Voicing Resistance: Testimonial Narratives of the Families and Friends of the Disappeared

Abstract

Enforced disappearances have been deployed as a strategy of terror and tension against dissenting voices even in so-called democratic societies. They are aimed to suppress and harass individuals and groups, as well as their families, friends, and sympathizers, situated in oppositional politics. One of the pedagogical tools of resistance against such forms of hegemony is testimonial literature. Using thematic analysis, this paper problematizes testimonial writings of the families and loved ones of desaparecidos (the disappeared). Among the dominant themes are the struggle of memory against forgetting, the sense of sufferance and sacrifice, and the discourse of solidarity. Their discussion is likewise predicated on the notions of countermemory and counternarratives. This paper recommends the retrieval of such alternative social/cultural practices to resurrect “subjugated knowledges” and challenge hegemonic assumptions about history and society.