Sociological Forum, Vol. 34, No.

3, September 2019
DOI: 10.1111/socf.12522
© 2019 Eastern Sociological Society

Ephemeral and Ludic Strategies of Remembering in the Streets:

A Springboard for Public Memory in Chile1
Manuela Badilla Rajevic2

This article examines a profound turn in the commemoration and representations of the dictatorial past in
Chile (1973–1990), where young people who did not experience firsthand the authoritarian order are pub-
licly creating fleeting images, practices, and objects to remember the military dictatorship. These are urban
ephemeral and ludic mnemonic assemblages (Freeman, Nienass, and Daniell 2015) that connect past and
present events and demand new ways of talking, acting, and thinking about the past, thereby appropriating
the public space. The participants in these actions stress the original, carnivalesque, and public dimensions of
their practices, challenging the official politics of memory that has focused on the recognition of victims
within the walls of museums or memorials. The following question guides this article: How do new public,
ludic, and ephemeral strategies interact with and potentially change official ways of narrating the past? How
do they create the space for political participation in postconflict societies? Drawing upon a qualitative and
multimethod study that combines 60 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and archival work, I main-
tain that, although this blossoming of the Chilean public memory has opened up new territories for activating
memory, it has a transient temporality and, consequently, may have transitory political potential.

KEYWORDS: commemoration; ephemerality; generations; ludic remembering; postdictatorship Chile;

public memory.

INTRODUCTION

In downtown Santiago, The Paste,3 an artists’ collective comprising five young

photography students (24–26 years old), has taken photography from the gallery to
the streets through the installation of photomurals that depict scenes of protests
and police repression during the dictatorship and later in postdictatorship Chile. As
they were setting up the numerous pieces that compose these murals, an old man
stopped to look at the huge image that now covers one of the walls in the area. At
first, the man just stared at the large picture; then he turned around, looked at the
artists, and thanked them. He told them that contemplating the mural had made
him remember a friend who was killed by the military apparatus. Then he left, smil-
ing. The Paste has been working in the streets for more than five years, transforming
Santiago’s walls from simple facades to true art galleries in order to start a debate
among the people who live there or pass through the streets. As Cristi
an (aged 26),
one of its members, remarked, “Setting up a photomural always generates a debate,
1
I would like to thank Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Vir
ag Moln
ar, Hugh Raffles, Sonia Prelat, Douglas
de Toledo Piza, and Judith Gerson for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Three
anonymous reviewers at Sociological Forum made important suggestions that significantly enhance this
article. I also would like to thank The New School Student Research Award that supported this pro-
ject. Special thanks go to my interviewees without whom this article would not be possible.
2
Sociology Department, The New School for Social Research, 6 East 16th Street, 9th floor, New York,
New York 10003; e-mail: manuelabadilla@gmail.com
3
All names are pseudonyms to protect the anonymity of the interviewees in this study.

