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Ecomemoria 's Diasporic Space of Commemoration: A Tree-Planting Ceremony and its Living Memorial

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13569325.2012.694808

1469-9575

Carolina Ramírez, Alejandra Serpente,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Abstract Ecomemoria comprises an intergenerational group of Chilean exiles living in the UK and in Chile who aim to keep alive the memory of and claim justice for those who were disappeared (desaparecidos) and killed (ejecutados políticos) during Pinochet's dictatorship (1973–1990). This piece draws on the authors' recent participation in a specific tree-planting ceremony performed by this group in Wales. By looking at the relocation of bodies, and the enactments and artefacts within the site-specificity of this event, a reflection on both the diasporic space developed and the unexpectedly complex character of the "living memorial" the group aims to cultivate will be elaborated. Ecomemoria's members match their living memory project with the trees that commemorate the life of the disappeared. Yet this conception here is complicated by highlighting the transnational, as well as the active, social, embodied and uncanny character of the ceremony which, as well be argued comprises a living memorial in its own right. This essay starts by briefly presenting Ecomemoria, to then describe and deconstruct the ceremony's diasporic and haunting qualities. Finally, to conclude, a much more complex idea of a living memorial will be developed in consideration of the mobile, affective, embodied and ghostly mise-en-scène the ceremony produces. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the members of Ecomemoria for inviting us to partake in the commemoration in Wales. We are also very grateful to Cecilia Sosa and Paulo Drinot for their help with early drafts of this essay, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Notes 1 The possibility of lacking family bonds with the disappeared or dead persons differs from many commemorative initiatives, especially those that have taken place in Argentina and Chile since the late 1970s–1980s and early 1990s in the periods of transition to democracy. In both cases, kinship ties and motherhood have been crucial components in the creation of commemorative groups, as Elizabeth Jelin reminded us during her presentation: 'Victims, Relatives and Citizens in Argentina: Whose Voice is Legitimate Enough?' (Paper presented at the 2010 Symposium at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, London, 'Between the Past and the Future: Challenging Narratives of Memory in Latin America'). Moreover, kinship not only pervades the commemorative "social bodies" which openly invoke family bonds in their naming strategies (e.g. H.I.J.O.S and Madres Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, or Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos in Chile). It also infuses the making of those geographically-based memorials which are often led and negotiated by groups who keep an intergenerational relation with those whose lives are commemorated in those places (see the Villa Grimaldi and Paine memorial sites in Chile). Katherine Hite and Cath Collins, "Memorial Fragments, Monumental Silences and Reawakenings in 21st-Century Chile," Millennium: Journal of International Studies 38, no.2 (2009). 2 Tomás Moulian Moulian, Tomás. 1997. Chile actual: anatomía/mito, Santiago Chile: ARCIS Universidad; LOM Ediciones. [Google Scholar], Chile Actual: anatomia/mito (Santiago Chile: ARCIS Universidad; LOM Ediciones, 1997). 3 See the different accounts of Chilean exiles' engagement in the public sphere in Fernando Camacho Camacho, Fernando. 2009. Suecia por Chile, Santiago de Chile: LOM Ed. [Google Scholar], Suecia por Chile (Santiago de Chile: LOM Ed, 2009); José Del Pozo Del Pozo, José. 2006. 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Marianne Hirsch and Nancy K Miller (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 8 While "roots" have traditionally served to evoke an original territory (or "homeland") from which a dispersion has occurred, and towards which an ideology of return emerges, the notion of "routes" has served to complicate that scheme by emphasizing more fluid and deterritorialized identities and subjectivities. James Clifford Clifford, James. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar], Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1997), and Paul Gilroy Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar], The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 9 Avtar Brah Brah, Avtar. 1996. 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Brown, "Embodiment and Living Memorials: The Affective Labour of Remembering the 2005 London Bombings", Memory Studies 4, no. 3 (2011), 313. 12 cf. Hite and Collins 2009 Hite, Katherine and Collins, Cath. 2009. Memorial Fragments, Monumental Silences and Reawakenings in 21st-Century Chile. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 38(2)[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. 13 During the previous day of this festival, during a public colloquium and debate, the struggles for recognition of Latin American indigenous communities were highlighted by Welsh intellectuals and activists. They connected those distant experiences to their own national history of internal and external displacement to Latin America and beyond, a displacement that they attributed to British imperialism. 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