SUMMONING THE PAST: COLLECTIVE MEMORY, CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING IN THE AMERICAS
In the Latin American context, peoples who intervene in public space with the intention of transforming the present do not do so empty-handed; they arm themselves with images, figures and sounds from the past. This symposium, situated within the area of Culture of Peace and Conflict and in dialogue with the field of Human Rights and collective action, asks about the articulation between processes of collective memory and various practices of resistance and peacebuilding in contexts of violent conflict. We are particularly interested in the role of memory in addressing conflicts—how violence is remembered and how this shapes the way societies confront and overcome it.
We understand memory as a social, political and cultural practice that is made and activated in the present in order to imagine possible futures. Remembering defines and modifies the field of the possible, and is therefore never neutral: it can subvert power relations or perpetuate them. We contend that it becomes resistance to the extent that it manages to challenge hegemonic versions of the past and their articulation with the present. These resistances often operate from the margins, even in subterranean ways: they build alternatives and, in doing so, erode and divert hegemonic processes, sustain life, and make it possible to overcome fear as an instrument of social control under late capitalism. In contexts marked by violence, memory is also a resource for transforming conflicts and building cultures of peace: it sustains demands for truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition, and builds conditions for coexistence.
The symposium calls for interdisciplinary contributions around four axes: (1) community and territorial resistances and collective memories of indigenous, Afro-descendant, peasant communities, socio-environmental activisms, LGBTIQ+ movements, and social movements against dispossession and exclusion, and in defense of life and territory; (2) sociopolitical violence, political struggles and critical approaches to the advance of the far right, authoritarianisms, militarization and structural inequalities; (3) art, memory and politics: the sensory and affective power of visual, performative, audiovisual and memorial devices for listening, transmission, archiving and denunciation; (4) memory and current popular uprisings: the role of collective memories in recent outbursts, protests and mobilizations, where movements summon figures, symbols and repertoires from the past to challenge official narratives, contest the field of the possible, and project horizons of justice and peace; and (5) human rights violations and transitional justice: processes of truth, reparation, exhumations, commissions and tribunals, together with the archives, testimonies and counter-narratives that document what occurred.
Two shared concerns run through all these lines: a human rights approach and collaborative methodologies; and a situated ethics, attentive to power asymmetries and respectful of community knowledge and memories.
We invite participants to consider how the past becomes a force for transforming the present and how, between tradition and innovation, American memories can address conflicts and found horizons of justice and peace.