729
730 Badilla Rajevic

and that debate is about recognition, about how we see the person that is depicted
on the wall. . . that is the importance of our intervention, that the citizens can stop
by and say, ‘Oh! Look at that!’”
How do these new public, ludic, and ephemeral strategies of remembering
interact with, and potentially change, official ways of narrating the past? And how
do they open the space for political participation in postconflict societies? These are
the questions that guide this article that draws upon, and contributes to, debates in
the sociology of memory and the literature on political transitions by analyzing the
interplay between materialized cultural memory, which has been one of the main
focuses of this literature, and the potential of urban mnemonic assemblages through
which young people connect with the past. This article emphasizes the relevance of
original urban actions, as the interventions of The Paste, as they offer the opportu-
nity to observe and understand the effects of objects and practices that are not made
to last in the construction of a public memory, an aspect that has been overlooked
by this body of literature. It also sheds light on the political scope of ludic urban
interventions and the role of the postdictatorship generation in the struggles about
the past for postconflict societies.
The introductory example illustrates a profound turn in the representations of
the dictatorial past in Chile (1973–1990). Members of the postconflict generation,
young people who were born after the end of the dictatorship and did not experi-
ence firsthand the authoritarian and repressive order, publicly display images, prac-
tices, and objects to remember the military regime throughout the city. These young
people either create or participate in these acts—which represent new ways of imag-
ining Chile’s difficult past—and in doing so, they challenge the official politics of
memory that has focused on recognition of the victims within the walls of museums,
memorials, and sites of memory by appropriating the public space. It is important
to remark that they do admit the relevance of remembering the violence perpetrated
by the dictatorship and of recognizing the victims, acknowledging, for example, the
role of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights and the work done by human
rights organizations of relatives of the victims of human rights violations. Yet they
claim the need to remember other strands of this historical period, such as the
socioeconomic transformations carried out by the military dictatorship, the resis-
tance movement against this regime, and solidarity practices experienced by the
opposition during that time. In this sense, members of this new generation have
thickened the content and media for building public memory. I argue that this blos-
soming of the Chilean public memory is ambivalent: although it has opened up new
territories to practice memory, where joyful affects play an important role in putting
the past in motion, it has a transient temporality and, consequently, may have tran-
sitory political potential.
These are ephemeral and carnivalesque4 mnemonic assemblages, including
spontaneous photography exhibitions, unprepared demonstrations, or murals
arranged around Santiago, that connect past and present events and represent new
forms of remembering through which young people find familiar and effective ways

4
The notion of the carnivalesque that inspires this article is discussed by Mikhail Bakhtin (1984) in his
book Rebelais and His World.
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 731

to be part of the public sphere. Instead of mnemonic narratives, I use the notion of
mnemonic assemblages (Freeman, Nienass, and Daniell 2015) to stress the multidi-
mensionality of forms when reflecting on, transmitting, and acting in connection to
the past, which solidify not only in textual narratives but also in images and con-
crete objects. These urban assemblages have expanded the boundaries of the public
memory,5 a set of narratives, symbols, and practices to talk or think about the past
that are enabled, and triggered by a sociocultural context (Halbwachs 1980), appro-
priating different areas of the city and highlighting the current effects of the socioe-
conomic transformations carried out by the military dictatorship.6 One of the most
brutal examples of these transformations was the imposition of neoliberal orienta-
tions for official urban and housing policies that turned the city into a space for
those who can pay for it, triggering policies of segregation and urban inequality that
are still evident today. This issue has been key for the activists behind the mnemonic
interventions analyzed in this article, who have made visible the urban segregation
by performing and representing it at the peripheral areas of the city. These are lega-
cies of the military administration that have not been addressed either by authorities
or by civil society organizations, as they have struggled—and still are—to consoli-
date a public narrative that is able to recognize the crimes against human rights per-
petrated by the military.
The main goal of the dominant public memory in Chile has been to publicly
recognize the victims of the military crimes. This master narrative has been framed
through the three Chilean Truth Commissions (1991, 2004, and 2011); conse-
quently, not only authorities, but also human rights organizations, and those who
gave their testimonies, have been part of this process. Although this narrative has
changed significantly since the beginning of the transition, it has kept the main
focus on the victims and their relatives, and on the ultimate need for reconciliation
(Klep 2012).
Most of the organizers of the urban interventions analyzed in this article are
local activists or participants of cultural or art organizations with no formal con-
nections to official political organizations or political parties. They all grew up in
one of the most neoliberal societies in the world (Hann 2012; Harvey 2005), one of
the most orthodox transformation executed by the dictatorial apparatus. Exten-
sively documented, this economic change had real and deep effects on daily life in
Chile, privatizing not only public services, such as the health, education, and pen-
sion systems, but also public life through strong repression of all kinds of public
demonstrations (Hann 2012; Mouli
an 1997; Rovira 2007; Solimano 2012). This pri-
vatized society is the context in which the official process of symbolization of the
military dictatorship has developed and crystallized. In contrast, the street has been

5
Public memory is a less used concept than social or collective memory, but in general they all are used
indistinctively. In this article, I will use the notion of public memory as it emphasizes the public dimen-
sion of memory as a political phenomenon; it is a domain of the public sphere, and as such it has an
open political scope. “It is fashioned ideally in a public sphere in which various parts of the social struc-
ture exchange views” (Bodnar 2010:266). Public memory is, and must be, shared, disputed, transmitted,
and represented by citizens and official institutions.
6
The mnemonic template expansion has also taken other directions—for example, by reflecting on the
figure of the perpetrators. These more recent directions have not yet been built or expressed in the
streets.
732 Badilla Rajevic

the setting in which members of the postdictatorship generation have challenged the
public memory by inviting and engaging with spontaneous audiences and stressing
cheerful aspects of remembering.
Young people behind the mnemonic assemblages have expanded the geogra-
phy for remembering and used the public space not only as a canvas to exhibit their
actions but also as means to claim recognition and make visible the privatization
and segregation of the city (Caldeira 2009). This expansion has taken place through
three main strategies: (1) the creative reappropriation of the streets; (2) the positive
and, at times, cheerful affects ascribed to these interventions; and (3) the recovery
and positive valuation of everyday public debate. These strategies reveal ephemeral-
ity as the key temporality of the mnemonic expansion analyzed in this article, and
the ludic as a key affect of this extension, illuminating the relevance of these dimen-
sions to the study of public memory in postconflict societies. The postdictatorship
generation trying to dispute the political field have looked for different forms of
transmitting certain aspects of the past using the public space (Badilla Rajevic
2017). Neither ephemerality nor the ludic allow this transformation itself but have
helped to channel the contemporary social actions of those that are entering the
political field.

FROM MATERIALIZED TO EPHEMERAL REMEMBERING

The sociology of memory and memory studies literature have stressed the con-
nection between public memory and the construction of political communities dur-
ing periods of political transformation (Anderson 2006; Hobsbawm 2012). The role
of this connection has been emphasized, especially after difficult periods, including
transitions to democracy. These are unique moments in which both the new author-
ities and society at large need to make sense of the wrongdoings of the past and
build a collective narrative about them (Elster 2006; Offe 1996). In times of turmoil,
movement, and deep social transformation, societies need new stories and symbols
to sustain the difficulties of changing their institutions and to support the deep cul-
tural change that these transformations imply (Adar 2018; Bernhard and Kubik
2014; Cerulo 1995; Pelak 2015; Walzer 1967; Whitlinger 2015). Authorities and
institutions behind this process must endorse and transmit symbols and ethical
notions to the people, especially to future generations. Such an endorsement
attempts to guarantee the nonrepetition of violence and the peace of the new regime
(Jelin 2002; Offe 1996).
Symbolizing critical events in periods of political transition constitutes a public
process where power balances are embedded, as it is shared, disputed, transmitted,
and represented by citizens and official institutions. Therefore, collective memory
that is made public—public memory hereafter—plays a fundamental role (Hite and
Cesarini 2004), as it may stimulate or problematize the consolidation of present and
future political communities (Gillis 1996; Olick 2003; Zerubavel 1995). The legit-
imization of these strategies of memory depends on power struggles and, conse-
quently, is always an unfixed process that can be influenced by various social actors
(Olick 2003; Wagner-Pacifici 1996). As some authors have noted, the construction
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 733

of public memory is a dialectical process in which representations of the past con-

stantly interact with the community and its sociopolitical context (Nyseth Brehm
and Fox 2017; Olick 2003; Wagner-Pacifici 1996). Moreover, the role of dialectic
interactions between those who hold the power and the challengers, who in the case
of this study are the new generations, “have remade modes of public commemora-
tion as well as protest repertoires” (Polletta 2004:153). In periods of political trans-
formation, especially after critical or traumatic events, this dialectical connection
tends to materialize in what has been called cultural memory (Assmann 2008; Erll
2009).
Although a dialectic between power and resistance allows cultural memory to
form, those who materialize this memory must create a stagnant, official narrative.
Social actors behind the materialization of cultural memory aim to publicize, pre-
serve, and transmit this memory over generations through artifacts such as muse-
ums and memorials (Assmann 2008; Davis 2005). This perspective has focused on
materialized national and transnational discourses (Erll 2011; Zerubavel 1995), and
in doing so has overlooked fleeting practices through which communities remember
in the public space. Here, I engage, in particular, with Assmann’s notion of cultural
memory, a form of remembering that seeks to last through concrete and material
actions or institutions such as museums, monuments, and archives. Ephemeral
memories deployed by young people in Chile challenge this notion, suggesting an
alternative path of understanding the production of memorialization—that is, pro-
ducing cultural memory that is not made to last, which might be spontaneous and,
most importantly, which may break the continuity sought by Assmann’s cultural
memory. Ephemeral memories have a correlate in the material world, leaving con-
crete or symbolic marks; yet their emphasis is the rupture of the ordinary that the
ludic interventions may trigger (Huizinga 1998; Kidron 2010). As several of my
interviewees remarked, there is a need to remember outside museum walls and to
activate public debate. Recalling the past through ephemeral strategies of memory
connects them with contemporary and local political issues and, in many cases,
legitimates their current political demands.
The literature on transitional justice has also emphasized the role of material-
ized and preserved public memory, especially of the victims, encouraging postcon-
flict states to support initiatives such as memorials and museums (De Grieff 2013).
This perspective has been very influential in the design of politics regarding the diffi-
cult past in many postconflict societies, and has simultaneously pushed for the
notion of reconciliation as the ideal purpose of political transitions (Hayner 2001;
Teitel 2000). Yet, some authors have criticized this perspective because of its
homogenizing and national view and the resulting omissions or silences, especially
of local or subaltern perspectives of justice and memory (David 2017; Jara et al.
2018; Leebaw 2008).
The terrain of interactions in which the past is spoken of, performed, and nego-
tiated without explicit intentions of remaining has not been highlighted as an essen-
tial aspect of the construction of public memory, either by the sociology of memory
or the transitional justice literature. These ephemeral performances, as Diana Taylor
(2006:70) notes, have been “strategically positioned outside of history, rendered
invalid as a form of cultural transmission.” I contend that these strategies of
734 Badilla Rajevic

remembering constitute an expansion of the available forms to talk about the past
and a potential form of activating the political engagement of the youth. In this
sense, I also draw upon some interesting works that have advanced in this over-
looked terrain that connects memory and protests, which analyze similar experi-
ences led by the youth in Argentina, such as HIJOS (Children for Identity and
Justice and Against Forgetting and Silence) and its carnivalesque demonstrations,
the escraches (Druliolle 2013; Lessa and Druliolle 2011; Levey 2013; Strejilevich
2011).
In the case of the mnemonic practices analyzed in this article, potentially they
signify an extension of the public sphere; yet they challenge the dominant public
memory through their ephemerality and their ludic character, offering an alternative
form to understand the intergenerational transmission of memory after periods of
violence. Holocaust scholars have studied the process of transmission, mostly from
a family perspective. This perspective, termed postmemory, stresses the traumatic
dimension of what is transmitted and how this process unfolds (Hirsch 2012;
Schwab 2010). The ludic urban interventions that are the focus of this research offer
an alternative look at the process of transmission, one that goes beyond the family
realm and emphasizes the public dimension of the phenomenon that is taking place
in the streets. As Huizinga insightfully observes, the ludic, which is in no way the
opposite of seriousness, allows the imagination to emerge and reclaims a pause in
ordinary life. The ludic requires its own boundaries of time and space (Huizinga
1998:3), which in the practices analyzed in this article are temporally ephemeral and
located in the streets. The ludic triggers different meanings in dealing with a difficult
past, by reinvigorating and problematizing the concepts behind the official public
memory (Kidron 2010)

