Fractured past : torture, memory and reconciliation in Chile

• Main Author: Olavarría, María José
• Other Authors: Corin, Ellen (advisor)
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 2003
• Subjects: Chile > Politics and government > 1973-; Victims of state-sponsored terrorism > Chile.; Torture victims > Chile.; Truth commissions > Chile.
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=79990

This thesis examines the testimonies of victims related to the use of torture during the Pinochet dictatorship. It contends that the existence of a broad testimonial archive on torture, significantly produced by the victims themselves, points to a collective 'speech' by which victims have attempted to splinter the silence of the dictatorial state and, in the aftermath of the repression, to contest the 'official history' of the transitional state. The testimonies of torture victims, it will be argued, signify a specific mode of action, a 'doing' of memory, whereby the experience of torture is re-membered in an effort to bring accountability for the crimes committed and this, from the first days of the dictatorship up to today. This speech of victims moreover is seen to constitute the unifying link between the testimonies of torture victims that have emerged during the dictatorship itself and those that continue to emerge today.