Macarena Gomez-Barris
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520255838
- eISBN:
- 9780520942493
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520255838.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
The 1973 military coup in Chile deposed the democratically elected Salvador Allende and installed a dictatorship that terrorized the country for almost twenty years. Subsequent efforts to come to ...
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The 1973 military coup in Chile deposed the democratically elected Salvador Allende and installed a dictatorship that terrorized the country for almost twenty years. Subsequent efforts to come to terms with the national trauma have resulted in an outpouring of fiction, art, film, and drama. This ethnography examines cultural sites and representations in post dictatorship Chile—what the author calls “memory symbolics”—to uncover the impact of state-sponsored violence. It surveys the concentration camp turned memorial park, Villa Grimaldi, documentary films, the torture paintings of Guillermo Núñez, and art by Chilean exiles, arguing that two contradictory forces are at work: a desire to forget the experiences and the victims, and a powerful need to remember and memorialize them. By linking culture, nation, and identity, the book shows how those most affected by the legacies of the dictatorship continue to live with the presence of violence in their bodies, in their daily lives, and in the identities they pass down to younger generations.Less
The 1973 military coup in Chile deposed the democratically elected Salvador Allende and installed a dictatorship that terrorized the country for almost twenty years. Subsequent efforts to come to terms with the national trauma have resulted in an outpouring of fiction, art, film, and drama. This ethnography examines cultural sites and representations in post dictatorship Chile—what the author calls “memory symbolics”—to uncover the impact of state-sponsored violence. It surveys the concentration camp turned memorial park, Villa Grimaldi, documentary films, the torture paintings of Guillermo Núñez, and art by Chilean exiles, arguing that two contradictory forces are at work: a desire to forget the experiences and the victims, and a powerful need to remember and memorialize them. By linking culture, nation, and identity, the book shows how those most affected by the legacies of the dictatorship continue to live with the presence of violence in their bodies, in their daily lives, and in the identities they pass down to younger generations.
Robert L. Cagle
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099722
- eISBN:
- 9789882207028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099722.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter analyzes the issue of violence in recent South Korean “extreme” films, and focuses on three films: Oldboy (2003), H (2002), and A Bittersweet Life (2005). It questions the simplistic ...
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This chapter analyzes the issue of violence in recent South Korean “extreme” films, and focuses on three films: Oldboy (2003), H (2002), and A Bittersweet Life (2005). It questions the simplistic dichotomies of “us” (or “US”) versus “them,” “good” versus “evil,” and “sane” versus “sick.” It compares the three films with Hollywood melodrama and notes how a “threat” to social order propels the narrative in both South Korean “extreme” films and Hollywood melodrama, yet the “threat” functions differently in that the moral good is never fully restored in the former. It argues that such narrative structure is attributed to the recent history and national traumas of Korea, and that violence in Korean extreme films provides a revelatory moment, in which the sustained moral structure is reversed; the protagonist recognizes the “other” in him or her, dissolving the binary moral opposition between good and evil.Less
This chapter analyzes the issue of violence in recent South Korean “extreme” films, and focuses on three films: Oldboy (2003), H (2002), and A Bittersweet Life (2005). It questions the simplistic dichotomies of “us” (or “US”) versus “them,” “good” versus “evil,” and “sane” versus “sick.” It compares the three films with Hollywood melodrama and notes how a “threat” to social order propels the narrative in both South Korean “extreme” films and Hollywood melodrama, yet the “threat” functions differently in that the moral good is never fully restored in the former. It argues that such narrative structure is attributed to the recent history and national traumas of Korea, and that violence in Korean extreme films provides a revelatory moment, in which the sustained moral structure is reversed; the protagonist recognizes the “other” in him or her, dissolving the binary moral opposition between good and evil.
Erik Ching
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469628660
- eISBN:
- 9781469628684
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469628660.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
El Salvador's civil war began in 1980 and ended twelve bloody years later. It saw extreme violence on both sides, including the terrorizing and targeting of civilians by death squads, recruitment of ...
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El Salvador's civil war began in 1980 and ended twelve bloody years later. It saw extreme violence on both sides, including the terrorizing and targeting of civilians by death squads, recruitment of child soldiers, and the death and disappearance of more than 75,000 people. Examining El Salvador's vibrant life-story literature written in the aftermath of this terrible conflict—including memoirs and testimonials—Erik Ching seeks to understand how the war has come to be remembered and rebattled by Salvadorans and what that means for their society today. Ching identifies four memory communities that dominate national post-war views: civilian elites, military officers, guerrilla commanders, and working class and poor testimonialists. Pushing distinct and divergent stories, these groups are today engaged in what Ching terms a "narrative battle" for control over the memory of the war. Their ongoing publications in the marketplace of ideas tend to direct Salvadorans' attempts to negotiate the war’s meaning and legacy, and Ching suggests that a more open, coordinated reconciliation process is needed in this post-conflict society. In the meantime, El Salvador, fractured by conflicting interpretations of its national trauma, is hindered in dealing with the immediate problems posed by the nexus of neoliberalism, gang violence, and outmigration.Less
El Salvador's civil war began in 1980 and ended twelve bloody years later. It saw extreme violence on both sides, including the terrorizing and targeting of civilians by death squads, recruitment of child soldiers, and the death and disappearance of more than 75,000 people. Examining El Salvador's vibrant life-story literature written in the aftermath of this terrible conflict—including memoirs and testimonials—Erik Ching seeks to understand how the war has come to be remembered and rebattled by Salvadorans and what that means for their society today. Ching identifies four memory communities that dominate national post-war views: civilian elites, military officers, guerrilla commanders, and working class and poor testimonialists. Pushing distinct and divergent stories, these groups are today engaged in what Ching terms a "narrative battle" for control over the memory of the war. Their ongoing publications in the marketplace of ideas tend to direct Salvadorans' attempts to negotiate the war’s meaning and legacy, and Ching suggests that a more open, coordinated reconciliation process is needed in this post-conflict society. In the meantime, El Salvador, fractured by conflicting interpretations of its national trauma, is hindered in dealing with the immediate problems posed by the nexus of neoliberalism, gang violence, and outmigration.
