Pamela Colombo

A Space Under Construction: The Spatio-Temporal Constellation of Esma in El Predio

In this article, I look at the relationship between concentrationary space and images, taking as my focus an analysis of the documentary El Predio (The Site) filmed by Jonathan Perel inside the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (The Navy Mechanics School) (ESMA). The analysis is framed by three theoretical perspectives which throw light on different but essential aspects of the concentrationary space: space as lived/imagined (Henri Lefebvre), space as tour or itinerary (Michel de Certeau) and space as constellation (Walter Benjamin). In the first section I analyse how ESMA is ‘under construction’ in a double sense: both because of the alteration-repair of its ruins and because of the open and unfinished character of the space in itself, here using the idea of the social production of space developed by Lefebvre. In the second section, basing myself on de Certeaus practice of everyday life, I problematise the different types of maps or itineraries that can be made of the space of ESMA. In the last section, framing my reflections within ideas developed by Benjamin, I propose to use the term constellation to give an account of the peculiar manner in which the concentrationary world is constituted by intersections and superimpositions of different spaces and times.

Introduction: The Multi-Layered Memories of Space

At the origin of this book is a salon, and a piano on which Federico Garcia Lorca used to play. The inaugural session of the symposium ‘Spatialities of Exception, Violence, and Memory’, for which the contributions gathered in this volume were originally written, took place in February 2012 at the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students’ Residency) in Madrid. This institution has a legendary place in the intellectual history of Spain, having served as an active cultural centre in the interwar period. Before Franco’s dictatorship put an end to it, the building had offered a fertile space for creation, thought and interdisciplinary dialogue and had housed many prominent avant-garde artists and scientists, like Lorca himself. Sitting in that salon and with the piano still standing there as a silent witness, the research topics that had gathered us there became particularly tangible. How is memory inscribed in space? Do the places themselves bear and transmit the remembrance or is it that our knowledge and affect attach meaning to them? Evoking the figure of Garcia Lorca – who was executed by the Francoist regime but whose corpse has never been found – the question about the entanglement of places and memory became palpable in this room. The greatest Spanish-language poet of the twentieth century is a ‘desaparecido’ (disappeared), since his remains have never been found. What happens when state crimes do not leave traces and when there are no recognizable graves? How can the absence be made visible?

Spaces of Confrontation and Defeat: The Spatial Dispossession of the Revolution in Tucumán, Argentina

This is the story of a space that was lost; a space in rebellion that became a space of defeat. This story revolves around the space of the monte1 of Tucuman situated in the north of Argentina. There, on 9 February 1975, the so-called Operativo Independencia (Operation Independence) was launched with the aim of undertaking ‘all military operations deemed necessary in order to neutralize or annihilate any uprising of subversive elements operating in the province of Tucuman’ (Decree N261/75).2 The objective was, more specifically, to eliminate the rural guerrillas belonging to the armed wing of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (Workers’ Revolutionary Party, PRT) the Ejercito Revolucinario del Pueblo (the People’s Revolutionary Army — ERP) and break the ties that it had forged with workers’ and peasants’ movements.

Gatti, G. (2011). "Identidades desaparecidas. Peleas por el sentido de los mundos de la desaparición forzada". Prometeo Libros, Buenos Aires, 248 páginas

En el libro Identidades desaparecidas. Peleas por el sentido de los mundos de la desaparicion forzada, Gabriel Gatti reflexiona sobre lo que la desaparicion forzada de personas supone para nuestro presente, pero dando cuenta y marcando una y otra vez el resto inasimilable, incomprensible e irrepresentable que viene aparejado con esta nueva tecnica de aniquilacion. El libro es un trabajo sociologico que se encuadra bajo los estudios sobre memoria, identidad y representacion, y analiza particularmente el proceso de desaparicion forzada de personas que tuvo lugar en Argentina y Uruguay a mediados de la decada del 70’. Aunque el estudio de caso este circunscripto a estos dos paises, en el libro se encontraran tambien reflexiones valiosas para analizar otros casos, como por ejemplo el de las desapariciones acontecidas durante la guerra civil en Espana.

Espacios de confrontación y desaparición en Tucumán, Argentina

La desaparicion forzada de personas conmueve aun el espacio, aunque los rastros de esa experiencia parecieran –a primera vista– haberse vuelto parte de un paisaje inocente. La ultima dictadura civico-militar en Argentina (1976-1983) culmino hace ya casi mas de tres decadas; sin embargo, la materialidad de los campos de concentracion continua siendo parte del entramado urbano y rural, la mayoria de los lugares de inhumacion clandestina permanecen todavia impunemente escondidos bajo tierra y los lugares donde se produjeron los secuestros aun cargan las marcas del acontecimiento y sus estigmas. La propuesta de este ensayo radica en senalar la importancia de la dimension espacial en el estudio de los procesos de confrontacion que tuvieron lugar en Argentina durante los 60 y principios de los 70 y el subsiguiente proceso de desaparicion forzada de personas (1974- 1983). Para ello analizare dos espaciostiempos diferenciados: el momento y espacio de la confrontacion y el momento y espacio de la desaparicion.