Social Memory in Post-Atrocity Contexts

Abstract

The construction of social memories that are fair to the past and that can also contribute to peaceful futures is a challenge for societies in the aftermath of conflict; they must dismantle silences that occult complicities and culpabilities, while crafting a balanced account that avoids the perpetuation of violence. The 20th century witnessed a series of atrocities that were covered by repression and denial, which can be evidenced in the systematic use of paramilitary squads and in the disappearance of corpses across many Latin American countries. One of the testimonies of a local leader in the region of Chocó describes this situation:

In 1997, the paramilitary arrived, and well, we already know the methods that they used in that period. They killed and threatened people; they dismembered, tortured, and disappeared them. We did not know where they were; we do not know where they really were buried; they threw their bodies to the river, we do not know. They are completely disappeared.

(Interview, April 2012)

The recent so-called memory boom — the rise of interest in memory in academia and other sectors of civil society and among policymakers — manifests a desire to resist the silence promoted by perpetrators of atroc-ities and the intention of supporting victims’ rights.