Conflicted Memory: Military Cultural Interventions and the Human Rights Era in Peru

by Cynthia E. Milton

Overview

What happens when concepts of "truth," "memory," and "human rights" are taken up and adapted by former perpetrators of violence? Peru has moved from the 1980s–90s conflict between its armed forces and Shining Path militants into an era of open democracy, transitional justice, and truth and reconciliation commissions. Cynthia Milton reveals how Peru's military has engaged in a tactical cultural campaign—via books, films, museums—to shift public opinion, debate, and memories about the nation's violent recent past and its part in it.

Milton calls attention to fabrications of our post-truth era but goes further to deeply explore the ways members of the Peruvian military see their past, how they actively commemorate and curate it in the present, and why they do so. Her nuanced approach upends frameworks of memory studies that reduce military and ex-military to a predictable role of outright denial.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299315009
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	01/23/2018
Series:	Critical Human Rights
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Cynthia E. Milton is the Canada Research Chair in Latin American History at the Université de Montréal. She is the editor of Art from a Fractured Past: Memory and Truth-telling in Post–Shining Path Peru. Her coedited works include The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule and Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations                
Acknowledgments                 
 
Introduction: Curating and Remembering “los Buenos Militares”                
1 Military Memory Books: Picking up Pens to Recount Their Truths                       
2 The Permanent Historical Commission of the Peruvian Army and Their Truth Report                 
3 Guerra fratricida: The Parallel Lives and Writings of Carlos Freyre and Lurgio Gavilán             
4 Military Curations in the Turn to Human Rights Museology                     
5 The Captive: Military Memories and Censorship in Public Spaces            
Conclusion: Tied to History: The Army’s Dirge and Counter Memories in the Era of Human Rights                     
 
Notes              
Bibliography              
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Brings to light how military 'entrepreneurs of memory' strategically place memory products in a memory marketplace. A major intervention in debates about Peru's internal armed conflict of the 1980s and '90s and its aftermath, which will interest scholars in many disciplines and regions."—Paulo Drinot, coeditor of Comics and Memory in Latin America

"Impressively documents the military's diverse interventions in Peru's culture—memoirs, 'truth' reports, films, novels, and memorials—and its numerous attempts to censor cultural productions that challenge its preferred narrative."—Jo-Marie Burt, George Mason University

"This incisive analysis of Peruvian countermemories explores the military's seemingly failed cultural memory production, its lack of artistry and inability to suppress evidence. Though the military is unable to fully reclaim heroic and self-sacrificing patriotism, Milton nonetheless recognizes its success in shaping memory politics and current political debates."—Leigh Payne, author of Unsettling Accounts

"Milton calls attention to fabrications of our post-truth era but goes further to deeply explore the ways members of the Peruvian military see their past, how they actively commemorate and curate it in the present, and why they do so. Her nuanced approach upends frameworks of memory studies that reduce military and ex-military to a predictable role of outright denial."—Rélam

From the Publisher