Oral History in Latin America by David Carey Jr

Author:David Carey Jr [Carey, David Jr]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Latin America, General, Study & Teaching, Modern, 20th Century, Historiography
ISBN: 9781317975175
Google: iTslDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-03-27T16:21:24+00:00

Oral histories often reveal as much about current appropriations of the past as they do the past itself. Kaplan has found that when narrators seek to establish a link between the people they were and the people they have become, oral histories may reveal “more about the intervening time than about the past or the present.… The past is reshaped… in relationship to the process of becoming.”69 When contemporary chaos and violence in Colombia made working-class exploitation and abuse fifty years earlier seem peaceful and orderly, Farnsworth-Alvear approached nostalgia as a style of remembering and used it to frame her questions so she could better understand how manufacturing technology changed notions of masculinity and femininity.70 Given the irregular reliability of recollections, distinguishing between tangential truths and accurate accounts in oral testimonies is crucial to interpreting them.

Even as the present influences historical perspectives, it is not ahistorical.71 “It was not simply ‘the view from the present’ that shaped her remembering. Any view from the present is already profoundly imbricated with influences from the past,” observes James.72 In some narratives, the past’s influence on the present is intentional. Kalalapo of the Brazilian Amazon consciously connect their lives to those of their ancestors. By emboldening a sense that generations are connected across time, contemporary Kalalapo emphasize that the consequences of their decisions will resonate for future generations. As they establish the continuity of their lives with those of their forebears, they chart strategies for future generations.73

Memory formation has its own processes. Reflecting on her experience of collecting oral histories about Argentina’s Dirty War, Schwarzstein notes, “Memorialist effervescence has its own rhythm of remembering: a time for silence, a time for bearing witness, a time for reconstruction and recognition.”74 By repealing laws that granted amnesty to Dirty War murderers and torturers, Argentina opened a space for historical reconstruction. Upholding the repeal two years later in 2005, Argentina’s Supreme Court found the laws unconstitutional because they were “oriented toward ‘forgetting’ grave violations of human rights.”75 According to the justices, amnesia threatened to make the nation susceptible to future horrors; memory was the antidote. By trying human rights crimes, the judicial system facilitated a public mourning process for those whose loved ones were “disappeared.” At its best, oral history can counteract what historian Pierre Nora calls the “eradication of memory by history.”76

As traumatic as many histories are, survivors and their descendants have worked hard to avoid a sense that sacrifices were in vain. In the context of state repression, memory can facilitate community cohesion and solidarity.77 Although institutionally funded public monuments intended to evoke memories of Latin American military dictatorships are rare, a few states have reclaimed sites of violence to stave off historical amnesia.78 Inaugurated by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on January 11, 2010, the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights) stands as a testament to the power of memory. In Argentina, civic action and performance invigorate memories of the Dirty War.79 The state-controlled Cuban media preserve memories of the October 6, 1976 bombing on a Cubana Airlines flight.

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