Audiences’ Experiences with Memorialization Initiatives Addressing Human Rights Abuses

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The creation of memorialization initiatives such as memorials, museums, commemorations and performances has been essential in countries devastated by mass political violence and human rights abuses. As part of transitional justice efforts, the role of these places of memory has been deemed important as a form of symbolic reparation to honor the victims of violence and as a means to reaffirm the moral imperative of “Never Again”. Interestingly, while studies of these sites have focused on the design, intentions, meanings and the politics of these initiatives they have done so without paying close attention to the experience of their audiences. This panel focuses on visitors and publics and examines their interactions with these memorial sites and spaces, and the extent to which they are affected and affect these memorialization initiatives. The studies presented explore how different audiences respond to the content, displays, exhibition technologies, guided tours and performances used in memorial sites in Argentina, Peru, Chile, and diasporic commemorative spaces. The case studies examined raise questions about how audiences’ demands, needs, perceptions and a dialogic experience with different audiences might blur the boundaries between hosts, visitors and researchers. The panel’s aim is also to open up a discussion about the different theoretical frameworks and methodologies being used in audience-focused studies.

Sub Track

• Human Rights

Session Organizers

• Olga M Gonzalez-Castaneda, Macalester College

• Susana M Kaiser, University of San Francisco

Chair

• Maria Eugenia Ulfe, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

Individual Presentations

• Showing Progress: Triads, Transparency, and the Making of Visitor Experience in Peru - Joseph P Feldman, Trent University

• Heated Exchanges at the “Tiempos de Memoria” Exhibit in Commemoration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Peruvian TRC Report - Olga M Gonzalez-Castaneda, Macalester College

• Vicariously Witnessing ESMA’s Atrocities - Susana M Kaiser, University of San Francisco

• Trans-local paces of commemoration and diasporic counter-mapping - Carolina Ramirez, Universidad Alberto Hurtado

• Otras memorias sobre las dictaduras del Cono Sur: más allá del relato de las víctimas - Loreto Lopez, Universidad de Chile

Discussant

• Rebecca J Atencio, Tulane University