Where Memory Dwells: Culture and State Violence in Chile

by Macarena Gómez-Barris

The 1973 military coup in Chile deposed the democratically elected Salvador Allende and installed a dictatorship that terrorized the country for almost twenty years. Subsequent efforts to come to terms with the national trauma have resulted in an outpouring of fiction, art, film, and drama. In this ethnography, Macarena Gómez-Barris examines cultural sites and representations in postdictatorship Chile―what she calls "memory symbolics"―to uncover the impact of state-sponsored violence. She surveys the concentration camp turned memorial park, Villa Grimaldi, documentary films, the torture paintings of Guillermo Núñez, and art by Chilean exiles, arguing that two contradictory forces are at a desire to forget the experiences and the victims, and a powerful need to remember and memorialize them. By linking culture, nation, and identity, Gómez-Barris shows how those most affected by the legacies of the dictatorship continue to live with the presence of violence in their bodies, in their daily lives, and in the identities they pass down to younger generations.

Genres: Nonfiction

234 pages, Paperback

First published October 14, 2008

About the author

Macarena Gómez-Barris is Chair of the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at the Pratt Institute, author of Where Memory Dwells: Culture and State Violence in Chile, and coeditor of Toward a Sociology of the Trace.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gomez-Barris' work, which I began reading weeks before a planned trip to Chile which never materialized, enlightened me on various fronts. Firstly, I learned about one of Chile's darkest periods; namely, the early Pinochet era when known or suspected leftists disappeared or reappeared after being tortured and imprisoned. Second, I considered the importance of memory and keeping it alive. Gomez-Barris injects historical background and facts where necessary before embarking on the topic of memory and attempts by the Pinochet regime (and others) to remove evidence of torture and disappearances. One such effort involved the destruction and removal of Villa Grimaldi, located outside of Santiago, Chile, where tortures, rapes and killings took place in the Pinochet years. The author's examination of how attempts to bring back memories and evidence of what happened at Grimaldi (and elsewhere) after the Villa ceased to exist merits debate over the meaning of history and the vital need to preserve evidence. Finally, towards the end of the book, she touches on the use of film, documentary film primarily, as a medium to continue spreading word of what happened. The films she mentioned were entirely unknown to me but I now want to see them.

Gomez-Barris writes well and in a solid, scholarly style but sometimes the citations, quotes and references seem excessive and disrupt her narrative's rhythm. Her story here is an important one and especially relevant in our time of alternate facts, fake news and attempts by Russia (for example) to remove or question proof of war crimes their forces committed in Ukraine. I praise Gomez-Barris for this effort - the first work of hers to reach my reading list.