Abstract

As part of a work on collective identity sociology and, in particular, on the shapes it acquires in critical situations, this session presents some of the research developments around the social construction and management of the "disappeared" prisoner figure.

Based on a theoretical approach to the structure of modern identity, we will deepen the concept of collective identity and its narratives when facing the forced disappearance of people, according to the following itinerary: the history of the forced disappearance of people and the specificity of its execution in Argentine and Uruguay; the construction of the "disappeared" prisoner figure at the Southern Cone; the forced disappearance of people as an identity and language catastrophe; the professionals of meaning recovery (human rights, family, origin and authenticity); social and paradoxical life - the forced disappearance as a place of expression of the irrepresentable art; the forced disappearance as a workplace for complex expertise fields; building identity in a context of catastrophe.

Working bibliography

Gatti, G., 2006, “Las narrativas del detenido-desaparecido (o de los problemas de la representación ante las catástrofes sociales)”, en Confines de relaciones internacionales y ciencia política, n. 4, http://confines.mty.itesm.mx/articulos4/GGatti.pdf

Gatti, G., 2010, "O detido-desaparecido: catástrofe civilizacional, desmoronamento da identidade e da linguagem", en Revista Critica de Ciencias Sociais, n. 88, pp. 57-78

Gatti, G., 2010, "Algunas anécdotas y un par de ideas para escapar de las ficciones modernas acerca de la identidad colectiva", en http://www.ces.uc.pt/e-cadernos/media/ecadernos7/ecadernos_7.pdf  

Biographic Note

Gabriel Gatti is Professor of sociology at the University of the Basque Country. He is the coordinator of the Centre for Collective Identity Studies (Centro de Estúdios sobre la Identidad Colectiva - CEIC) and co-responsible for the Research Committee no. 1 (Identity, space and policy) of the International Association of French-Speaking Sociologists (AISLF). He was a guest researcher at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris, France), Nevada University (Reno, USA), IDES - Economic and Social Development Institute (Buenos Aires, Argentine) and guest lecturer at the University of the Republic - UdelaR (Montevideo, Uruguay), and the University of Buenos Aires (Argentine).

His current research interests include sociology theory, identity sociology and Human Rights sociology. Some of his published works are: La comunidad como pretexto (con I.Irazuzta y P. de Marinis, 2010), El detenido desaparecido (2008), Identidades débiles (2007), Les nouveaux repères de l’identité collective en Europe (con A. Pérez Agote y W. Dressler, 1999).