Anthropology Colloquium is the department’s speaker series that invites a mixture of anthropologists from within and outside of UBC to present their research. This speaker series is scheduled throughout the academic year, typically with a lunch reception in the AnSo Lounge.
Thursday, Nov. 4th 11:30-1:00 ANSO 134
Teresa Macias (University of Victoria)
“Tortured Bodies”: Speaking Terror and the Epistemic Violence of the Chilean Commission on Torture and Political Imprisonment
In 2003, the Chilean state instituted the Valech Commission and Political Imprisonment and Torture as an initiative to officially account for the legacies of human rights violations left by the authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet, and to perfect human rights policies originally initiated with the Rettig Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission. Conceived as a strategy to provide a space for survivors to share their experiences, receive state recognition and qualify for compensation, the commission heard about 37,000 testimonies during the 6 months of its mandate. 27,000 of these cases were officially recognized as cases of torture. In this presentation, I analyze torture debates in Chile, including the Valech Report, tracing how a truth about torture is constructed from the testimonies of survivors. Using a Foucaultian framework, I trace the relationship between torture experiences and politics of representation arguing that the Valech Report constitutes a prime example of epistemological violence re-inflicted on torture survivors under the disguise of recognition and legitimization. I interrogate the relationship between national interests, especially national reconciliation agendas, and the interests of victims of state violence arguing that national interests have a fundamental influence in processes by which nations account for state-organized violence. I propose that the Chilean case provide important ethical and political warnings for any study of national process of recognition and for demands on the part of survivors of state violence.
