Liberal democracy is undergoing a crisis that cannot be understood apart from the expansion of conservative, reactionary, and authoritarian movements across the Global North and South. This is not merely a political process straining institutions but also a cultural and discursive phenomenon reshaping how societies relate to their past. The growth of these radical forces has turned memory into a privileged terrain of contestation, where the limits of what can be said, represented, and deemed legitimate in the public sphere are constantly renegotiated.
In this context, the radical right has questioned, appropriated, and destabilized the memory paradigm that dominated Western societies in recent decades. With national and regional variations, this paradigm had been consolidated around the imperative to remember human rights violations and to articulate collective narratives sustaining a minimal consensus on democratic values. The resurgence of authoritarian right-wing movements threatens these symbolic achievements by advancing alternative, revisionist, or denialist memories that trivialize past violence and seek to legitimize human rights violations in the present.
While these experiences share traits such as disinformation strategies, simplified historical narratives, and appeals to polarizing emotions, they retain specificities rooted in local trajectories. In Europe, for instance, debates over the legacy of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes have become sites of tension amid nationalist narratives seeking to relativize historical responsibility. In Latin America, the dispute centers on the memory of military dictatorships and the role of human rights struggles in building democracy. Yet in both contexts the outcome is similar: fragmented social memories and growing difficulty in sustaining coherent collective narratives.
Various theoretical approaches have analyzed these dynamics, linking them to populism, the resurgence of denialism, and political polarization. Our panel situates itself within this horizon seeking to foster a North–South dialogue to reflect on both the convergences and divergences of these experiences.
La democracia liberal atraviesa hoy una crisis que no puede pensarse al margen de la expansión de movimientos conservadores, reaccionarios y autoritarios, presentes tanto en el Norte como en el Sur global. No se trata solo de un proceso político que tensiona las instituciones, sino también de un fenómeno cultural y discursivo que reconfigura los modos en que las sociedades se relacionan con su pasado. En efecto, el crecimiento de estas fuerzas radicales ha convertido a la memoria en un terreno de disputa privilegiado, donde se definen los límites de lo decible, lo representable y lo legítimo en el espacio público.
En este movimiento, las extremas derechas han sabido cuestionar, reapropiarse y desestabilizar el paradigma de la memoria que dominó en Occidente durante las últimas décadas. Un paradigma que, con matices nacionales y regionales, se había consolidado en torno al mandato de recordar las violaciones a los derechos humanos y de articular narrativas colectivas capaces de sostener un consenso mínimo en torno a los valores democráticos. El resurgimiento de las derechas autoritarias ha puesto en jaque estas conquistas simbólicas, proponiendo memorias alternativas, negacionistas o revisionistas, que no solo banalizan la violencia del pasado, sino que también buscan legitimar violaciones a los derechos humanos en el presente.
Aunque estas experiencias comparten ciertos rasgos comunes -como el uso de estrategias de desinformación, la simplificación de los relatos históricos o la apelación a emociones que polarizan-, mantienen especificidades vinculadas a sus trayectorias locales.En Europa, por ejemplo, el debate sobre el legado del Holocausto y los crímenes del nazismo ha sido un terreno de tensión frente a narrativas nacionalistas que buscan relativizar responsabilidades históricas. En América Latina, en cambio, la disputa se centra en la memoria de las dictaduras militares y en el lugar de las luchas por los derechos humanos en la construcción de la democracia. Sin embargo, en ambos casos, el resultado es similar: la proliferación de memorias sociales fragmentadas y la dificultad creciente para sostener relatos colectivos articulados.
Este panorama plantea desafíos urgentes. Por un lado, mantener vivo el recuerdo de las violaciones a los derechos humanos en contextos donde el negacionismo gana terreno. Por otro, repensar cómo fortalecer una memoria cosmopolita que no quede atrapada en los marcos nacionales, sino que dialogue con experiencias compartidas a nivel global. Y, al mismo tiempo, comprender las formas de subjetividad política que emergen de estas disputas, así como las nuevas configuraciones de ciudadanía que habilitan o clausuran.
Diversos enfoques teóricos han contribuido a analizar estos fenómenos, vinculándolos al populismo, al resurgimiento de los negacionismos y a las dinámicas de polarización política. Nuestro panel se inscribe en ese horizonte y busca generar un diálogo Norte–Sur que permita reflexionar sobre las convergencias y divergencias de estas experiencias.
