Table Of ContentResistance to Political
Violence in Latin
America
Documenting Atrocity
Edited by
oriana bernasconi
Resistance to Political Violence in Latin America
Oriana Bernasconi
Editor
Resistance to Political
Violence in Latin
America
Documenting Atrocity
Editor
Oriana Bernasconi
Departamento de Sociología
Alberto Hurtado University
Santiago, Chile
ISBN 978-3-030-17045-5 ISBN 978-3-030-17046-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17046-2
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A
cknowledgements
This book is the product of three years of interinstitutional, interdis-
ciplinary, and transnational collaborative work. It has come to frui-
tion thanks to the involvement of social actors, human rights activists,
researchers, post-graduate students, governmental entities, civil society
organisations, and universities. On behalf of the authors, I wish to thank
the sponsorship of the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Chile), the Latin
American Centre at University of Oxford (UK), and the Fundación de
Documentación y Archivo de la Vicaría de la Solidaridad—FUNVISOL
(Documentation and Archival Foundation of the Vicaría de la
Solidaridad, Chile), as well as joint funding from the Newton Fund and
the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research of
the government of Chile. The research team also received much appre-
ciated support from the Fundación para la Protección de la Infancia
Dañada por los Estados de Emergencia—PIDEE (Foundation for the
Protection of Childhood Harmed by States of Emergency); Fundación
de Ayuda Social de las Iglesias Cristianas—FASIC (Christian Churches
Social Assistance Foundation); Corporación de Promoción y Defensa
de los Derechos del Pueblo—CODEPU (Corporation for Promotion
and Defence of People’s Rights); Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos
Humanos—MMDDHH (Museum of Memory and Human Rights);
Corporación Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi (Villa Grimaldi Peace Park
Corporation) and Londres 38 Espacio de Memorias (Londres 38 Site of
Memories), all in Chile.
v
vi ACKNOwLEDGEMENTS
The people who participated in our interviews during the information-
gathering stage at the different archives have been indispensable for our
understanding of human rights violation registry and documentation.
Conversations with former administrative and professional staff of vari-
ous human rights organisations enabled us not only to grasp the rationale
behind the production and systematisation of the human rights archives
we were studying but also to appreciate the importance of intellectually
reclaiming the registries. Our interviews permitted former human rights
organisation employees to re-visit, re-evaluate and re-signify their work
more than 30 years later. All of them expressed great appreciation for
the experience, underscoring the intergenerational and interdisciplinary
dimensions of this work.
María Luisa Sepúlveda, Argentina Valenzuela, Gloria Lepe, Gloria
Cruz, Victoria Baeza, Ángela Cofré, Catalina Tapia, Mario González,
Roberto Garretón, Gustavo Villalobos, Mónica Silva, Álvaro Varela,
Jaime Esponda, Carmen Garretón, Héctor Contreras, Gilda Gnecco,
Daniela Sánchez, Eugenio Ahumada, María Paz Vergara, and Ramiro
Olivares were interviewed for this project. From them, we gained impor-
tant insights about their work at the Comité de Cooperación para la Paz
en Chile—COPACHI (Committee for Cooperation for Peace in Chile),
the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, and the Fundación de Documentación y
Archivo de la Vicaría de la Solidaridad—FUNVISOL (Documentation
and Archival Foundation of the Vicariate of Solidarity). Viviana
Díaz, a historical leader of the Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos
Desaparecidos—AFDD (Association of Relatives of the Disappeared),
which began at the Comité’s headquarters, was also interviewed.
Graciela Acuña, Nancy Nicholls, Elizabeth Lira K., Rosa González,
and Claudio González described their work at FASIC and that insti-
tution’s archives. At the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos,
we found invaluable support from María Luisa Ortíz, walter Roblero,
Vilma Ruiz, Rodolfo Ibarra, and Juan Carlos Vega. Macarena Arias and
Ximena Díaz explained the inner workings of the Servicio Médico Legal
(Legal Medical Service, Chile’s chief coroner and forensic institution)
and wally Kunstmann described the conversion of the National Stadium
into the country’s largest detention, interrogation, and torture center
in the months after the military coup, as well as its subsequent recov-
ery as a space of memory. Juanita Méndez from CODEPU, Juan René
Maureira from Londres 38 Espacio de Memorias, and Omar Sagredo from
Corporación Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi shared their experience
regarding the creation of testimonial audiovisual archives.
ACKNOwLEDGEMENTS vii
A symposium held at Alberto Hurtado University in 2016 brought
together government agencies (such as the National Administration
of Libraries, Archives and Museums and the National Human Rights
Institute, university archives (University of Santiago Heritage Archive and
the University of Chile Central Archive); archives of human rights organ-
isations that arose during dictatorship (FASIC, CODEPU, FUNVISOL,
and PIDEE); and oral archives sites of memory Corporación Estadio
Nacional Memoria Nacional (Corporation “National Stadium National
Memory”), Londres 38 Espacio de Memorias, and Corporación Parque por
la Paz Villa Grimaldi. The symposium providing a venue for discussing
Chilean human rights archives, their maintenance, preservation, and value
for achieving truth, justice, reparation, strengthening democracy, and
promoting citizen education and research.1
During the discussion phase, involving methodological analysis and
revision of the initial drafts of this book’s chapters, distinguished scholars
other than the chapter authors offered critique and insightful reflection
that strengthened the final version. we are also grateful for the dedi-
cation and commitment to this project of Leigh Payne, Anne Pérotin-
Dumon, Vikki Bell, Beatrice Fraenkel, Maria Tamboukou, Fredy Mora
Gámez, Gabriel Pereira, Steven Brown, Peter winn, David Zeytlin,
and Cath Collins. Preliminary versions of the book’s chapters were pre-
sented in the United Kingdom at the Institute of Social and Cultural
Anthropology, Saint Antony’s College and the Latin American Centre
at Oxford University, and Leicester University Department of Critical
Management Studies.
