De eso no se habla. Cuestiones metodológicas sobre los límites y el silencio en entrevistas a familiares de desaparecidos políticos

• Published in: Historia antropología y fuentes orales 2000-01 (24), p.69-75
• Main Author: Catela, Ludmila da Silva
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Subjects: Recordar el olvido
• ISSN: 1136-1700

The interview generates a relationship of trust based on the bonds established between the narrator and the listener. This trust can be built upon various elements, ranging from friendship or empathy to formal or conventional links between the persons concerned. The various forms of personalized interaction generated by this situation undergo a change in front of the possibility that what has been "said" might be exposed in written form in the public sphere. Not everything that was said in the interview can cross this social limit. This methodological problem comes to light with all its richness of nuances in the case of testimonies related with extreme experiences engendered by political violence. The article, based on a series of interviews with relatives of victims of "political disappearances" in the city of La Plata (Argentina), analyses the relationship between many silences and boundaries, and the various generations "talking about the subject", public versions of events, legitimized voices, group membership, and the emotions and feelings unleashed by the interview itself in the family circle. This methodological analysis opens the way for a reflection on a field where "the unsaid", "what has been censured" or "corrected" is closely linked with the meaning attached to the passage from private talk to the public sphere, where social, cultural and political conditionings interfere with the expression of the individuals' singular histories and their identities.