Jenny Gunnarsson Payne and Martin Englund School of Contemporary and Historical Studies. Södertörn University. "Quotidian Autochthony: Genealogy, Kinship, and the Everyday Politics of Memory". This article examines organised amateur genealogy in Sweden as a large yet overlooked site of cultural memory production and as a distinctive expression of the politics of kinship. While scholarship on contemporary memory wars often focuses on national institutions, populist movements, or transnational struggles over Europe’s past, this article turns to the quieter, everyday level of genealogical associations, archives, and digital networks. Through these settings, hobby genealogists create and curate narratives of belonging that are often anchored in local places and familial descent. Drawing on and problematizing the concept of autochthony – the claim to belonging through origin in the land – I analyse how genealogical practices enact what might be called quotidian autochthony. Such practices neither simply defend nor contest hegemonic versions of history; rather, they generate complex negotiations of identity and continuity that traverse the boundaries of the political. They reproduce regional attachments and imagined geographies while they at times also may contribute to fostering resilience, curiosity, and even subtle critique of dominant memory regimes. By situating genealogy within the wider European landscape of contested memory, this presentation suggests that genealogical practices may offer an alternative form of engagement: one that operates beneath the radar of ideological confrontation yet participates in shaping affective and spatial imaginaries of belonging. As one of Sweden’s largest civil society movements, genealogy provides a lens through which to reconsider how memory, kinship, and place are interwoven in the everyday politics of remembering. In doing so, the article contributes to rethinking the relation between institutional, commercial, and vernacular memory in the context of Europe’s ongoing struggles over history and identity.
María Marta Quintana. IPEHCS, CONICET-UNCo."The Discursive Performativity of 'Blood': From Madres and Abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo to Historias Desobedientes and the Remaking of Kinship in Far Right Contexts". Blood is a key signifier for Argentine human rights organizations and a source of public action and meaning. While the last civil military dictatorship persecuted opponents based on a biologization of politics, family groups caused a displacement and, conversely, politicized the biological. Thus, the political configuration of the Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, among other groups, reveals both a dispute over subject positions and a successful politics of (re)signification. Nevertheless, in their identity development, these organizations stabilized an understanding of kinship with the “direct victims” of state terrorism and established the scope of the "community of affected". This framework was later altered by the Kirchner governments and their state memory politics. Consequently, the "wounded family" was displaced as the exclusive victim of the dictatorship to accommodate a broader, "post blood" community. A new twist in consanguinity occurred more recently, I am referring to the public appearance of other daughters and sons who repudiate their parents, now judged for the crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship. Regarding Judith Butler’s concept —and methodology— of discursive performativity, and assuming that “blood” is a notion that is taken up, subverted, and deviated from a previous use, my purpose is twofold: to pay attention to the productions of Historias Desobedientes —a group of relatives of genocide perpetrators from Argentina—and to investigate their conditions of irruption, their narrative, and their ways of (counter) citationally linking with the human rights movement. Likewise, I will reflect on the effects of this new form of activism on the present and future of Nunca Más in a time marked by far right rhetoric and offensives.
Virginia Morales. CCONFINES-CONICET-UNVM. "Memory, truth, and justice in the Argentine right: disputes over destiny and the boundaries of the common". The struggle for memory, truth, and justice in Argentina began during the last dictatorship. It was the Mothers, Grandmothers, and Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared who first denounced the illegal practices of the de military government and articulated a space of resistance that marked a turning point in the face of authoritarian violence. Since then, the prosecution of human rights violations, the collective repudiation of state violence, and the defense of Never Again have become foundational elements of Argentine democracy.
However, these elements are now undergoing a moment of profound contestation. The contentious context surrounding the historic struggle of human rights organizations- initiated during the Alianza Cambiemos government and radicalized under La Libertad Avanza- marks new turning points: discourses and practices that once remained on the margins of the political community are gaining state prominence, challenging the very foundations upon which democracy in the country was built.
From this perspective, the presentation analyzes the emergence of these narratives in the public and political arena through a performative lens, paying attention to the implications that the actions of the new Argentine right have for deeply rooted understandings of human rights and, in particular, for the legacies of the struggle for memory, truth, and justice. We argue that La Libertad Avanza engages in a struggle over the truth of the past-that directly impacts the present, the boundaries of democracy, and the definition of what constitutes a legitimate part of the political community
20260729T173020260729T1900America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires4.7. Democracies on the Line: Memory Battles and Far-Right Challenges across the Global North and South II [ES]SV303MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
