Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Transitional Justice Processes in the Aftermath of Argentina's Dirty War

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

New York University doctoral student Venkatesan Natarajan, supervised by Dr. Sally Merry, will undertake anthropological research on transitional justice processes and nation-building in the aftermath of civil war. The lens through which he will view these phenomena is the construction of categories of people held responsible for political violence, and the ways people identified as responsible understand, deal with, and negotiate this labeling. Transitional justice and nation-building movements are now found in many nations of the world, and understanding how and whether they are successful requires intensive local-level research with those affected. Natarajan will carry out this research in post-"Dirty War" (1976-1983) Argentina, in the cities of Buenos Aires and Tucuman. The researcher will be focus on two contrasting social groups, both of which he hypothesizes contribute to the construction of post-war society. The first group are military personnel, who teach the history of the dictatorship as one of national defense, and continue to undestand themselves as the defenders of the nation. The second group are the families, many of them also from the military, who adopted children born to women who were politically "disappeared" during the war. Some adoptive parents continue to maintain ties with the children they raised, whereas other adoptive parents and the children they raised have cut off all contact. Samples of both groups will be included in the study. Research methods will include long-term participant observation, the collection of life histories, collection and analysis of social network data, structured and semi-structured interviewing, and analysis of archival human rights and media reports. Findings from this research will contribute to social scientific understanding of the processes through which nations recover and rebuild themselves in the aftermath of political violence. The research is important because it will contribute to broader discussions about what possibilities exist for closure in the aftermath of civil war. It also will help to understand whether the transitional justice approach is the most appropriate model for nations to use as they go about rebuilding social life. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.