Abstract

KRIGER, Miriam Elizabeth  and  GUGLIELMO, Luciana Cecilia. Social and Family memories of the civic-military dictatorship: biographic narratives of the members of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo association. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2017, vol.40, suppl.1, pp.45-63. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v40n1Supl.65906.

The article contributes to the study of recent pasts, social memories, and human rights in contexts of State terrorism. Specifically, it analyzes the relation between the social and family narratives of some of the founders of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo association, made up of mothers whose children were disappeared during the last Argentinean civic-military dictatorship (1976-1983). This proposal is framed in the field of studies of the recent past in Argentina and focuses on the process of construction of social memories between 2003 and 2015, during the Kirchner administrations (that of Néstor Kirchner, 2003-2007, and those of Cristina Kirchner, 2007-2011 and 2011-2015). This period was selected, first, due to the abrogation of the pardon laws that emphasized forgetting - thus reactivating the prosecution of those responsible for terrorism in the form of crimes against humanity- and, secondly, because it made the struggle for human rights and the memory of the dictatorship a State policy that involved the majority of the foundational actors, such as the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.

The article presents the results of an ongoing research project aimed at contributing to the problematization of the changes in the regime of social memories, through the family narratives of forcibly disappeared persons. These are extremely dynamic political processes that include diverse emblematic narratives, some new and some in the process of being built, which coexist in a conflictive manner. Thus, the historical weight and visibility of each memory can vary over time. It can become a strong or weak memory depending on the moment and the role granted to it by the State and by society. The article presents the biographic narratives of three members of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo association, resulting from semi-structured and in-depth face-to-face interviews carried out ad hoc, in which these memories are brought into play in different registers. Selected fragments are included in order to illustrate the modalities of recognition of their disappeared children and the tensions between their identity as young people and their condition as militants.

Keywords : Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo; identity; youth; social memories; family narratives; politics.

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