The return of a body, alive (sas, lit. ‘breath’) or dead (las) is a recurring demand of relatives of the disappeared in Nepal. Hundreds of people were disappeared by state security forces or abducted by the Maoists during the armed conflict (1996-2006). Uncertainty surrounds their whereabouts and their fate remains unconfirmed. Not knowing for certain whether someone is alive or dead is a painful predicament for relatives. Their loss remains ambiguous: there is no body, only an abrupt rupture in their lives. This thesis explores how the effects of disappearances reverberate in the details of relationships within families, with local communities and with the state. The disappeared person’s absence becomes a disruptive and unsettling presence, and has had particular effects for women whose husbands have disappeared. When people ‘disappear,’ the fragile line between life and death is disrupted: lives and deaths are held in limbo. This thesis explores the social repercussions and the political uses that have been made of this. Ambiguity is both what makes disappearances a particularly difficult kind of loss to bear for relatives; and what makes ‘the disappeared’ a potent political and moral symbol in continuing contests over the state in the aftermath of the war. The relationship between the personal experiences of relatives and the projects of actors seeking to influence the state is complex and over-layered. For relatives, the gap between life and death is paradoxically both a source of hope and of despair. On a political level it becomes a space of ambiguity upon which statecraft is performed. In Nepal, the search for disappeared relatives developed into collective campaigns demanding truth, justice and compensation from the state. This thesis examines how these campaigns, directed by the Maoist party on the one hand and human rights organisations on the other, whilst advocating for relatives of the disappeared have simultaneously utilised the ‘disappeared’ for their own projects to transform or reform the state. The appropriation of the disappeared as political symbols, has involved inscribing them with new identities as ‘conflict victims’ or as ‘disappeared warriors’. The thesis suggests that the absent bodies of the disappeared have been drawn into different contests of sovereignty. It explores how this politicisation both influences the ways in which relatives come to interpret and experience their loss, and is ultimately often rejected by them. In demanding the return of a body, relatives seek to retrieve the person from the political entanglements of contests over sovereign authority: to reclaim the personal from the political.

This study analyzes one of the most active memories of state repression during democracy in Argentina: the memorial advertisements (recordatorios) of those disappeared by the most recent military dictatorship (1976-1983), which are published on a daily basis in the newspaper Página/12. In this thesis, I focus on the pictures of the victims of state repression that appear within the frame of these memorials as the expression of both cultural and personal memory. The leader of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, published the first recordatorio on the tenth anniversary of her daughter’s death, in August 1988. During that same year, 20 relatives of disappeared people went to the newspaper and followed Carlotto’s footsteps, publishing advertisements themselves. Currently, more than 20 years after the first advertisement was published, three to five recordatorios appear in the newspaper every day. The emergence of the recordatorios inaugurates a new discursive genre as contradictory as the disappearance itself. On the one hand, they are connected to the announcements related to the search for missing people (serving the goal of finding a person alive). On the other hand, the recordatorios also resemble obituaries (making a tribute to someone that has passed away). The recordatorio thus emerges as an impossible reality, following the logic of both genres, thus performing both functions in a paradoxical way. This study focuses on the family pictures that appear in the recordatorios and sheds light on how they illustrate the entanglement of the family and the public sphere, and contribute to the debate on the role of personal subjectivity in the construction of collective memory. From a multidisciplinary perspective, the present thesis aims to capture the complexity surrounding these texts and the familial imagery they include, looking at the inherent tension between the private tragedy of a family that has lost one of its members and the public character that stems from their publication in one of Argentina’s national newspapers. / text

I explore the changing use of political violence by the new Latin American military regimes, specifically post-1976 Argentina with comparative analysis towards Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, as well as by those who protested military authoritarianism during the Dirty War and Operation Condor. These military dictatorships adopted aggressive anti-communist ideologies and displayed them through internal, covert violence. In this study, I adopt definitions of the 'spectacle of violence' and the 'spectacle of absence' that seek to explore the politics of diplomacy behind violent acts that have informed the processes of staging, or hiding, both the methods and outcome of inflicted violence. Geopolitics of the post-human rights legislation era and the Argentine military’s perception of a failed judicial system fostered the institutionalization of a new violent performance, the spectacle of absence, in opposition to the guerrillas' application of the public spectacle of violence. My analysis of violent spectacles within Argentina and their reception at home and abroad displays the various meanings transmitted and received through the medium of political violence as performance.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Harold Troper.

