Preserve, recover, occupy. Memory Controversies around the ex-esma (1998-2013)

• Published in: Revista colombiana de sociología Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 101 - 131
• Main Author: Feld, Claudia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bogota Universidad Nacional de Colombia 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Argentina; Criminal justice policy; derechos humanos; dictadura; ESMA; History; memoria; Memory; Politics; políticas públicas; Public policy; Argentina
• ISSN: 0120-159X; 2256-5485
• DOI: 10.15446/rcs.v40n1.61955

This article reconstructs three keys controversies around the recovery and later occupation of the site where the clandestine detention center of the Mechanics School of the Navy (esma) functioned in the city of Buenos Aires. The article analyzes the positions of the different actors, the different notions of memory in dispute, the links with the State and the development of public policy. The following controversies are examined: first, thedebates on the esma demolition project in 1998, during the government of Carlos Menem; second, the debates of 2004 related to the design of a Museum of Memory, during the governmentof Nestor Kirchner; and third, the polemics in 2013 arising from a year-end toast organized by the Ministry of Justice in the ex-esma, during the government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. These three situations evidence the transformation over 15 yearsin the ways of understanding the site and its functions, in the social expectations about the ex- esma, in the various ways of conceiving memory, and in the multiple actors in charge of promoting and implementing memory policies. This site analysis of the ex- esma and the controversies mentioned indicate the historicizing of the memory associated with the disputes over these sites as well as some tensions and contradictions facing the politics of memory regarding the ex-centers of Argentinian clandestine detention. These tensions contribute to the vitality of memorial enterprises and reveal ways in which memory is put into action, creates changes in the territory and serves as a framework of meaning fordiverse actions.