Lugares de memoria en resistencias: entre la dictadura y la revuelta de 2019 en Chile

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the memorial uses of public space during the 2019 social revolt in Santiago (Chile), and its relationship with places of memory that have as a focus the memory of the crimes of the civil-military dictatorship. For this purpose, three emblematic places used in the revolt to make memory were analyzed: the Mauricio Fredes Memorial, La Plaza Dignidad and La Galería del Pueblo of the Walls of the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center. A qualitative methodology is used, based on an ethnographic approach to the subject studied. It is concluded that the places of memory of the revolt constitute resistant memorialization processes in two senses. In the first place, because they stress the hegemonic memorial narrative from which the places of memory of the dictatorship in Chile are configured. The second is that they constitute an appropriation and alternative use of public space that disrupts and undermines its normativized and traditional modes and dispositions. We argue that during the revolt the memorial use of public space served as a tool of action for the mobilized citizenry, showing that in the country there is a culture of memorialization that permeates current political practices.