Abstract

RIOS, Lucía. Written Ontologies and Topographies of Terror: Inquiries into the Corpses of People Killed by Repressive Practices in 1976 (Córdoba, Argentina). Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2025, n.60, pp.161-180.  Epub Aug 08, 2025. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda60.2025.07.

This article stems from my doctoral and current postdoctoral research, which ethnographically examines the treatment of the bodies of individuals killed by repressive practices in the 1970s in Córdoba, Argentina. The focus is on deaths caused by the actions of police and military forces and the ways in which these killings were carried out during those years. The article explores how written ontologies and topographies of terror were configured in the documents produced at the provincial morgue of Córdoba in 1976. The methodology is based on an ethnography of documents, involving the systematization of their producers, the terms employed, the marks inscribed in the writings, and the spaces and mechanisms through which they circulated. The analysis makes it possible to conceive of the “morgue book”-compiled by morgue workers in 1976 and serving here as a primary source-as a locus where clues of a topography of terror and written ontologies emerge. In the writing, actors, and spaces of repression in Córdoba at the onset of Argentina’s last civic-military dictatorship can be identified. The article contributes an ethnographic investigation into a specific archive in Córdoba, guided by analytical coordinates not previously applied. It draws on conceptual tools that enable a methodical and richly descriptive study of a politically and socially turbulent period in Argentina. This contribution is significant not only for researchers working on these issues, but also for human rights organizations in Córdoba and for society as a whole, in the ongoing effort to strengthen policies of memory, truth, and justice.

Keywords : Archive; corpses; dictatorship; documents; ethnography; morgue..

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