The (de)tours of memory: Strategies and tactics of memory at Argentina’s Parque de la Memoria

Abstract

In recent years, political leaders from around the world have been provided with a tour of Argentina’s Parque de la Memoria. What explains their detour from the affairs of state to a park that commemorates the victims of Argentina’s military dictatorship? How do these visits sit alongside other, everyday uses of the space? Borrowing from de Certeau, I interpret these practices as practices of memory. I analyse the ‘pedestrian speech acts’ through which key stakeholders attempt to divert these practices towards a particular construction of the memory space. The invitation to a global political elite can be read as a strategy to protect the symbolic order of the memory of the desaparecidos by performatively enacting a transnational community of memory in mourning. This leaves the park vulnerable to those who would mobilise these mourning rituals as a tactic to dismantle any politics that might take place at the park.