El asalto a la confianza básica: desaparición, protesta y re-entierros en Argentina

Abstract

The Argentine dirty war that raged from 1976 to 1983 was a massive assault on the foundation of the social contract. The violence unleashed 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 at home. I shall argue that the disappearances carried out in the intimacy of the home invaded the primary object-relation of parent and child, and provoked intense guilt feelings among the surviving parents about having failed to protect their adult and adolescent children. It was at this intersection of the political and domestic domain that parental trust and protection became mobilized. I shall conclude that the politicization of the dead by the military led mothers to cope with their separation anxiety either by a projective search for the human remains or by an introjective vindication of the revolutionary ideals embraced by many disappeared before their abduction.