Cold War Violence and Psychoanalysis in Buenos Aires

• In Event: Cold Warriors and Technocrats: Experts and Expertise in the Latin American City

Abstract

While the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union was a “long peace” noted for its political stability, the Latin American Cold War was hardly peaceful. Instead, it was dominated by ideological extremism and violence. This paper explores the interaction between psychoanalytic research and experiences of Cold War violence in Buenos Aires. At the height of political repression in the late 1970s, a group of Argentine psychiatrists called the Equipo de la Asistencia Psicológica partnered with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo to explore the psychological effects of state-sponsored terror. While international human rights organizations counted the growing number of desaparecidos in Argentina as victims of murder, the Equipo used psychoanalysis to argue that disappearance was a form of violence in its own right, with unique psychological effects on individuals and society at large. In the first half of this talk, I discuss the constitution of psychoanalysis as a means for making certain forms of Cold War violence, such as disappearance, epistemically visible in Argentine society.

Author

• Marco A Ramos, Yale University