The Struggle of Argentina
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Marije Oudshoorn The struggle of Argentina A research project about collective memory, reconciliation and dealing with a conflictive past Nijmegen, July 2013 The pictures of painted bicycles on the cover of this thesis are the work of art of the artist Fernando Traverso. During the dictatorship in Argentina he worked in the resistance until he was forced to go into exile. For members of the resistance, the bicycle was the primary mode of transport. Therefore, an abandoned bicycle on the street was the first sign that someone had disappeared. During the dictatorship 350 people disappeared in Rosario, of which 29 were friends of Traverso. In order to remember all those who have disappeared he painted 350 bicycles throughout the city of Rosario. This made the silhouette of the bicycle a metaphor of absence, which is, due to the art of Traverso, always present in the city of Rosario. www.00350.com.ar Marije Oudshoorn The struggle of Argentina A research project about collective memory, reconciliation and dealing with a conflictive past Master thesis to conclude the master program Conflicts, Territories and Identities of the Centre for International Conflict – Analysis and Management (CICAM) at the St. Radboud University in Nijmegen Supervised by dr. dr. S. Vukovic and G.M. Millar Second reader: dr. H.J. Swedlund Nijmegen, July 2013 Aan mam, Voor het altijd trots op me zijn Preface The product before you is a Master thesis about the conflictive past of Argentina, which is the result of the final assignment of the Master Conflicts, Territories and Identities of the Centre for International Conflict – Analysis and Management (CICAM) at the St. Radboud University in Nijmegen. Inspired by my stay in Chile 2010, where I noticed that the dictatorial regime of Pinochet still had a lot of influence on daily life, I wanted to do a research project about how a society deals with its conflictive past. Eventually, I had found an internship at the Museo de la Memoria (Museum of Memory) in Rosario, the third largest city of Argentina. This is how my qualitative research project about the consequences of the dictatorial regime that ruled Argentine from 1976 until 1983 begun. The Museo de la Memoria is an organization that was founded in 1998, with the objective to improve the access to knowledge and investigation on the subject of the situation of human rights, social memory and politics. This internship has determined the course of my investigation. I was aware of the existence of many human rights organizations (HROs) in Argentina that lobby against the former dictatorial regime. I figured that, given the objective of the Museo de la Memoria, it would probably be easy to get in touch with the HROs through the Museo. Therefore, they became an interesting group to investigate, in order to learn more about how a group in Argentine society is dealing with its conflictive past. Furthermore, I got acquainted with the concept of collective memory, a very interesting but complex concept that could be used as a tool to investigate the feelings and perspectives of a group towards the past. This is how I started my research project about how collective memory is used to process a conflictive past. I have lived in Rosario for six months and through the social network of the staff of the Museo de la Memoria I have met a lot of people who are active in the human rights movement. I have had the pleasure to interview 16 of them, all conversations in which they shared their personal experiences with me. Every story has impressed me, and besides being very interesting for my research project, these stories have changed the way I perceive the world around me. These stories, together with other activities of HROs, have made my stay in Argentina into an incredible experience. Due to difficult personal circumstances, the writing of this thesis didn’t go as smoothly as planned. Although I have had quite some challenging moments during the writing process I am very pleased with the result. However, without the help of some people this thesis would never have been what it is now. Therefore, I want to thank my boyfriend Jord, who has sat with me for hours to read and perfect my texts and who has been my tower of strength when I was stuck with writing. Furthermore, I want to thank my brother Thomas for his technical support. Without his help with finding some books and software I would not have been able to do my analysis. Also I want to thank my parents Gert and Gerda for believing in me and supporting me despite the difficult period in life. Finally, during my stay in Rosario, the Museo and its staff have functioned as a home base where I could always return to with questions and problems related to my research project or not. Muchas gracias al equipo del Museo de la Memoria por la oportunidad de hacer una práctica y mí investigación, y muchas gracias por la amistad que me recibieron. Especialmente a las mujeres de la biblioteca. Sin ustedes nunca había sido una experiencia tan maravillosa. Nijmegen, 26-07-2013 Marije Oudshoorn i Abstract This research project is about how Argentinean society deals with its conflictive past. The primary objective of this research project is to gain more insight into how the HROs in Rosario, Argentina influence the hegemonic collective memory, by investigating their chosen truth and comparing this to the hegemonic collective memory. The secondary objective is to gain more knowledge about a possible influence of the HROs in Rosario on the process of reconciliation, by assessing the behavior of the HROs and comparing this to the theories of reconciliation. This research project was done using methodological triangulation. A variety of sources and methods were used, such as the information from literature research, the media and interviews. This contributed to the coverage of the phenomenon, which in turn contributed to the validity of the research project. Literature research was used to outline a historical background and a theoretical framework, which formed the foundation of this research project and functioned as a touchstone to measure the data. The media, in the form of the newspaper Pagina12, were used to paint a picture of the hegemonic collective memory. Subsequently, semi-structured interviews with staff members of human rights organizations (HROs) were used to paint a picture of the chosen truth of the HROs. Both the newspaper articles as well as the interviews were analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Quantitative research methods were first used to extract the useful parts of information out of a vast quantity of data. Subsequently, this selection of information was investigated with the help of qualitative research methods. In order to paint a clear picture of the hegemonic collective memory and the chosen truth of the HROs, both perspectives were decomposed into the variables memory, justice, truth and reconciliation. Finally, a concluding chapter has been written in which the reflection of the four variables in the chosen truth of the HROs and the hegemonic collective memory were compared. In this manner, the influence of the HROs on the hegemonic collective memory and their influence on a process of reconciliation could be determined. It was concluded that the influence of the HROs on the hegemonic collective memory can be considered overall moderate. When looked at the different variables separately, the HROs have quite some influence with regard to the variables memory and reconciliation, due to their active and strategic use of memory and their demands for justice and truth. On the other hand, the HROs only partially influence the variable justice, considering that they do have a heavy influence on the idea of retributive justice, however, their distrust towards the judicial system cannot be found in the hegemonic collective memory. Furthermore, the HROs influence the variable truth only to a small degree. The hegemonic collective memory only shows a partial unofficial factual framework that consists with the chosen truth of the HROs in the sense that it has only demarcation criteria between victims and culprits. Furthermore, it was concluded that the HROs do impede a process of reconciliation. Their active and strategic use of memory leads to a compulsive remembering and is based on events that have happened in the past. They have created a backward-looking narrative that keeps them lingering in the past. Be doing this they are unable to aim their efforts towards the future, which impedes a process of reconciliation. ii Contents Preface ......................................................................................................................... i Abstract ...................................................................................................................... ii Contents .................................................................................................................... iii Figures and tables ...................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 The case of Argentine in a nutshell .................................................................................................. 1 The research project ....................................................................................................................... 2 Itinerary of this thesis ....................................................................................................................