In continental Europe, our findings have been discussed in France,
Belgium, and Sweden: at the French institutes Anthropological writing
Laboratory and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
(EHESS); and the Institut Langage et Communication, Centre de
recherche Valibel—Discours et Variation of the Catholic University
of Leuven, both of Belgium. In Sweden, the project was presented at
Stockholm University’s Latin American Studies Institute.
Our project was shared in various Latin American venues as well:
in Colombia, at the Pontifical Javeriana University and the National
University of Colombia; in Argentina, at Cuyo National University,
Memoria Abierta, the Memory Studies Group CIS/CONICET-IDES.
It was also presented at Latin American Studies Association Annual
Conferences in various countries of the Americas. In Chile it was pre-
sented at La Frontera University, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile,
Andrés Bello University, and Valparaiso University.
viii ACKNOwLEDGEMENTS
Those who attended the International Conference “Registering
Political Violence: Technologies, Uses and Effects” that we organised in
January 2018 at the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos helped
us think through the Chilean case from a comparative perspective. we
are also indebted to everyone (survivors, filmmakers, writers, professors,
activists, and others) who since March 2016 has participated in more
than 27 activities held by our Programa Interdisciplinar de Investigación
en Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Interdisciplinary Research Programme
on Memory and Human Rights).2 From all of them, we gleaned deeper
knowledge about this field of study and action.
Ana María Risco and Sebastián Vidal, our colleagues at Universidad
Alberto Hurtado School of Art, collaborated with great profession-
alism to make our study more interdisciplinary. They formed part of
the selection team that chose visual artist Nicolás Franco to produce
a work of art that would extend appreciation for the significance of
human rights violation documentation to a much wider and more var-
ied public than the academic world. The result was his creation of “The
Sheet” (2017), which has been exhibited at the Santiago’s Museum of
Contemporary Art, at La Frontera University in Temuco, at the Museum
of Contemporary Art in Valdivia, at the Modern Art Museum of Chiloé
and in Espacio Confluencia in Mendoza, Argentina (Fig. 1). Our hope is
that “The Sheet” can travel the world over and enter other education,
museographic, cultural, and artistic spaces that share a commitment to
the promotion of unconditional respect for human rights (see Epilogue).
Filmmaker Nicolás Acuña, director of the television series Los Archivos
del Cardenal (2011–2014), based on cases contained in the Vicaría’s
archives, oriented us about venturing into the relationship between reg-
istry of political violence and popular culture. with tremendous dedica-
tion, care, and respect, Héctor Fernández and Luis Renato Hermosilla
accompanied us with their photographic and audiovisual registries of the
project throughout the entire period.
Anthropologist Daniela Mansilla and sociologists Rodrigo Suárez
and Javiera Correa did a splendid job as research assistants and coor-
dinators of the myriad activities associated with the project during its
three years in operation. Their deep commitment with each activity, and
their strength and humour in the face of the most challenging periods
of our work, proved key for bringing this project to good term. The
three of them are currently in Masters’ programmes working on theses
on issues related to the project, which fills us with pride and hope that
ACKNOwLEDGEMENTS ix
future generations will disseminate and develop new lines of research on
the documentation of state terrorism, from their respective biographical,
political, and intellectual perspectives.
To Maxine Lowy, we owe the patient translation of the manuscript
to English and to Cath Collins, its stylistic review. The two readers for
Palgrave Macmillan Press also deserve special thanks for their comments
and suggestions, which have made this book more tightly woven. Lastly,
we are most thankful for the editorial work of Palgrave Macmillan, espe-
cially as represented by Alina Yurova and Mary Fata, who believed in this
project, allowing our reflections to contribute to the enrichment of the
field of human rights studies and to resonate with the ongoing work of
its experts and activists.
August 2018 Oriana Bernasconi
Former Archbishop’s Residence
(Palacio Arzobispal), Santiago, Chile
notes
1. https://memoriayderechoshumanosuah.org/2016/04/13/equi-
po-uah-organisa-conversatorio-actualidad-de-los-archivos-de-derechos-hu-
manos-en-chile/.
2. See https://memoriayderechoshumanosuah.org/.
c
ontents
1 Introduction: A Civilian Response to State Terror 1
Oriana Bernasconi
2 Political Technologies of Registration and Denunciation
of State Violence 13
Oriana Bernasconi
3 How to Sustain a Human Rights Organisation Under
State Violence 41
Oriana Bernasconi, Manuel Gárate, Rodrigo Suárez
and Daniela Mansilla
4 Professions and Profiles: Epistemic Communities
and the Registration of Human Rights Violations 79
María Soledad Del Villar, Boris Hau,
María Teresa Johansson and Manuel Guerrero Antequera
5 Making State Violence Visible: Documenting,
Investigating and Denouncing Atrocities 117
Oriana Bernasconi and Elizabeth Lira K.
xi
