Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Social Trauma, National Mourning, and Collective Guilt in Post-Authoritarian Argentina

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Violent Reverberations

Part of the book series: Culture, Mind, and Society ((CMAS))

  • 368 Accesses

Abstract

How has Argentine society coped with the tens of thousands of civilians who disappeared and were assassinated during the 1976–83 dictatorship? Grief-stricken relatives, survivors of disappearance, and indicted perpetrators have all been involved in processes of social trauma and national mourning as members of a bereaved society. The prosecution of more than 2000 perpetrators in the last decade might indicate that Argentine society has come to terms with the past, but their imprisonment for crimes against humanity has not convinced the human rights organizations that justice is being served, because they have come to regard the disappearances as genocide. They have been holding increasingly more people accountable, and consider Argentine society as a whole responsible for the repressive violence.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abierta, Memoria. 2009. Memorias en la ciudad: Señales del terrorismo de estado en Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alexander, J.C. 2012. Trauma: A Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anonymous. 2010a. Bonafini hizo su ‘juicio ético’ a la prensa a ahora irá por los jueces. Clarín, April 30. http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2010/04/30/elpais/p-02189640.html. Accessed 2 August 2016

  • ———. 2010b. El indulto no tiene hinchada. Página/12, November 21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Areas, T. 1984. El shock de ‘Nunca más’. Somos 8(408): 6–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1985. Apuesta a la conciliación. Somos 8(447): 8–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baronetto, L.M. 2010. Juicio al fin. Página/12, July 3. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/subnotas/148778-47774-2010-07-03.html. Accessed 2 August 2016.

  • Bowlby, J. 1981. Attachment and Loss, Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and Depression. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. 2004. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Careaga, A.M. 2009. Leyes: principales instrumentos legales sobre derechos humanos y memoria, 2nd edn. Buenos Aires: Instituto Espacio para la Memoria.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cháves, G.L. 2005. La masacre de Plaza de Mayo. La Plata: De la Campana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cibeira, F. 2003. Hay que separar la paja del trigo. Página/12, July 8. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-22457-2003-07-08.html. Accessed 2 August 2016.

  • CONADEP. 1986. Nunca Más: The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Currier, J.M., J.M. Holland, and R.A. Neimeyer. 2006. Sense-Making, Grief, and the Experience of Violent Loss: Toward a Mediational Model. Death Studies 30: 403–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Díaz Bessone, R.G. ed. 2001. In Memoriam, 3 vols. Buenos Aires: Círculo Militar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fassin, D., and R. Rechtman. 2009. The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feierstein, D. 2006. Political Violence in Argentina and Its Genocidal Characteristics. Journal of Genocide Research 8(2): 149–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. El genocidio como práctica social: entre el nazismo y la experiencia argentina. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freud, S. 1968 [1917]. Mourning and Melancholia. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 7. ed. J. Strachey, 243–258. London: Hogarth Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giussani, P. 1987. ¿Por qué, doctor Alfonsín? Buenos Aires: Sudamericana/Planeta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hinton, D.E., and A.L. Hinton, eds. 2014. Genocide and Mass Violence: Memory, Symptom, and Recovery. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holst-Warhaft, G. 2000. The Cue for Passion: Grief and Its Political Uses. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kirchner, N. 2003. Discurso del Señor Presidente de la Nación, Doctor Néstor Kirchner, ante la Honorable Asamblea Legislativa, May 25, http://nuevamayoria.com/ES/BIBLIOTECA/documentos/discurso_kirchner.pdf. Accessed 15 Jan 2010.

