7.20. Material Infrastructures of Repression: Sites, Archives, Law, and Violence [ES]

How have different individuals and places constructed memory projects about the 1932 civil war over the course of ninety years? This question structures the postdoctoral research conducted at UNICAMP. Any reader who consults textbooks, academic research, or articles on the events of 1932 in São Paulo will recognize that this was a political conflict triggered after the deposition of Júlio Prestes in 1930 by the Getúlio Vargas movement, resulting in a civil war between July 9 and October 3, involving about 20,000 Army soldiers against approximately 9,000 São Paulo combatants, with more than 1,000 deaths. In Brazil, although historiography has devoted itself extensively to the political reasons for the 1932 conflict, it has explored little of the violence perpetrated in it. With regard to memory, although some studies have been carried out, these have been restricted to approaches focused on the press and the state capital. In light of recent advances in Social Memory studies, this research investigates the complex layers in the dynamics of remembering the event. Methodologically, the investigation focuses on analyzing eyewitness documents stored in four archival institutions: AHEx (Army Historical Archive), Cinemateca Brasileira, Historical Archive of the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo, and the Archive of the Historical and Geographical Institute of São Paulo. From the preliminary results, the archives reveal different strategies used by the people of São Paulo over time to carry out their versions of 1932, especially the combatants. The documentation indicates the strategic role of the conflict's ephemera, which sugarcoat the violence and give prominence to the living combatants. The Army archive, in turn, stores technical and bureaucratic information related to the war and its violence. The research, therefore, contributes to new approaches to the memory of 1932, highlighting how individuals and institutions reinterpret the civil war over time.

This research addresses the historical trajectory and (un)memorialization of the Rota almadraba, a space that functioned as a concentration camp during Franco’s dictatorship and, over time, acquired various uses and meanings. The study proposes a long-term view of a single place, understanding that the history of Francoism and its traces cannot be separated from the territory where its violence and logic were inscribed. From this perspective, the almadraba is analyzed as a privileged observatory for understanding the dynamics of repression, transformation, and resignification that run through contemporary Spanish history. The central axis around which this research revolves is how a specific space such as the Rota almadraba allows us to narrate the traumatic past of Franco’s dictatorship and how its study can contribute today to the development of public policies on memory. The methodology combines historical analysis with the approach of memory studies. Military and civil archives, local documentation, and oral testimonies have been consulted. This triangulation of sources allows for the reconstruction of the origin, functioning, and dismantling of the camp, as well as the subsequent occupations and uses of the site. In turn, the work incorporates a reflection on the politics of forgetting and the possibilities of re-signifying the space as part of a democratic memory. The study provides an innovative perspective on the relationship between space and memory, showing how the landscapes of Francoism persist in the present and can be re-signified to strengthen social understanding of the past and guide future public actions of memory.

This research examines an understudied aspect of the Chilean dictatorship: the administrative-legal mechanisms that enabled the construction of torture, detention, and extermination centers. Specifically, it analyzes Decree Law No. 77 of 1973, which allowed the confiscation of property from "subversive" political parties and individuals "linked to Marxism," transforming them into repressive spaces. While memory studies have extensively documented these sites and their uses, a research gap persists regarding the bureaucratic-state process that materialized them. The investigation argues that property appropriation followed a specific logic of institutional violence, operationalized through a complex administrative network involving multiple state agencies coordinated by the Commission for the application of Decree Law No. 77. Employing Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the study conceptualizes this process as an assemblage of actants (confiscated properties), quasi-subjects (documentary legal regimes), and quasi-actants (repressive and ideological narratives) that interacted to produce the material infrastructure of repression. The central question interrogates which mechanisms explain the differentiated transformation of confiscated properties: some converted into torture centers while others were designated for diverse purposes. Methodologically, a sequential mixed design is proposed: first, a Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to identify confiscation patterns during 1973-1990; second, a qualitative documentary analysis of representative cases to reconstruct the involved agent networks. This research contributes to overcoming the conceptual division between "repression archives" and "state archives," revealing how law functioned not as a passive instrument but as an active network that translated political decisions into concrete expropriation actions. By analyzing the materiality of the administrative-legal process, the study expands our understanding of how authoritarian states construct their repressive infrastructure through apparently neutral juridical figures, demonstrating that administrative violence constitutes an essential component of state terrorism that deserves greater attention in Latin American memory studies.

During the last ten years, the Archaeology and Conservation team at the Memorial Site for the Advancement of Human Rights, Former Illegal Detention, Torture, and Extermination Centre “Club Atlético” (Ex-CCDTyE “Club Atlético”), together with faculty members of the Argentine Archaeology course (School of Philosophy and Literature, University of Buenos Aires), have developed an archaeology training program for students in the Anthropological Sciences undergraduate degree. This paper evaluates the implementation of set program, designed as a space for academic training marked by the commitment to research, preserve, and make visible the memory of State terrorism conducted during the last civil-military dictatorship in Argentina. The program encourages reflections on the role of Archaeology within the scope of Memory studies and the value of undergoing professional training in a place that advocates for human rights through every decision. The Ex-CCDTyE “Club Atlético” served as an Illegal Detention Centre between December 1976 and December 1977 in the basement of a building belonging to Argentina’s Federal Police. During this time, between 1200 and 1500 victims of enforced disappearance are estimated to have been held captive at this location. Soon after, the building was demolished in order to build a highway. To date, only 20% of the buried basement has been excavated. The program consists of on-site weekly sessions with an interdisciplinary approach assisted by conservation specialists, engineers, and topographers, and is currently the only fieldwork experience offered within this undergraduate course. Through the years, we have managed to excavate an area of imprisonment cells, as well as elaborate planimetric surveys and 3D models of the site’s architecture and archaeological context. This, alongside the curation of objects retrieved during excavations, has helped further our understanding of what happened at the site, providing evidence used in the ongoing trials for crimes against humanity.