Familiares de desaparecidos y detenidos por razones políticas, les Mères de la Place de Mai Ligne Fondatrice, l’Association Mères de la Place de Mai, les Grands-mères de la Place de Mai, l’Association des ex-détenus-disparus (AEDD), H.I.J.O.S et Herman@s sont sept associations de victimes de la dernière dictature en Argentine. Nés pendant et après la dictature (1976-1983), ce sont tous des collectifs de proches de détenus-disparus, à l’exception de l’AEDD qui est une association d’anciens-détenus disparus. L’objectif de ce travail est d’analyser l’évolution des discours de ces associations depuis leur naissance jusqu’en 2007 à la fin du mandat du président Néstor Kirchner. Il s’agit tout d’abord de comprendre dans quelle mesure ces discours sont conditionnés par les politiques étatiques de gestion du passé dictatorial par les gouvernements argentins qui se sont succédés depuis la fin de la dictature. Par ailleurs, cette analyse permet de revenir sur les dynamiques qui s’établissent entre les associations de victimes et surtout de comprendre dans quelle mesure elles constituent un ensemble. Enfin, en nous intéressant aux termes « victime », « devoir de mémoire » et « défense des droits de l’homme » dans ces discours officiels et dans ceux des associations, nous verrons comment ils sont très liés en Argentine. / Familiares de desaparecidos y detenidos por razones políticas, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Association, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the Association of former detained-disappeared (AEDD), H.I.J.O.S and Herman@s are seven associations of victims from the last dictatorship in Argentina. These groups of families of detained-disappeared were born during and after the dictatorship (1976-1983), except for the AEDD, a group of past-detained and disappeared people. The purpose of our study is to analyze the evolution of these associations’ discourse since they were born until 2007, President Néstor Kirchner's end of term. It first raises the question of how these discourses were influenced by the state policies established after the dictatorship regarding the dictatorial past. Besides, this analysis has allowed us to go back over the dynamics created among these associations, and especially to understand how they can be seen as a whole. The study of the word and expressions « victim », « duty of memory » and « human rights » will eventually enable to understand the importance of their links within Argentina.

By recontextualizing spatiality, it is arguable that the meaning of &lsquo / space&rsquo / as a term varies from the most local to the global geographies. &lsquo / Space&rsquo / as a term for this thesis does not only mean the architectural spaces, but also the social spaces. This thesis aims to define and investigate the dynamics of &lsquo / Thirdspace&rsquo / as a key term and to locate it in the specifities of urban within the area of resistance and transgression. &lsquo / Thirdspace&rsquo / is illustrated as a wider sphere of participation forpolitical resistance. As a space, it is the new meeting places for diverse oppositional practices, for multiple communities of resistance. It is a space that is both center and the margin, which enables the radical social action everywhere in the world, from local to the global. The theoretical framework for understanding the tools of our critical approach will be provided by a comprehensive literature about &lsquo / identity politics,&rsquo / which can be defined as the theoretical base of the concept of &lsquo / Thirdspace.&rsquo / After an extensive analysis about the dynamics of &lsquo / Thirdspace&rsquo / for political resistance, it is concerned to locate the concept of &lsquo / Thirdspace&rsquo / within the material world as a case study. The case study aims to exemplify firstly the &lsquo / Istiklal Street&rsquo / as &lsquo / Thirdspace&rsquo / , secondly political position of &lsquo / Saturday&rsquo / s Mothers&rsquo / as &lsquo / thirdspace of political choice&rsquo / , and lastly to demonstrate the reciprocal relations between them within the framework of the relationship between space and politics.

This thesis focuses on the importance of truth and memory in the process of transitional justice, within the context of the aftermath of gross violations of human rights that occurred during the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983 in Argentina. The military junta that ruled Argentina took power under the pretext of national security, arguing that an enemy threatened to destabilize and destroy Argentine society. During the period of the military dictatorship an estimated 30,000 people "disappeared"; relatives of those disappeared mobilized and formed human rights organizations to confront the military regime for its abuses. Once the dictatorship collapsed and democratic rule was reestablished these human rights organizations changed their focus, mobilizing once again to find their missing relatives, learn the truth, and prosecute those responsible of any crimes. A series of amnesty laws and pardons protected the perpetrators of many of the crimes of the military regime through most of the 1990's, until in 2005 the Argentine Supreme Court declared those laws unconstitutional. During the period before the 2005 ruling human rights organizations worked hard to gather the truth about the crimes of the military regime and ensure these crimes were not forgotten. Their initiatives included the famous weekly march to the Plaza de Mayo by members of Madres (Mothers), one of the most important human rights organizations in Argentina; escraches (reveal what is hidden) and public protests by HIJOS (Sons and daughters of the disappeared), actions in which members of HIJOS would go to the houses of known members of the military juntas and protest at their front doors; and programs to find missing grandchildren by Abuelas (Grandmothers), a human rights organization dedicated to searching for the missing children of the disappeared; and others. Because of the structure of terror during the military junta, most Argentines did not know exactly what was happening to the missing persons, and they were afraid to ask. The truth gathering initiatives and the official report of the commission charged with investigating the junta, CONADEP, came into being in response to this lack of knowledge. They helped to inform the Argentine people and the new generations of what had happened during the military dictatorship in hopes of making sure that such abuses do not occur again.

