Populism and memory: the memory of Argentina’s last dictatorship during the Kirchnerist governments (2003-2015)

Abstract

During Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s governments (2003-2015), the memory of the last military dictatorship became an object of public policy in a novel way for Argentine democracy. In those years, a multiplicity of memory policies were developed and together with the reopening of trials for crimes against humanity, the recent past took the center of the public scene. How to explain this novelty? How can we characterize the memory regime promoted by the Kirchnerist governments in relation to the recent past? This article offers an answer to these questions building in the intersection between the theory of political discourse analysis and memory studies. Thus, we will show that the memory of State terrorism functioned as a way to draw political borders and that the privileged subject of this memory was the "people". In this sense, we will argue that the memory regime that was configured during the Kirchners’ governments as well as its controversial effects can be adequately understood within the framework of the populist logic of constitution of the social.