Antonius C. G. M. Robben

Sons of the sea goddess : economic practice and discursive conflict in Brazil

The author examines the relationship between economy and society in a fishing community in north-east Brazil. He proposes that closer ethnographic and theoretical attention be paid to the renegotiation of economic practices.

From dirty war to genocide: Argentina’s resistance to national reconciliation

Three decades of political, legal and discursive contestation about the violence, military repression and disappearances that troubled Argentina during the 1970s have repeatedly changed the multidirectional memories of adversarial groups and undercut attempts at national reconciliation. The representation of past violence as dirty war, state terrorism or genocide singled out different perpetrators, evoked other remembrances, and called for distinct ways to reconcile Argentine society. These interpretive frameworks succeeded one another in public debates about the past, and generated conflicting collective memories among political opponents. The recent comparison of disappearances with the Holocaust convinced the human rights movement, and certain judicial and academic circles, that genocide had occurred in Argentina. Individual culpability became transformed into collective responsibility, and further complicated national reconciliation. This article demonstrates that the memorialization and continuous narration of past massive violence in Argentina did not advance the coexistence of adversarial groups but intensified their enmity and revived certain repressive practices.

Combat Motivation, Fear and Terror in Twentieth-century Argentinian Warfare

This article compares the combat motivation of Argentinian troops against guerrilla insurgents in a 1975-80 domestic counter-insurgency war with the performance of Argentinian soldiers against British forces in the 1982 Falklands war. The comparison reveals that the willingness to fire and fight differs from the desire to enter into war, and that combat motivation is not determined exclusively by mental preparedness, professional training and superior armament, but depends as much on shifting motivations and dynamic social and political circumstances during the armed conflict. Furthermore, combat motivation is also affected by the type of warfare conducted, and is only given meaning during a pause in the hostilities, when the desire to continue fighting is reassessed.

Massive Violent Death and Contested National Mourning in Post-Authoritarian Chile and Argentina: A Sociocultural Application of the Dual Process Model

This article uses the dual process model (DPM) in an analysis of the national mourning of tens of thousands of disappeared in Chile and Argentina by adapting the model from the individual to the collective level where society as a whole is bereaved. Perpetrators are also involved in the national mourning process as members of a bereaved society. This article aims to (a) demonstrate the DPMs significance for the analysis of national mourning in post-conflict societies and (b) explain oscillations between loss orientation and restoration orientation in coping with massive losses that seem contradictory from a grief work perspective.

Mourning and Mistrust in Civil-Military Relations in Post-Dirty War Argentina

This confession by admiral Massera betrays the extent to which the Argentine military dictatorship sought to control the lives of its citizens during the dirty war that raged from 1976 to 1983.1 The violence unleashed in that tragic decade penetrated deep into the homes of the Argentine people, and disrupted the relations of protection, safety, trust and love that dwelled there. Nearly two-thirds of all disappeared were abducted from home.2 The violation of the home by the military shattered the intimate ties of its inhabitants, and caused a profound mistrust of the state and its institutions among a great segment of Argentine society. Civil–military relations remained damaged for more than a decade after the turn to democracy in 1983, in part because of the psychological consequences of the terror inflicted on the victims of the dirty war.

Social Trauma, National Mourning, and Collective Guilt in Post-Authoritarian Argentina

How has Argentine society coped with the tens of thousands of civilians who disappeared and were assassinated during the 1976–83 dictatorship? Grief-stricken relatives, survivors of disappearance, and indicted perpetrators have all been involved in processes of social trauma and national mourning as members of a bereaved society. The prosecution of more than 2000 perpetrators in the last decade might indicate that Argentine society has come to terms with the past, but their imprisonment for crimes against humanity has not convinced the human rights organizations that justice is being served, because they have come to regard the disappearances as genocide. They have been holding increasingly more people accountable, and consider Argentine society as a whole responsible for the repressive violence.