Re-emerging Pasts: Forums for Truth-telling in Contemporary Argentina and Chile

This research project studies how - by what processes, according to what criteria, and subject to what kinds of verification? - truths emerge about the political violence that took place in the 1970s and 1980s in Argentina and Chile. Although that period of violence is now 'past', many facets of it are still unresolved. Beyond the legal mechanisms that continue to unearth truths about the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-83) and the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990), there are several sites at which these unresolved issues emerge for debate and verification. There is a need to address the unresolved and still controversial nature of many questions as the presentation of the story of what happened becomes a focus of new memorial spaces and Memory museums, as well as at other sites where truths are tested, including where biological identities are tested via DNA or where human or material remains require forensic testing.
The research will take place at a range of diverse sites that we call 'forums for telling'. Its premise is that truths about the past are of different kinds because they have to pass through different processes of hypothesising, 'testing' and reflection before they are affirmed and allowed to emerge as true. Thus the production of truth at a museum of memory differs both in process and in terms of the truths it seeks and can affirm, from the production of truth by the law courts, or by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team's attempts to establish identities through the testing of human remains or DNA.
The research concerns how the different forums and spaces approach this task differently, how they involve different material and human witnesses, different procedures and place different constraints on the objects of their interrogations. In studying these processes we will ask: What candidates emerge to tell the truth about the past? Which truths are allowed to emerge at the different sites? How are they understood as relevant to the forum that debates their status? What 'tests' must they pass in order to attain their status as true? How are emergent truths presented, arranged and mediated for consumption? How is their status challenged? The importance of these questions becomes apparent when one considers the pedagogic dimensions of the activities at stake. We will highlight the pedagogic and inter-generational dimension. What do the different forums understand as the relation between the production of truth and the presentation or curation of the story of the past as a wider societal imperative? How do they agree to present their work domestically and internationally, including digitally? How do they seek to overcome the dangers of making a spectacle of the past, or else using it within a strategic instrumentalisation that insists that listening repeatedly to horrors of past violence will inoculate us from ever repeating the past wrongs?
The research will use observation, interviews and documentary data gathered from significant sites chosen for their potential to speak to these interests. In Argentina, we will visit the largest and most notorious of the ex-clandestine centres for detention, torture and extermination (ex-ccdte), the ESMA in Buenos Aires, now an official Site for Memory, and where debates about the use of the space have raged for several years, but where new changes to the use and especially the pedagogic aspects of the site are presently coming to fruition. Additionally we will visit two ex-ccdte sites further afield, in Cordoba and Tucuman. In Chile, we will also visit ex-centres of detention in Santiago (Londres 38, Villa Grimaldi) and one further afield in Chacabuca in the north. In each country we will also be visiting important newly opened Museums of Memory (in Santiago and Rosario). To complement these, we will observe and interview members of the important Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, as well as following key legal cases that are on-going.

Who, beyond the academic disciplines, will benefit form the research?
The beneficiaries of the research will extend beyond the academic communities described in the 'Academic beneficiaries' section, especially insofar as the research will speak directly to issues of how decisions have been taken within new Sites of Memory and Museums of Memory in the Southern Cone. These beneficiaries will be located in the cultural and third sectors, being directors and team workers across all three categories of locations studied (see Case for Support) and the other similar enterprises in the Southern Cone, as well as those engaged in similar projects around the world.
In terms of beneficiaries in the UK, we foresee potential benefits in terms of sharing knowledge about another part of the world with cultural institutions, as has happened with our previous research.

How will they benefit?
The research has the potential to contribute to future debates about pedagogic practices, both in the location directly studied, in Latin America and in other locations around the world through. It will do so by reflecting back existent organisational practices and procedures. It is possible that our research will shape decisions by offering first, evidence based reflections, and secondly, by providing connections across a network across the two countries and different towns and cities that are presently only unevenly in conversation. The research will offer an exposure to projects at various locations throughout Argentina and Chile, many of which are not in direct contact with each other. Nor would they have detailed knowledge of each other's projects. This knowledge will feed into reflexive conversations about their choices and practices, potentially provide solutions to shared problems and foster support. This may be important especially for those sites, practices and personnel located in more geographically isolated areas.
In the UK, the sharing of knowledge about contemporary practices in Latin America will be of interest to curators, educators and researchers working, or training to work, in the cultural sector wherever there is interest in how past violence and its consequences are articulated. The benefits include improving knowledge that contextualises exhibitions, bringing new audiences to events through the inclusion of Latin American perspectives and providing diversity to the examples used in education and training.
Those working in legal-focused NGOs may also benefit insofar as our project allows insights into how legal decisions sit within a wider normative frameworks that extends to include the other forums. The project will be of particular interest because it will highlight where these are in harmony and where they diverge.