Submitted by Leticia Rodrigues Ferreira Netto (lferreiranetto@gmail.com) on 2017-08-04T15:03:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Leticia Ferreira Netto - presença e ausencia - a construção do discurso sobre desaparecidos politicos].pdf: 918902 bytes, checksum: 3ce03065b4a1b24238b4059eca72d161 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by LUIZA DE MENEZES ROMANETTO (luizamenezes@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2017-08-04T20:48:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ferreiranetto_lr_me_arafcl.pdf: 918902 bytes, checksum: 3ce03065b4a1b24238b4059eca72d161 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-04T20:48:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ferreiranetto_lr_me_arafcl.pdf: 918902 bytes, checksum: 3ce03065b4a1b24238b4059eca72d161 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O caminho da construção do discurso sobre desaparecimento político, em cada comissão oficial, é uma forma de elaborar uma memória nacional. Uma memória que pode integrar ou esquecer muitos grupos diferentes. Entender a definição estatal atual e pretérita sobre os desaparecidos, permite entender como o Estado produz os desaparecidos e mortos políticos. A reelaboração dos discursos sobre os desaparecidos deriva de diversos conflitos sociais que permeiam a discussão da memória e do lembrar e esquecer. Essa pesquisa busca desenvolver como a memória é veiculada nos diversos documentos e como se pode ler as suas mudanças no decorrer dos anos a fim de contar uma determinada história. É também na maneira de contar a história que pode aperfeiçoar os direitos políticos e civis na democracia. Os documentos, aqui, analisados são produzidos por civis, familiares de pessoas mortas e desaparecidas políticas, e, posteriormente, pela Casa Civil da Presidência. Sendo eles: Brasil: Nunca Mais (1985), Dossiê dos mortos e desaparecidos políticos de 1964 (1995), Lei 9.140/95 (1995), Livro-Relatório da CEMDP (2007), Lei 12.528/2011 (2011), Relatório Final da CNV (2014). Para ler estes documentos, as interpretações de M. Foucault (2005) quanto a elaboração da verdade pelo documento e pelo inquérito, base do sistema jurídico atual, são essenciais. Assim como as interpretações de J. Le Goff (1991) sobre a elaboração e a falta de inocência dos documentos e, de A. Assmann (2014) e J. Assmann (2008) sobre as diferentes dimensões da memória, dentro da família e dentro da nação. Com este arcabouço teóricometodológico, a leitura se desenrola a fim de buscar as formas como os desaparecidos são retratados através desse período, saindo de "desaparecidos" mártires (ARQUIDIOCESE DE SÃO PAULO, 1985) para "cadáveres ocultos" (CNV, 2014). E se pode observar como a memória da família e as respostas que esta família esperam são diferentes daquelas que as comissões podem elaborar e responder. Pode-se dizer, com ressalvas ainda assim, que a memória nacional não tem coração de mãe, pai, irmãos, conjugues, amigos, mas tem letras que poderiam garantir os direitos destes. / The way of constructing the discourse on political disappearance, in each official commission, is a way of elaborating a national memory. A memory that can integrate or forget many different groups. Understanding the present and past state definition of the disappeared allows us to understand how the state produces the disappeared and the political dead. The reelaboration of the discourses on the disappeared derives from diverse social conflicts that permeate the discussion of memory and remember and forget. This research seeks to develop how memory is conveyed in the various documents and how one can read its changes over the years in order to tell history. It is the way of telling the history that can improve political and civil rights in democracy. The documents analyzed here are produced by civilians, relatives of political dead and missing people, and later, by the Civil House of the Presidency. They are: Brasil: Nunca Mais (1985), Dossiê dos mortos e desaparecidos políticos de 1964 (1995), Lei 9.140/95 (1995), Livro-Relatório da CEMDP (2007), Lei 12.528/2011 (2011), Relatório Final da CNV (2014). To read these documents, the interpretations of M. Foucault (2005) regarding the elaboration of the truth by documents and the inquiry, the basis of the current legal system, are essential. As well as the interpretations of J. Le Goff (1991) on the elaboration – and lack of innocence – of the documents, and A. Assmann's (2014) and J. Assmann's (2008) differentiation of dimensions of the memory, within the family and within the nation. With this theoretical-methodological framework, the reading unfolds in order to search for the ways the disappeared are portrayed through the time, leaving "disappeared" martyrs (ARQUIDIOCESE DE SÃO PAULO, 1985) for "hidden corpses" (CNV, 2014). And one can see how the memory of the family and the answers that this family expects are different from those that the commissions can elaborate and respond to. It can be said, with reservations, that the national memory does not have the heart of a mother, father, siblings, spouses, friends, but it has letters that could guarantee their rights.

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