Treading the ground of contested memory: archivists and the human rights movement in Chile

Abstract

This article proposes a new definition of social justice that is based in liberation theology. It questions the relationship between archival practice and social justice and asks how (and whether) social justice can (or should be) a transformative force in the archival profession. These theoretical questions are examined through a case study of human rights archives. The author travelled to Chile in December 2011 to interview archivists and human rights activists and visit human rights archives, museums, and memorials. The article identifies three archival processes by which archivists in Chile engage in social justice activism: the act of documenting human rights violations that dictator Augusto Pinochet perpetrated during his rule from 1973 to 1990; by continually acquiring new documents that bear witness to these violations; and by providing, indeed encouraging and promoting, access to these materials. The article argues that the way that human rights archivists carry out these archival processes allows the community to participate in building both the archives and the memory of the dictatorship. It concludes by stating that this connection between the archives and the community is one of the primary ways in which social justice can be integrated into the archival profession.