Victims and martyrs of recent political violence in Chile. A controversial public memory?

Abstract

This research deals with the public memory of political violence in Chile between 1970 and 1991. Considering that remembrance practices are a crucial aspect in the configuration of national identities and the construction of cities, this study aims at promoting the understanding of how memory shifted towards the “politics of regret” (Olick 2007). Based on the analysis of memorial elements distributed throughout the city of Santiago, the work suggests that public memory has been arranged ecumenically and in a spatially fragmented manner, resulting in rather local and segregated memorializing dynamics. Thus, while the country’s memory policies are located within the affirmation of democracy, human rights and the condemnation of dictatorship, the processes of urban space configuration have allowed for the persistence of crucially relevant spaces to remain untouched by this emergent trend.