MEMOSUR · A Lesson for Europe: Memory, Trauma and Reconciliation in Chile and Argentina

MEMOSUR will develop a joint programme of exchange of researchers between Italy, United Kingdom, Argentina and Chile. It is aimed at confronting complementary expertise within the field of memory, post-conflict and post-traumatic studies through workshops, conferences, research and training activities, in order both to strengthen and to plan post-graduate degree programmes (Master, PhD) dedicated to memory and post-conflict situations, and to generate a basis for a long-term cooperation, such as the setting up of common international research projects. The dissemination activities planned in MEMOSUR will have possible social and political outcomes, such as in consulting activities for private and public institutions and NGOs dedicated to human rights issues.In scientific and social terms, the field MEMOSUR will participate in and contribute to is one of the most sensitive in the political and historical contemporary debate. Both in Europe and Latin America – with a contested and often traumatic pasts, and a present exposed to continuous negotiations – communities find themselves often divided by memories and traditions not so easily shared and recognized.Some of the problematic issues that Europe is facing, such as the contended memories regarding fascist regimes (especially in Italy and Spain) and the complex relation with the colonial legacy (especially in the UK), have already been tackled and lived in other areas of the world, such as South America, where the recent political past has hastened the creation of forms and practices of collective re-elaboration of historical memory, along with processes of post-conflict reconstruction.The Latin America re-elaboration of its post-memory, a memory that is not only that of the victims’ offspring and families, but also one belonging to a wider collectivity, is thus a precious model from which to learn to inform and influence the EU transnational political urgencies of remembrance and cultural cohesion.