Abstract

© 2019 Universitat de Valencia, Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication. All rights reserved.The article presents an analysis of the social memory of the Chilean dictatorship (1973-1990), based on the study of the "Monument to the heroes and martyrs of the people" located in La Legua, Chile. La Legua is a marginal urban sector of Santiago that had a highly politicized left-wing past, which suffered a strong repression during the dictatorship and that in turn managed to articulate politically and socially to face it through protests and organizations tending to face poverty and unemployment. Currently the population has a sector that is haunted by the violence of drug trafficking and police repression. The analysis shows that although the memories of the dictatorship in the sector are multiple, the monument is shaped around the long-term memories of the commemorative practices of the Chilean left over the struggles of the people against injustices, repression and massacres. These stories are interwoven with actions of identity re-appropriation in the territory, at a local, metropolitan and global scale, despite the urban marginality of the area, in a translocal dynamic. The article questions the death sentence of the monument ruled by the modern architecture project, and reveals the validity of these works for the configuration of memories of the massacres and traumas of the past.