Eyal Ginio
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190264031
- eISBN:
- 9780190638498
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190264031.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This book deals with military defeat and national catastrophe, and their implications for society. When the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912, few Ottomans anticipated that it would prove to ...
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This book deals with military defeat and national catastrophe, and their implications for society. When the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912, few Ottomans anticipated that it would prove to be a watershed moment for the Empire, ending in atrocities, ignominy, national catastrophe, and the loss of its remaining provinces in the Balkans. Defeat at the hands of an alliance of Balkan states comprising Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro created deep national trauma and led to bitter soul-searching, giving rise to a so-called “Culture of Defeat” in which condemnation, exclusion of the non-Muslim minorities, criticism over the project of Ottomanism, and calls for national rejuvenation prevailed in a way clearly at odds with the reformist discourse which followed the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. This book discusses some of the different visual and written products of the defeat, published in Ottoman local languages (Turkish, Arabic and Ladino), with the aim of understanding the experience of defeat–how it was perceived, analyzed and commemorated by different sectors in Ottoman society–to show that it is key to understanding the decisions and actions of the Ottoman political elite during the subsequent World War One and the early decades of the Turkish Republic.Less
This book deals with military defeat and national catastrophe, and their implications for society. When the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912, few Ottomans anticipated that it would prove to be a watershed moment for the Empire, ending in atrocities, ignominy, national catastrophe, and the loss of its remaining provinces in the Balkans. Defeat at the hands of an alliance of Balkan states comprising Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro created deep national trauma and led to bitter soul-searching, giving rise to a so-called “Culture of Defeat” in which condemnation, exclusion of the non-Muslim minorities, criticism over the project of Ottomanism, and calls for national rejuvenation prevailed in a way clearly at odds with the reformist discourse which followed the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. This book discusses some of the different visual and written products of the defeat, published in Ottoman local languages (Turkish, Arabic and Ladino), with the aim of understanding the experience of defeat–how it was perceived, analyzed and commemorated by different sectors in Ottoman society–to show that it is key to understanding the decisions and actions of the Ottoman political elite during the subsequent World War One and the early decades of the Turkish Republic.
Eyal Ginio
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190264031
- eISBN:
- 9780190638498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190264031.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
The introduction provides historical and methodological frameworks for the book by focusing on total war, mobilization and military defeat, and their ramifications for society as key-events that ...
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The introduction provides historical and methodological frameworks for the book by focusing on total war, mobilization and military defeat, and their ramifications for society as key-events that shape national identities and communal boundaries and create national projects and agendas aiming at rejuvenation. The term “Culture of Defeat” is used in the introduction to discuss the psychological and cultural responses to colossal defeats as reflecting trauma, mourning and fear of extinction among vanquished nations, but also as inspiring drastic reforms, national renewal and the creation of a new order. The introduction also aims to present the Ottoman literature on the defeat against the background of previous Ottoman attempts at reforms, which had dominated Ottoman politics since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in the context of the “Spirit of 1908” and the hopes that it generated among the Ottoman literate elite.Less
The introduction provides historical and methodological frameworks for the book by focusing on total war, mobilization and military defeat, and their ramifications for society as key-events that shape national identities and communal boundaries and create national projects and agendas aiming at rejuvenation. The term “Culture of Defeat” is used in the introduction to discuss the psychological and cultural responses to colossal defeats as reflecting trauma, mourning and fear of extinction among vanquished nations, but also as inspiring drastic reforms, national renewal and the creation of a new order. The introduction also aims to present the Ottoman literature on the defeat against the background of previous Ottoman attempts at reforms, which had dominated Ottoman politics since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in the context of the “Spirit of 1908” and the hopes that it generated among the Ottoman literate elite.
Bo Rothstein
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780192894908
- eISBN:
- 9780191915789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192894908.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, International Relations and Politics
Issues about corruption and other forms of bad government have become central in the social sciences. An unresolved question is how countries can solve the issue of transformation from systemic ...
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Issues about corruption and other forms of bad government have become central in the social sciences. An unresolved question is how countries can solve the issue of transformation from systemic corruption to the quality of government. Based on Elinor Ostrom’s theory of common pool resource appropriation, a new theoretical model for explaining this type of institutional change is developed. Sweden during the nineteenth century is used as an illustration by showing how the country made a transition from being largely patrimonial, nepotistic, and corrupt to a modern, Weberian, efficient, and impartial state structure. In addition to the “national trauma” of losing a major war, this chapter stresses the importance of three additional factors in Sweden: previous changes in courts and the legal system; recognition of the problem by the main contemporary political actors; and the new liberal ideology that made an important impact on the Swedish political scene.Less
Issues about corruption and other forms of bad government have become central in the social sciences. An unresolved question is how countries can solve the issue of transformation from systemic corruption to the quality of government. Based on Elinor Ostrom’s theory of common pool resource appropriation, a new theoretical model for explaining this type of institutional change is developed. Sweden during the nineteenth century is used as an illustration by showing how the country made a transition from being largely patrimonial, nepotistic, and corrupt to a modern, Weberian, efficient, and impartial state structure. In addition to the “national trauma” of losing a major war, this chapter stresses the importance of three additional factors in Sweden: previous changes in courts and the legal system; recognition of the problem by the main contemporary political actors; and the new liberal ideology that made an important impact on the Swedish political scene.