  • Kirmayer, L.J., R. Lemelson, and M. Barad, eds. 2007. Understanding Trauma: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinman, A. 1999. Experience and Its Moral Modes: Culture, Human Conditions, and Disorder. In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. G.B. Peterson, 355–420. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinman, A., and J. Kleinman. 1991. Suffering and Its Professional Transformations: Toward an Ethnography of Experience. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 15(3): 275–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kwon, H. 2006. After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lozada, M. 2008. Sobre el genocidio. El crimen fundamental. Buenos Aires: Capital Intelectual.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malamud-Goti, J. 1990. Transitional Governments in the Breach: Why Punish State Criminals? Human Rights Quarterly 12: 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mántaras, M. 2005. Genocidio en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Autores Editores.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marchesi, A. 2005. Vencedores vencidos: las respuestas militares frente a los informes ‘Nunca Más’ en el Cono Sur. In Memorias militares sobre la represión en el Cono Sur: visiones en disputa en dictadura y democracia, eds. E. Hershberg and F. Agüero, 175–210. Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno de España Editores.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martín-Baró, I. 1989. Political Violence and War as Causes of Psychosocial Trauma in El Salvador. International Journal of Mental Health 18(1): 3–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meierhenrich, J. 2006. A Question of Guilt. Ratio Juris 19(3): 314–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neimeyer, R.A. 2001. Meaning Reconstruction and Loss. In Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss, ed. R.A. Neimeyer, 1–9. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pertot, W. 2006. El juicio fue la suma de la historia. Página/12, October 1. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-73818-2006-10-01.html. Accessed 2 August 2016.

  • Pisani, S. 1990. Instó Menem a una definitiva reconciliación. La Nación, June 17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Potash, R.A. 1980. The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1945–1962: Perón to Frondizi. London: The Athlone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Procuraduría de Crímenes contra la Humanidad. 2016. El estado de las causas por delitos de lesa humanidad en Argentina. Balance y desafíos. Buenos Aires: Ministerio Público Fiscal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramos Padilla, J.M. 2006. Chicha. La fundadora de Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Buenos Aires: Editorial Dunken.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. 2006. Memory, History, Forgetting. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robben, A.C.G.M. 2005a. Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005b. How Traumatized Societies Remember: The Aftermath of Argentina’s Dirty War. Cultural Critique 59: 120–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Silence, Denial and Confession about State Terror by the Argentine Military. In Violence Expressed: An Anthropological Approach, eds. M. Six-Hohenbalken and N. Weiss, 169–186. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. From Dirty War to Genocide: Argentina’s Resistance to National Reconciliation. Memory Studies 5(3): 305–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Massive Violent Death and Contested National Mourning in Post-Authoritarian Chile and Argentina: A Sociocultural Application of the Dual Process Model. Death Studies 38: 335–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robben, A.C.G.M., and M.M. Suárez-Orozco, eds. 2000. Cultures Under Siege: Collective Violence and Trauma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roht-Arriaza, N. 2005. The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shear, M.K. 2010. Exploring the Role of Experiential Avoidance from the Perspective of Attachment Theory and the Dual Process Model. Omegai 61: 357–369.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stroebe, M., and H. Schut. 1999. The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement: Rationale and Description. Death Studies 23: 197–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2001. Meaning Making in the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement. In Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss, ed. R.A. Neimeyer, 55–73. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement: A Decade on. Omega 61: 273–289.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torre, J.C., and L. de Riz. 1993. Argentina Since 1946. In Argentina Since Independence, ed. L. Bethel, 243–363. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Valentine, C. 2006. Academic Constructions of Bereavement. Mortality 11: 57–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Verbitsky, H. 1995. El vuelo. Buenos Aires: Planeta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vezzetti, H. 2003. Pasado y Presente: Guerra, dictadura y sociedad en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walter, T. 1996. A New Model of Grief: Bereavement and Biography. Mortality 1: 7–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1999. On Bereavement: The Culture of Grief. Buckingham: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, J.E. 1993. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Antonius C. G. M. Robben

Authors
  1. Antonius C. G. M. Robben
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo, Norway

    Vigdis Broch-Due

  2. University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Bjørn Enge Bertelsen

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Robben, A.C.G.M. (2016). Social Trauma, National Mourning, and Collective Guilt in Post-Authoritarian Argentina. In: Broch-Due, V., Bertelsen, B. (eds) Violent Reverberations. Culture, Mind, and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39049-9_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39049-9_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39048-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39049-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation