Reflexiones acerca de la memoria y los usos del pasado a partir del análisis de un caso en el Noroeste argentino. Departamento de Santa María (provincia de Catamarca)

Abstract

The social memory is not a mere reflection of the past events but a complex construction in which individual and colective memories, past experiences and current situations are inexorably mixed up. Memory, in that sense, became an ideal field to ask about the different meanings assigned to the past, from or for the present; thus allowing us to analize the tensions and disputes generated in this attributions. The aim of this paper is to approach the complex process by which different sectors and actors of Santa María district (Catamarca’s province) assign meanings to the past and, at the same time, to think about some theoretical subjects extracted of this case, particularly around the idea of the past as an unscared resource capable of being used by anyone at any moment.