Living Through the Chilean Coup D'etat
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Living Through the Chilean Coup d’Etat: The Second-Generation’s Reflection on Their Sense of Agency, Civic Engagement and Democracy Denise Tala Diaz ORCID Scholar ID# 0000-0003-1458-6287 A Dissertation Submitted to the PhD in Leadership and Change Program of Antioch University in partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2020 This dissertation has been approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Leadership and Change, Graduate School of Leadership and Change, Antioch University Dissertation Committee • Laurien Alexandre, PhD, Committee Chair • Elizabeth Holloway, PhD, Committee Member • Jean-Luc Brackelaire, PhD, Committee Member Copyright 2020 Denise Tala Diaz All rights reserved Dedication I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my children, Alejandro, Josefina and Elisa who are part of the generation without fear, who were lucky enough to be born in a democracy. My message to you is simple and from all of my heart; it is important to be resilient, to never give up because despite all the difficulties you will confront during your lives you will always need to think that you are capable to keep going because the sun will come out again. To Patricio my husband, thank you for our interesting and long conversations which many times brought back nostalgic memories from our youth when Chile was going through difficult times. Thank you for the shared coffees, cookies, glasses of wine, and for encouraging me all the time to finish my research. To Margarita, my second mom, who has always taken care of me. Thank you for your lovely lunches and dinners made with all your love while I was working on my dissertation until late every day. To my father, Emilio, who despite all the economic difficulties he confronted during the hard times in dictatorship, he made the impossible possible. Gracias Papá. Finally, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to all of the activists who were or are part of my family, especially to my mom, Lucrecia, a socialist militant, who had a strong civic and democratic commitment and who believed that a society based on social justice was possible. i Acknowledgments First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my dear chair Dr. Laurien Alexandre, mi Guía, as I call her in Spanish, for her support and commitment she offered to me at every moment and her disposition to advise and guide me when I needed, especially during those moments when I struggled with time and work and I felt that I could not be capable to end my dissertation. She clarified and encouraged me the whole time. Thank you Laurien, Gracias from all of my heart. Secondly I would like to express my recognition for my committee members, Dr. Elizabeth Holloway and Dr. Jean-Luc Brackelaire for their support, skilled knowledge and guide to help me achieve a deep understanding and fill in my gaps in the area of transgenerational and historical trauma as well as the narrative inquiry methodology. To the participants of this study who selflessly trusted me and gave their testimonies and life stories as survivors of one of the cruelest dictatorships in human history. This work would not exist without you. Gracias queridas amigas, gracias queridos amigos. To all members and fellows from the Antioch community; teachers, colleagues and friends who supported me from the beginning of my doctoral journey. ii Abstract This dissertation illuminates how the experience of growing up during the Chilean dictatorship (1973–1990) affected the individual's sense of self as citizen and the impact on their sense of democratic agency, civic-mindedness, and political engagement in their country's current democracy. To understand that impact, the researcher chose to study her own generation, the “Pinochet-era” generation (Cummings, 2015) and interviewed those who were part of the Chilean middle class, who despite not being explicit victims of perpetrators, were raised in dictatorship and surrounded by abuse of state power including repression, disappearance, and imprisonment. The theoretical frame of the Socio-Political Development Theory (Watt, Williams, & Jagers, 2003) helped to understand the process that participants went through and how they moved from an A-Critical Stage, with a complete absence of awareness and understanding about what was happening in their world at the time of the coup d’État, to a stage of critical consciousness surrounded by empathy for those who were suffering human rights violations which were the main drivers to latter participate in a liberation process. This development of a critical consciousness was influenced—among others—by specific family and social context which promoted transgenerational (Uwineza & Brackelaire, 2014) and intergenerational dialogue (Reyes, Cornejo, Cruz, Carrillo, & Caviedes, 2015) processes, where values, heritage, and ways of acting were transmitted. The narrative approach helped to elicit stories about participants’ life events from the coup d’État to present. Through the exploration of 15 narrative interviews it was also possible to collect participants’ memories and observe how they currently manifest their civic commitment and social responsibility. Their collective memory, influenced by a collective grief (Métraux, 2005b), still lingers over 40 years later and helps us to understand their life-long commitment and passion to fight for justice. This iii generation was part of a social movement that managed to set aside its political and economic divides and its personal self-interests with the collective goal of restoring democracy. Keywords: Leadership, Socio-Political Development, Critical Consciousness, Sense of Agency, Civic Engagement, Social Responsibility, Transgenerational Trauma, Historical Trauma Intergenerational Dialogue, Collective Identity, Collective Memory , Collective Grief iv Table of Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. x Chapter I: Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the Study and Research Question ............................................................................. 2 The Research Context ................................................................................................................. 4 Positionality ................................................................................................................................ 9 Key Terms ................................................................................................................................. 14 Sense of agency .................................................................................................................... 14 Civic engagement. ................................................................................................................ 14 Outline of Chapters ................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter II: Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 18 Chile: A Portrait Socio-Political Crisis of 1973 ....................................................................... 19 Socio-Political Causes .............................................................................................................. 20 Presidential elections in 1970............................................................................................... 20 International context and Cold War ...................................................................................... 21 Domestic context and coup d’État ........................................................................................ 22 The social and socioeconomic issue ..................................................................................... 24 The Chilean Dictatorship and State Terrorism ......................................................................... 26 Defining Generation .................................................................................................................. 33 The Concept of Generation ....................................................................................................... 33 Collective Memory and Collective Identity .............................................................................. 35 The Transmission of Collective Memories ............................................................................... 39 Transgenerational Trauma: The Dictatorship from One Generation to the Next ..................... 43 From PTSD to Historical Trauma and Cultural Trauma .......................................................... 44 Historical trauma ..................................................................................................................