Cambria Press is releasing a new book, State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America, by Dr. Gabriela Fried Amilivia (associate professor of sociology at California State University Los Angeles). Watch Dr. Fried discuss the book during the publication launch at the LASA Congress in New York.

Praise for the book:

“This study is a theoretical, methodological, and socio-historical contribution to the field, especially for memory studies from the perspective of the victims’ subjectivities. Gabriela Fried shows how the experience of extreme vulnerability becomes the sequel to the cumulative traumatic experience of individuals and families, and she illuminates some of the most relevant dimensions of this problem, thereby contributing to a wider understanding of the complex processes of political memories in Latin America in the lives of individuals and society.”

—Elizabeth Lira, Dean, Facultad de Psicología,
Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago de Chile

The following are excerpts from State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America:

“…the home raids and arrests after midnight, ‘under cover of darkness,’ were not necessarily meant to be silent acts: often, they were transformed into public spectacles of horror in which officers would insistently and loudly ring bells or break down doors at two or three in the morning, alarming entire houses, apartments, floors, or complexes. This included waking children, performing searches, and interrogating everyone present before apprehending the person or persons they had come for and taking them away without explanation …” (State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America, pp. 50–51)

“Prisoners were forced into a constant state of alertness that would become a long-term habit: “to see without looking, to hear without listening, to know without showing that one knows.” Detainees were immediately deprived of any familiar connection, confined to a solitary struggle that enlisted their own bodies in pain—and the fear of pain—as a means of torture. In response, they turned inward, necessarily relying on their own psychic resources, however limited, for survival.” (State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America, pp. 128–129)

“In 1975 the armed forces had perfected their ‘methods,’ and everyone who was detained was subjected to systematic torture … And I was no exception. The days of interrogation and torture were very hard, so much that my mind has erased much of those days (months?), but the marks on my body took longer to erase (have they been erased?) …” (State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America, pp. 200–201)

Order State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America and ask your library to purchase this book, which will be a valuable resource to students, scholars, and practitioners who are interested in substantive questions of memory, democratization, human rights, and transitional justice. This book is an essential addition for collections in Latin American studies and studies in trauma, memory, and political justice.

www.cambriapress.com

Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter