Memory, Truth, and Justice in Contemporary Latin America

Roberta Villalón is a Fulbright scholar, associate professor of sociology, and the chairperson of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at St. John’s University, New York City.

This volume analyzes memory, truth, and justice struggles in Latin America, and their achievements and limitations, in what editor Roberta Villalón terms the “second wave” of such mobilizations. It also aims to offer “activist scholarship” to contribute to changing the conditions that perpetuate injustice and impunity. The book poses some key issues across a range of countries. . . . The volume raises provocative questions and adds to our understanding of diverse responses to impunity in Latin America.

• IntroductionRoberta VillalónPart I: Framing Collective Memory: Counter-Hegemonic and Master NarrativesIntroduction to Part IRoberta VillalónChapter 1: Genesis, Uses, and Significations of the Nunca Más Report in ArgentinaEmilio CrenzelChapter 2: “We’re All Victims”: Changes in the Narrative of “National Reconciliation” in ArgentinaValentina Salvi, translated by Luis Alberto HernándezChapter 3: Irreconcilable Differences: Political Culture and Gender Violence during the Chilean Transition to DemocracyHillary Hiner and María José AzócarPart II: Defining Historical Periods, Blame, and ReparationIntroduction to Part IIRoberta VillalónChapter 4: The Memory of the National and the National as MemoryJuan PobleteChapter 5: Between Two Pasts: Dictatorships and the Politics of Memory in BoliviaFrancisco Adolfo García Jerez and Juliane Müller, translated by Margot OlavarriaChapter 6: Colombia’s Gallery of Memory: Reexamining Democracy through Human Rights LensesErika MárquezPart III: Cultures of Trauma, Healing, and JusticeIntroduction to Part IIIRoberta VillalónChapter 7: Trauma and the Politics of Memory in the Uruguayan DictatorshipLorenzo D’OrsiChapter 8: Living with Ghosts: Death, Exhumation, and Reburial among the Maya in GuatemalaVirginia GarrardChapter 9: Argentina’s Trials: New Ways of Writing MemorySusana KaiserPart IV: Arts, Media, Museums, and MemoryIntroduction to Part IVRoberta VillalónChapter 10: The Murals of La Victoria: Imaginaries of Chilean Popular ResistanceAlexis Cortés, translated by Margot OlavarriaChapter 11: Choreography of a Massacre: Memory and Performance in the Ayacucho CarnavalRenzo Aroni Sulca, translated by Margot OlavarriaChapter 12: Reckoning with Dictatorship in Brazil: The Double-Edged Role of Artistic-Cultural ProductionNina Schneider and Rebecca J. AtencioChapter 13: Historical Memory at El Salvador’s Museo de la Palabra y la ImagenDiana Carolina Sierra BecerraConclusion: Complexities, Controversies and the Value of Collective Memory and Social JusticeRoberta VillalónBibliographyAbout the Contributors