Longing For a " Beautiful Chile: " Interactions Between Neoliberalism and Historical Memory in Post Dictatorship Social Mobilizations (original) (raw)

This research aims to understand how the Chilean post-Dictatorship generation (born between 1990 and 1996) utilizes both shared inherited memories of the dictatorship, and the Chilean welfare state prior to the Dictatorship, in anti-neoliberal social mobilization. The researcher uses Marianne Hirsch’s theory of postmemory (1997) to understand how shared postmemories influence current social struggles in Chile. After conducting a series eleven of semi-structured interviews, it is clear that members of the Chilean, intellectual left are mobilizing against a neoliberalism they trace back to the Dictatorship, and use shared post memories to mobilize against neoliberalism. The researcher came up with three findings that aim to explain how memory, which is one of the many reasons the respondents are inspired to mobilize, influences current social struggles. The researcher concluded that respondents are inspired to change the system due to a shared nostalgia for the historical Left, stories they have heard from family and friends, and their distance from the dictatorship and subsequent lack of fear of repression.