Abstract

MERLIN, Nora. Trauma and memory. Educ. Rev. [online]. 2018, vol.34, n.70, pp.101-116. ISSN 1984-0411.  https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-4060.58766.

Living demands us to forget what is painful. For this to be possible, it is essential to build the past. Although paradoxical, Freud maintains that the only possibility of oblivion is remembering, since it constitutes the condition that allows the psychic apparatus to delimit and to cut out the past. Otherwise, trauma tends to repeat itself compulsively in an eternal present that does not cease and torments the subject. In relation to memory and trauma, we can establish a parallelism between the operations performed by the singular psychic apparatus and a community, since, according to Freud, there are no differences between individual and collective mechanisms. From this conception, we are interested in thinking about the process of proceeding that took place in Argentina from 1976 onwards, date in which, as we know, the bloody terrorism of the State in the last military dictatorship began. In the case of Argentina, we will observe how the relationship between memory and trauma was established from the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and human rights organizations. In this process of trauma, we will see the emergence of what we call collective memory, which constitutes a new modality of love. Usually, the dimension of love is not included in politics. However, culture has produced a new form of love that cannot be conceived outside of politics: collective memory - love that has become public.

Keywords : Memory; Trauma; Terrorism of the State; Argentina; Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo..

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