METHODOLOGY

The results and reflections of this article draw upon a qualitative and multi-
method approach (Small 2011) that combines 60 in-depth interviews, participant
observations, and archival work. These research tools provided the necessary data
to achieve a nuanced view of the mnemonic assemblages used by the postdictator-
ship generation to interact with and transmit the Chilean dictatorial past among
them and toward future generations. I developed this study over the course of 14
months in Santiago, Chile (June 2016–August 2017).
I conducted 60 in-depth interviews with members of the Chilean postdictator-
ship generation who have been mobilized in political, social, or cultural organiza-
tions. The concept of generation is key to my work, and in line with several
scholars, I understand it as deeply embedded in culture. Different people who have
shared sociohistorical experiences will also share common repertoires to talk, think,
and act in connection with those experiences (Corsten 1999; Eyerman and Turner
1998). However, the notion of generation represents an interesting methodological
challenge for sociologists regarding how to define, and indeed who defines, a partic-
ular generation. In this article, I use an empirical notion of generation—the
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 735

postdictatorship one—that, based on my research questions, I define as those who

were born after the end of the military dictatorship.
The interviewees in this study were young people, women and men, with no
direct experience of the dictatorial past and who were older than 18, which consti-
tutes legal adulthood in Chile.7 They were all aged between 18 and 26 years old.
The sample reflects variations in class, territorial experiences, political backgrounds,
and family connection with the past. I recruited my respondents through snowball
sampling. They also invited me to participate in different activities, commemora-
tions, or public demonstrations. The interviews lasted between 40 and 120 minutes
and were conducted in places selected by each participant that were comfortable for
them. My interview protocol was designed to cover thematic lines of inquiry rele-
vant for this study, such as (1) their political trajectories, (2) biographical encoun-
ters with the dictatorial past and the role of family, (3) interaction with peers and
the relevance of the past, and (4) interaction with official or formal forms of trans-
mission regarding the dictatorship in Chile (school or university curriculum, muse-
ums, media, etc.). Most of the interviews were transcribed and coded using NVivo.
The analysis was informed by the procedures of thematic content analysis (Schreier
2012), which allowed me to analyze the contents of the interviews in-depth by creat-
ing a set of analytical axes addressing my research questions.
I also conducted ethnographic observation during 20 cultural and political
activities, demonstrations, and commemorations, in which members of the postdic-
tatorship participated, to observe the creation, transmission, and disappearance of
strategies of remembering and to consider the role of objects, practices, and images
in their mnemonic assemblages. Finally, I conducted archival analysis of govern-
ment documents, reports, and public speeches regarding the construction of official
public memory.

THE FRAGILE AND MATERIALIZED OFFICIAL MEMORY

The Chilean transition from dictatorship to democracy, led by a center-left

political coalition, endorsed the development of a master narrative about the dicta-
torial past in reaction to the demands of human rights organizations. The postcon-
flict master narrative has focused on recognition of the human rights crimes
perpetrated by the military dictatorship (1973–1990), a dominant form of cultural
memory that has been designed to be preserved and has consequently become the
official public memory of this period. This narrative does not consider the extreme
socioeconomic transformations carried out by Augusto Pinochet’s government or
the significant role of political conflict during resistance against the military
apparatus.
The process of building the master narrative has been hotly disputed8 and its
results have been very fragile, as it has been the product of constant negotiations
7
In the institutional review board protocol, I stated that I would interview only people who were legally
allowed to make the decision to participate and that I would maintain their confidentiality and
anonymity.
8
During 2017, there was a rise in demand from the military and right-wing sectors to recognize, for
example, the memory and “human rights” of the perpetrators who have received life sentences.
736 Badilla Rajevic

