Revisionism, conspiracism, negationism: these are some of the terms often used to label and denounce memorial discourses associated with conservative, reactionary and, more broadly, “far-right” movements. To be sure, such categories offer a fairly accurate depiction of some historiographical, rhetorical and argumentative operations performed by intellectuals, politicians and activists of that persuasion. But the concepts carry a heavy axiological weight, which entails a steep methodological challenge —not always met by researchers— and incites right-wing memorial entrepreneurs to reply that, actually, they are the ones championing a historical truth which has been systematically silenced, denied and prosecuted. In other words, far from assisting academic inquiry, the misuse of terminology muddied it. Far from countering the rise of authoritarian narratives, ready-made epithets seem to have paved the way for them.
With these considerations in mind, this panel proposes an approach to right-wing memories in four countries of the Southern Cone which does not consider them as merely contrarian. Instead, they will be seen as discourses in their own right, adaptations and actualizations of narratives that can be traced back to the military governments themselves, but also to Conservative tropes emanating from ideological traditions, political parties, intellectual circles, sectors of the Catholic Church, labor unions and the business classes, to mention just a few. Argentina, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay were selected due to regional cohesion, but also because of their political peculiarities: the first, with an ongoing radical right administration; the second, with a steady center-right presence in its national government; and the last two, characterized by systems of alternation where the radical right carries different electoral weight. Combining insights from different disciplinarian backgrounds, such as the sociology of publishing, intellectual history, discourse analysis and political science, the panel encourages transnational cooperation, exchange and debate.
Boris Matías Grinchpun, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto del Desarrollo Económico Social / Ezequiel Andrés Saferstein, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas The Revisionist Production of Nicolás Márquez: Intellectual Trajectory, Revisionism of the Seventies, and Reception
Nicolás Márquez (born 1975) is a lawyer turned writer of historical and biographical bestsellers. Linked to the most traditional sectors of Catholicism, the liberal conservative family of the Argentine right —and, to a lesser extent, nationalistreactionary circles— he has become one of the most representative and recognizable intellectuals of anti progressivism first, and of mileísmo later. If there is a common denominator in his books, it is his determination to dismantle the “myths of the left”: figures such as Juan Domingo Perón, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Evo Morales are portrayed as tyrannical, immoral, and criminal, while the crimes against humanity committed by the last military dictatorship are presented merely as an “official lie” fabricated by the “subversives” themselves to discredit the Armed Forces. Moreover, the publication of The Black Book of the New Left (2016), co authored with Agustín Laje, expanded his public profile and increased the circulation of his writings and productions. Thus, he gradually built an audience that valued, debated, and disseminated his work. Within the broader process of radicalization of the Argentine right, Márquez is a key actor for understanding the production, circulation, and reception of ideas that revise and trivialize the historiography of Argentina’s recent past from a perspective that vindicates the military’s narrative of the last dictatorship. He also embodies, performatively, a new kind of right wing intellectual: hyperactive on social media—where he is always ready to confront and provoke— , he operates as a model for a legion of digital militants who
Marcos Rey, Universidad de la República - Counter-subversive and Dictatorship-friendly Memories during the Right-wing Coalition Government in Uruguay (2020-2025) During the coalition government led by Luis Lacalle Pou (2020–2025), which included Cabildo Abierto—led by retired general Guido Manini Ríos, a defender of military personnel prosecuted for crimes committed during the dictatorship (1973–1985)— memories and discourses were reactivated that relativized and justified state violence in the 1970s and 1980s. This process is part of the global rise of the far right and the dispute over the human rights paradigm. The paper analyzes changes and continuities in the reappearance of narratives that vindicate the counterinsurgency war—originating in the return to democracy—when the right promoted an asymmetrical reconciliation that equated the release of political prisoners with military impunity. Two traditions regained vigor: one, from the political sphere, reactivated a restrictive discourse on secularism to monitor the teaching of the recent past in the face of a supposedly “biased history”; the other, from military, media, and partisan circles, reinstated the rhetoric of “revenge” by accusing judges and prosecutors of promoting vengeance. Education and justice became areas of convergence between the liberal and nationalist right in relativizing state responsibility and rehabilitating memories complacent with the dictatorship.
Lorena Marina Soler, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas - Memories and actors. Commemorations surrounding the fall of the Stroessner regime in Paraguay (1989–2019)
This work investigates the actors and meanings that, from civil society or the state, were deployed around possible memories of the Stroessner past. It studies the conflicts of memory in the social dynamics of the commemorations of the fall of the Stroessner regime on February 2 and 3, 1989, based on news published in the ABC Color newspaper. It assumes that it is possible to establish “four cycles of memories” around these commemorations by analyzing the actors (government, churches, human rights organizations, military, political parties, social movements, unions) that were hidden or
presented in the public space and the discourses that emerged from 1989 to 2019. In the thirty years of anniversaries, it is possible to affirm that there has been a shift, albeit not without hesitation, from the discourse of “national reconciliation” to one of justice for human rights violations, in which the “victims” were gradually evoked as militants.
Martín Alejandro Vicente, Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
20260730T110020260730T1230America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires5.10. For whom the other bell tolls. “Right-wing” memories in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.SV303MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
Docente e investigador en el Instituto de Historia de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de la República (FHCE-UDELAR)
