Publication: The Struggle for Memory in Latin America: Recent History and Political Violence

The Struggle for Memory in Latin America: Recent History and Political Violence.
Eugenia Allier-Montaño and Emilio Crenzel (eds.), Memory Politics and Transitional Justice Series, Palgrave Macmillan.

This book examines the struggles that unfolded in Latin America over the memory of the pasts of political violence experienced by the countries of the continent in the second half of the twentieth century: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

The different contributions that make up the book analyze the struggles that took place in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay over the memory of the pasts of political violence. These memory struggles are examined from a political- and social-history-centered perspective, employing tools from both the field of history and other disciplines, including political science, sociology, and anthropology. In this sense, the articles seek to take into account the different ways in which the relevant actors involved look back on these pasts and vie against each other to give meaning to them in the public sphere, and the power relations that result from such confrontations, incorporating to that end various levels of analysis (the initiatives of transnational, regional, and national actors) and different variables (class, gender, ethnicity, geographic location) that shape the changes and continuities in the meanings ascribed to past political violence in each country.