Postmemories of Terror

A New Generation Copes with the Legacy of the "Dirty War"

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by Susana Kaiser

Palgrave

Due/Published November 2005, 256 pages, paper

ISBN 1403964653

"Postmemories of Terror focuses on how young Argentineans remember the traumatic events of the military dictatorship (1976-83). This work is based on oral histories with sixty-three young people who were too young to be directly victimized or politically active during this period. All were born during or after the terror and possessed an entirely mediated knowledge of it. Susana Kaiser explores how the post-dictatorship generation was reconstructing this past from three main sources: inter-generational dialogue, education, and the communication media. These conversations discuss selected and recurrent themes like societal fears and silences, remembering and forgetting, historical explanations, and accountability. Together they contribute to our understanding of how communities deal with the legacy of terror.

Contents

Introduction
Conversations about Fear
Conversations about Silences
Conversations about Knowledge: What Happened?
Conversations about Knowledge: Why Did It Happen?
Conversations about Impunity
Conversations about Indifference
Conversations about Justice
Conversations about the Communication Media
Conversations about Representing the Horror
Conversations about Human Rights Activism
Conclusions