Time and Narration in the testimonies given by Argentine Human Rights movements' activists

Abstract

Debates around Oral History have not ceased for the last years, in spite of having reached certain maturity in their methodological face. Some aspects which refer to professional ethics, to the truthfulness of testimonies, to the way in which oral history is produced and to the property of the historical accounts, still remain object of debate in every Oral History Convention. One of the issues which still needs to be deeply discussed is the time of the testimonies, as a result of the oral history interviews with the protagonists of recent history. Within the last problem referred to as a reflection on “history protagonists´ protagonism” when narrating their memories, we will be able to reconsider the significance of oral testimony as it makes the social actor return to a vivid past which is related to the present of the interview. When it comes to interviewing human rights movements´activists, we can think of a triple protagonism of the social actors, placing them in a permanent position which covers both past and present: 1) That initial protagonism of political activism which begins in the hard years of the last civic-military dictatorship or during the transition to democracy with the search for their disappeared relatives. 2. That protagonism they achieve one more time when they narrate their life experience during the oral history interviews, where building up the historical accounts can only be carried out by those who have experienced history and who have been their direct witnesses. 3. The participation as witnesses/claimants in the trials for crimes against humanity of the last years which, once again, turns Human Rights activists into main characters in a relevant historical deed. In this article, I thus aim at examining the temporal matter and the triple protagonism mentioned above, so as to contribute to the study field with new issues to think about when it comes to using that complex methodology proposed by oral history.