Surviving Memory Workshops: Rescuing History with Salvadoran Civil War Refugees

• In Event: How Should We Remember?: The Politics of Memory in post-dictatorship and post-Civil-War Latin America

Abstract

During the 1980s counterinsurgency operations drove 43,000 Salvadoran peasants into Honduran refugee camps. Although some remained exiled for more than a decade, in 1987 a group of highly organized peasants at the Mesa Grande camp returned home. This inspired others; when Salvadoran government and insurgent forces signed a peace accord in 1992, the refugee camps were nearly empty. Despite former refugees’ assertions that they played key roles in the peace process, their experiences have received little attention. A new international research collaboration has begun to break the silence by uncovering the hidden histories of the refugees. This paper focuses on a series of workshops with former refugees coordinated by the presenters and Surviving Historic Memory committees in Chalatenango and Cuscatlán departments. The workshops utilize photographs and materials produced at Mesa Grande to prompt “memory mapping” and oral histories. This presentation explores the workshops as alternative knowledge spaces, countering official neglect. The U.N. Truth Commission called for reparations, yet in 24 years no Salvadoran administration has complied. Memory committes seek to rescatar la historia; aging war survivors feel a moral duty to pass on their truths so that new generations may continue working for true peace with dignity and justice. The presentation also examines workshop results (problematizing “the refugee” by highlighting vulnerability and resilience) and reflects on workshop praxis (e.g., persistence of uneven power dynamics throughout the intentionally anti-colonial, participatory project).

Author

• Amanda F Grzyb, Associate Professor, Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario