On (Not) Coming to Terms with the Past: Forced Disappearance, Social Catastrophe and the Different Uses of History in Argentina

On 1 August 2017 Santiago Maldonado, a young artisan and tattoo artist, vanished in the midst of a crackdown by the national Gendarmerie on a Mapuche community in the south of Argentina. Soon after, his disappearance became a theme of national anguish and debate. While seemingly quite different from forced disappearances carried out during the last civil-military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983) this case has been inscribed in the ongoing debate about the possibilities and implications of coming to terms with the past. In this paper I explore the different social, political and legal processes that followed in the wake of Maldonado’s disappearance. Through the case, I consider the power of human rights discourse in the country as well as the rise and institutionalization of an alternative narrative advanced by the right-leaning political elite. Ultimately, I show that the assumptions underlying transitional justice mechanisms, specifically, the possibility of handling the past to such an extent that it can be “put behind” and “overcome” are flawed.