8.20. Who Remembers, Who Is Recognized: Actors, Concepts, and Resistances in the Memory Politics of Colombia, Peru and Brazil [ES/EN]

This article examines the role of the business groups as powerful memory-shaping actors in postconflict Peru. The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2001-2003) argued that long-standing inequalities laid at the root of the violent period (1980-2000) and proposed a national reconciliation process aimed at refounding the relationships between Peruvians under new social, economic and political terms. While the political aftermath of the commission has often been discussed as a ‘battle against memory’, the role of business groups in this struggle has received little scholarly attention. This study analyzes the business groups’ publications and their interventions on national media to reconstruct their narrative of the conflict and their participation in the construction of a national memory. Drawing on the literature on Peru’s economic and political elites, and argue that these elites—represented through the country’s major business groups—opposed the reconciliation process promoted by the Truth Commission and contributed instead to the consolidation of an antidemocratic ‘memory of salvation’.

This paper examines the hostility that emerge between institutionally promoted memories and those constructed from within communities in the context of the Colombian armed conflict. It addresses the guiding question: How do institutional memory policies and mechanisms affect the autonomy and the distinctive ways in which victimized communities construct their own memories? Drawing on a qualitative case study that combines participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and documentary analysis of public policies on memory and reparation in Colombia, the research explores how one community has resisted participating in memory initiatives derived from judicial rulings. The community perceives such initiatives as responding primarily to normative and bureaucratic demands rather than to its own historical, social, cultural, and symbolic needs. The findings suggest that community resistance does not imply a denial of the past but rather constitutes a legitimate form of political agency and appropriation of memory in response to state dynamics of control and agenda imposition. Moreover, the study highlights how silence and non-participation may function as meaningful forms of memory aimed at safeguarding collective meanings often rendered invisible by official frameworks. By situating memory as a relational and context-dependent process—rather than as a closed product or institutional obligation—this work contributes to theoretical and political debates on memory construction in post-conflict settings, advocating for the recognition of memory as an autonomous right and a community-driven process.

The complex Colombian transition to peace following the agreements with the AUC (2003) and the FARC-EP (2016) faces the challenge of political reconciliation as a process often trapped in the simplistic victim-perpetrator dyad. In this paper, I propose to analyze, within the framework of transitional justice, the idea that the transition adds another actor to the two mentioned: society unaffected by the war, those who are neither victims nor perpetrators. I suggest that in the convergence of these actors, a factor emerges that impacts the country’s political reconciliation. This refers to a certain degree of politicization that necessitates analyzing the use and political impact of the extrajudicial truth obtained by the Truth Commission. Against this backdrop, how does the politicization of victims, perpetrators, and conflict-unaffected society condition the construction and strengthening of historical memory about the Colombian war, impacting the possibilities for political reconciliation? I argue that the degree of politicization of each of these three groups acts as a filter that determines how the extrajudicial truth obtained is interpreted and used. Adhesion to or rejection of biased narratives, especially by the unaffected, is crucial as it can erode social trust and non-stigmatization, which are essential pillars of political reconciliation. Methodologically, I adopt a qualitative approach using documentary review. I thus offer a framework for understanding how the politicization of transitional actors obstructs or facilitates the consolidation of memory, conditioning or shaping Colombia's political reconciliation.