If memory serves
Subtitle: Constructing the democratic project in Chile.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 250
Subjects: Human rights -- Chile.; Democracy -- Chile.; Memory -- Chile.; State-sponsored terrorism -- Chile.; Disappeared persons -- Chile.; Chile -- Politics and government -- 1973-
Description: Under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, human rights groups and victims of the regime, inside the country and in diaspora, embodied the counterpoint to institutional lies and violence from their position as a marginalized and persecuted constituency. As a significant byproduct to the human rights agenda, this sector retained memory and refused to relinquish truth to official state stories. In pursuing their own program for (re)democratization and the pursuit of justice and truth they preserved elements of material culture and created new evidentiary records which have the capacity to affect the composition of the national narrative. History, the story of the received past, and the ongoing (re)democratization project in Chile remain a site under construction.Many countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America have been engaged in democratic transitions following periods of dictatorship and war. Frequently, these transition governments have been the result of pacted agreements between divided constituencies in newly emergent, but unreconciled, civil societies. Prolonged exposure to repression, organized violence and war produced cultures of fear and consequent psychosocial obstacles to the construction of historical pasts.Remembrance and representation of massive human rights crimes present considerable challenges in any circumstance. In fragile transition societies, the social impact of cultures of fear can continue to affect collective memory and the recording of a historical past. Social psychologist Ignacio Martin Baro examined societies affected by dictatorship and war and explained that psychosocial trauma is composed of three constituent elements: organized violence, institutional lies, and social polarization. All three elements, and their legacies, influence the composition of an historical record.
Notes: Adviser: Harold Troper.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-05, Section: A, page: 1927.