Los rostros de la memoria. El fenómeno memorialista en el mundo actualy sus usos políticos

Abstract

Since the decade of 1990 there has been an unprecedented proliferation of memorials around the world: monuments, shrines, museums, different spaces for memory - including virtual places and archives -, and commemorative dates. It is a global phenomenon that can be considered as characteristic of our time. Most of these memorials are related to traumatic events, especially genocides, and they are offered as a means of overcoming the past and fighting against oblivion. Even, they are used to tackle the issue of justice, establishing a narrative of the truth about the past. Beyond their explicit purposes, memorials have a fundamental political aim, as they provide a stimulus of patriotism. They are also an expression of national identity, appearing occasionally as a sort of «national memory». Therefore, they are used as an informal mechanism of nation-building. This article studies the aforementioned phenomenon and such political uses of memorials through some significant examples.