentina 
by Claudia Feld

Television represents Argentina’s recent past through three specific links with social memory: as an “entrepreneur of memory,” shaping public agendas, as a vehicle of intergenerational transmission of past events, and as a creator of meaning through images, sounds, and words, a “stage for memory.” An analysis in terms of the links between television and the memories constructed around the forced disappearance of persons during the 1976–1983 military dictatorship reveals the complex way in which the obstacles when narrating an extreme experience are combined with the attempt to sell a product and entertain the spectator.

Genesis, Uses, and Significations of the Nunca Más Report in Argentina by Emilio Crenzel

Genesis, Uses, and Significations of the Nunca Más Report in Argentina
by Emilio Crenzel

| | | Abstract | | |

The Nunca Más (Never Again) report was prepared by Argentina’s Comisión Nacional sobre la Desapareción de Personas (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons), created in 1983 to investigate the fate of thousands of persons who were disappeared during the dictatorship. It was used in the prosecution of the military juntas, to convey the past to the new generations, and as a model for the reports of truth commissions established in other Latin American countries. Because of its canonical nature, it illustrates the politics of memory regarding forced disappearances in Argentina following the return to democracy.

La Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas fue creada en 1983 para investigar el paradero de las miles de personas que fueron desaparecidas durante la dictadura en Argentina. Su informe Nunca Más sirvió para procesar a las juntas militares y dar a conocer el pasado a las nuevas generaciones y como modelo para los informes de las comisiones de la verdad que se establecieron en otros países latinoamericanos. Debido a su carácter canónico, sirve para ilustrar las políticas de la memoria sobre las desapariciones forzadas en la Argentina después del regreso de la democracia.

CLICK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
Genesis, Uses, and Significations of the Nunca Más Report in Argentina
by Emilio Crenzel

Latin American Perspectives 2015 42: 20-38