Staged memories: Conflicts and tensions in Argentine public memory sites

Abstract

The creation of museums, archives and other memorial sites since the start of the millennium has generated debates in Argentina over how and on whose behalf these spaces should be ‘recovered’, what their narratives should account for and who should be in charge of them. Less critical effort has been devoted to what comes next, namely, what happens once memories, in having been turned over to the public space, have become available ‘for everyone’. What conflicts are being unleashed by memory’s inscription in the public realm? This article analyses some of these in relation to the display of images of the disappeared, to exhibitions incorporating sensitive material and to the incorporation within archives and museums of minoritarian memories.

Witnessing in the echo chamber: From counter-discourses in print media to counter-memories of Argentina’s state terrorism

“…This process is comparable to oppositional discourses becoming subsumed into official or mainstream media (Bamberg and Andrews, 2004; Macgilchrist, 2007), a theory that is not applicable to this study because the oppositional stance to the dictatorship is sustained throughout the corpora of both newspapers. Moreover, contemporary debates around Argentina’s dictatorship remain characterised by tensions surrounding which political and legal approaches to human rights abuses to adopt (Robben, 2012), as well as what should be remembered and where this remembering should take place (Da Silva Catela, 2014). As a result, Gamson and Wolfsfeld’s (1993) ‘fundamental ambivalence’ between official and counter-discourse and memory is more reflective of the socio-political reality of the context under analysis.…”

Sonorous memory in Jonathan Perel’s El predio (2010) and Los murales (2011)

“…Regarding the ESMA site in particular, in January 1998, the Menem government sought to subdue demands to overturn the amnesty laws by decreeing that ESMA should be demolished and replaced with ‘a monument as a symbol of democratic co-existence among Argentines and their will to be reconciled with one another’ (Da Silva Catela, 2015: 9). As Ludmila da Silva Catela (2015) notes, however, with the passing of this presidential decree ‘a battle for memory began’ (p. 9). Beginning in 1998, human rights groups used legal recourse to prevent the demolition and, following the intervention of the City of Buenos Aires, it was first proposed in 2000 that ESMA should become ‘a space for memory’ (Arenillas, 2013: 373).…”

“…This ambiguity thus leads to another fundamental question which was subject to considerable debate during the process of reconverting ESMA into an ‘Espacio de la Memoria’: the role of the State. As Da Silva Catela (2015) notes, from the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Kirchner administrations established and implemented a new state-led memory politics by creating important archives, cultural centres and memorial sites, and incorporating cultural memory into public policy through numerous initiatives (pp. 10–11).…”

“…The audience view the present reality of the former detention centres but, as both sites were used as garages while functioning as extermination centres, the soundtrack situates the deception that was used to mask the reality of torture and murder in our present moment. Just as the graffiti covered walls of the former CDCs remind the viewer that, despite the successes and best attempts of the Kirchner administrations, the resumed trials for crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship have proceeded at a painfully slow pace (Winn, 2015: 334–355), these sounds evoke contemporary abuses of power such as the 2006 disappearance of Julio Jorge López as he waited to appear as a witness against those responsible for his kidnap in 1976 (Lorenz and Winn, 2015: 61); Facundo Rivera Alegre’s disappearance in Córdoba in 2012 (Da Silva Catela, 2015: 14); the arbitrary imprisonment since January 2016 of the social activist Milagro Sala by the governor of Jujuy province (who supports President Macri) despite calls for her release emanating from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations, Amnesty International, international academics and the current Pope (Agostini, 2017; CELS et al, 2016; Molina, 2017; Página/12 , 2017b; The Guardian , 2016a, 2016b); or, even more recently, the tragic case of Santiago Maldonado on 1 August 2017. On this date, police violently raided a protest in defence of the land rights of the indigenous Mapuche community in which Maldonado had participated.…”

Aportes para la enseñanza universitaria de la historia reciente: Una revisita a las memorias de la dictadura argentina a través de dispositivos audiovisuales

“…El gobierno de facto, por su parte, buscó legitimar su accionar, entre otras cosas, a partir del contraste con el «caos» de los últimos años democráticos y de colocarse en el lugar de «salvador de la nación». De acuerdo con la lectura de Lvovich, una transformación significativa en las representaciones del pasado dictatorial se dio «tras la derrota de Malvinas [cuando] el conjunto del régimen militar fue puesto en cuestión, y el pasado inmediato resultó objeto de una marcada reinterpretación» (Lvovich y Bisquert, 2008: 25;véase también Carassai, 2017;Da Silva Catela, 2015). Esto nos permite desandar una lectura monolítica que recrea una sociedad argentina abroquelada en una sola actitud, o acorralada por el terror que no daba lugar a disidencias.…”