testimonio
Mary Virginia Long
History 269-Professor Gildner
April 8, 2013
The Haunting Memory and Terrors of Psychological Torture
TESTIMONIO
History is not a single, linear truth or perspective, but rather it is made up of a collage of interpretations, memories, experiences, and analyses. In the recent decades in Latin America, testimonial literature has immerged as a popular form of such collective expression and ideology. This form of narrative emerges from the need to create social awareness and consciousness to exploitation, mistreatment, and oppression faced by the marginalized groups of a society. Unlike a master narrative, which boldly makes universal claims about the experience, treatment, and situations of the “voiceless” in a community, these personal testimonies, do not attempt to make claims for or represent a community. However, the speakers do believe that there are many others within their community who have experienced or can relate to similar atrocities, and their hope is that their narratives will function as a way to bring about social awareness and change. Therefore, through personal narratives, the speaker “performs an act of identity-formation which is simultaneously personal and collective”.1Essentially, these testimonialistas portray their experiences as an agent for collective memory and identity.
The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival, written by Alicia Partnoy, falls into this genre of testimonial literature in Latin America. In this narrative lies an (fictionalized) account of Partnoy’s own “disappearance” and imprisonment in one of the many clandestine concentration camps in Argentina during the internal Dirty War period (1976-1983). Only able to see through the little peephole between her nose and blindfold, Partnoy recounts the day-to-day activities of the concentration camp and the relationships that she made with other prisoners. In particular, The Little School emphasizes the extreme measures of torture (both physical and
History 269-Professor Gildner
April 8, 2013
The Haunting Memory and Terrors of Psychological Torture
TESTIMONIO
History is not a single, linear truth or perspective, but rather it is made up of a collage of interpretations, memories, experiences, and analyses. In the recent decades in Latin America, testimonial literature has immerged as a popular form of such collective expression and ideology. This form of narrative emerges from the need to create social awareness and consciousness to exploitation, mistreatment, and oppression faced by the marginalized groups of a society. Unlike a master narrative, which boldly makes universal claims about the experience, treatment, and situations of the “voiceless” in a community, these personal testimonies, do not attempt to make claims for or represent a community. However, the speakers do believe that there are many others within their community who have experienced or can relate to similar atrocities, and their hope is that their narratives will function as a way to bring about social awareness and change. Therefore, through personal narratives, the speaker “performs an act of identity-formation which is simultaneously personal and collective”.1Essentially, these testimonialistas portray their experiences as an agent for collective memory and identity.
The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival, written by Alicia Partnoy, falls into this genre of testimonial literature in Latin America. In this narrative lies an (fictionalized) account of Partnoy’s own “disappearance” and imprisonment in one of the many clandestine concentration camps in Argentina during the internal Dirty War period (1976-1983). Only able to see through the little peephole between her nose and blindfold, Partnoy recounts the day-to-day activities of the concentration camp and the relationships that she made with other prisoners. In particular, The Little School emphasizes the extreme measures of torture (both physical and
Bibliography: Fagen, Patricia Weiss. "Repression and State Security." In Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America, edited by Juan E. Corradi and Merino Manuel A. Garretón, 39-71. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Feitlowitz, Marguerite. A Lexicon of Terror. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Fields, Rona M. "The Neurobiological Consequences of Psychological Torture." In The Trauma of Psychological Torture, edited by Gildbert Reyes and Almerindo E. Ojeda, 139-62. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Gildner, R. Matthew. "Psychological Torture as a Cold War Imperative." Edited by Almerindo E. Ojeda. In The Trauma of Psychological Torture, edited by Gilbert Reyes, 23-39. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Ojeda, Almerindo E. "What Is Psychological Torture?" In The Trauma of Psychological Torture, edited by Gilbert Reyes, 1-22. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Partnoy, Alicia. The Little School Tales of Disappearance and Survival. San Francisco, CA: Midnight Editions, 1998. United States of America. Department of the State. 200202913: Memorandum of Conversation: Santiago Chile June 16, 1976. 1977. United States of America. Department of the State. 200203891: Memorandum of Conversation: Secretary 's Meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister Guzzetti. New York, 1976. Yudice, George. "Testimonio and Postmodernism." Latin American Perspectives 18, no. 3 (1991): 15-31. doi:10.1177/0094582X9101800302.