Chile 50 Years Later: Diaspora, Memory and Future

Speakers: Bernardita Muñoz (Institute of Education, UCL), Lydia Yanez (University of Chile), Cecilia Collado (Barcelona City Council)

Chair: Ivette Hernandez Santibañez (University of Manchester) 
    

Collective memory on human rights violations, and forcibly disappeared, as well as political exile, has taken the spotlight of the 50th anniversary of Augusto Pinochet’s military coup – backed by the CIA – that overthrew the democratic socialist government of President Salvador Allende on Sept 11, 1973. This roundtable aims to debate the construction of collective memory in Chile 50 years later from the lens of those who grew up during Pinochet’s dictatorship or might not have necessarily experienced dictatorship and became later diasporas. It debates memory as an intergenerational experience and diasporic collective process. It reflects on how Chilean diasporas construct and reframe a sense of collective memory within a post-authoritarian society. 

Bernardita Muñoz is a Chilean writer, psychologist (PUC) and academic (MA and PhD in Education). She works as a Lecturer at the Institute of Education, UCL. She has published 30 books of children's literature in Latin-America "Noelia's diary" (El Diario de Noelia) is a fictional diary of a girl growing up in the dictatorship that aims to bring the troubled past to young audiences. Although it was published in 2016 in Chile, it encountered censorship. Later it obtained an honourable mention- the Colibri medal 2017 from IBBY-Chile and was distributed to all public schools' libraries. In 2019 it became part of the Chilean Archive of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights.

Lydia Yanez is a Sociologist (University of Chile), Master in Sociological Research (University of Manchester) and political activist dedicated to scientific research in a public and political sense. She investigates political action and social movements from an intersectional perspective articulating social class, racialization, and gender-gender inequalities. She has coordinated various research teams and performed quantitative and qualitative data production and analysis.

Cecilia Collado is a social worker (PUC) at Barcelona City Council and a former Chilean student activist. In the 1980s, she participated in the political reconstruction of the secondary student movement and became actively involved in the university student movement to fight against Pinochet's dictatorship. In Spain, she was a Former Councillor from En Comú Podem in the Cerdanyola del Valles District -in Spain, along with her active political activism at the grassroots level. 
 

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