between incoming political elites, former military and right-wing authorities, and
members and organizations of civil society. Authorities that led the transition
toward democracy fostered a reconciliatory narrative free from potential conflict.
They needed to recognize the crimes against human rights perpetrated by the former
military regime, a strategy designed to strengthen political legitimacy and to demon-
strate to citizens the complete rejection of violence as a political means.
The first main expression of this was the creation by presidential mandate of
the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission to identify and publicly recog-
nize the people who had been killed. Its results were published in 1991, in what is
known as the Rettig Report (named after the commission’s president). The report
clearly states the centrality of public memory and its focus on the victims: “The
country needs to publicly vindicate the good name of the victims and to remember
what has happened so that it will never happen again. From this perspective, the
state can decree gestures and create symbols that make sense of national repara-
tion” (Comisi
on Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliaci
on 1991:1254–1255). The Rettig
Report recognized 2,015 human rights violations that resulted in deaths committed
under the military regime. The report was highly contested by right-wing organiza-
tions and the military, both of whom disputed its veracity. Left-wing organizations,
victims, and victims’ relatives also denounced the report’s narrowness, as it did not
consider other forms of violence such as physical and psychological torture or ille-
gal imprisonment. Despite the criticisms, the Rettig Report and its recommenda-
tions regarding both material and symbolic reparations gained public legitimacy,
and many of them, including the construction of a memorial to all the victims, were
finally executed. This commission marked the beginning of what today has become
the official narrative of the authoritarian rule, which identifies human rights viola-
tions as the fundamental element in the agenda to regain legitimacy (Lechner and
Guell 1998; Lira and Loveman 2005).
In 1998, Pinochet was detained in London on an extradition charge to face trial
for crimes against humanity. The extradition was denied, yet this international
event allowed a significant change in public opinion, as it suddenly became possible
to talk openly against the dictator. This transformation was reflected in an enor-
mous increase in lawsuits against military perpetrators and against Pinochet him-
self. This event also made it easier to talk about other types of violence committed
during the dictatorship. As a consequence of this cultural opening and to address
the demands of victims who were not considered by the first Truth Commission,
President Ricardo Lagos (2000–2006) mandated the creation of a new commission,
the Valech Commission, marking the thirtieth anniversary of the coup d’
etat in
2003. This commission broadened the scope of the notion of victimhood by includ-
ing victims of torture and illegitimate imprisonment. This time, the public reception
of the final report, which recognized 27,255 victims of torture and political impris-
onment, was less controversial and received prompt positive feedback. Yet, after its
release, many people who were not named as victims by the report denounced this
exclusion as an injustice. These demands were finally heard, and in 2010 President
Michelle Bachelet (2006–2010) mandated a third Truth Commission to reconsider
most of the cases of death, torture, or imprisonment omitted from the first and sec-
ond Truth Commissions. In fact, this third initiative was called Valech II, as it
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 737

represented a continuation of the work done by the previous one. The results of the
2010 commission increased the number of victims recognized by the state to more
than 40,000 (Comisi
on Nacional Sobre Prisi
on Pol
ıtica y Tortura 2004).
These three commissions (1990, 2004, and 2010), all falling under the transi-
tional justice paradigm, provided recommendations for both symbolic and material
reparation. Furthermore, the government of President Bachelet (2006–2010) devel-
oped a much more explicit policy of supporting the construction of memorials and
the recovery of former centers of imprisonment and torture, and transferring their
administration to civil society organizations. These governmental procedures, in
response to the demands of civil society organizations, led to a boom in the process
of memorialization from 2003 onward, allowing groups of victims’ relatives and
survivors to have the option of getting involved in memory work by building memo-
rials or planning memory projects for the former clandestine prisons. The constant
interaction between nongovernmental initiatives and governmental actions has
intensified the debate about what should be remembered within each of these new
sites of memory, thus demonstrating the contestation inherent in the process of
building a public memory.
The process of seeking truth and the construction of a common narrative of
the difficult past has been disputed by right-wing organizations that have denied or
justified the crimes, as well as by the left, which has called for the expansion of the
notion of victimhood and for locating the still-unknown bodies of those who were
“disappeared” (los desaparecidos). Despite these disputes, public memory that cen-
ters on individual human rights violations is still dominant 27 years after the end of
military rule, “collective memory of the dictatorship has become ‘thicker,’” which
refers to a process that considers multiple actors and levels (Klep 2012:264). How-
ever, this thicker dominant memory has remained focused on recognition of the “in-
nocent” or depoliticized victims of human rights crimes and its related judicial
processes (Barrientos 2015). This narrative has materialized in an array of memori-
als, sites of memory, and in the impressive Museum of Memory and Human Rights
(Collins, Hite, and Joignant 2013). Only in Santiago has the state financially sup-
ported the construction of 43 initiatives that materialize public recognition of the
victims and the discourse of “never again.”
The construction of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights is one of the
most significant examples of the central role that the center-left governments lead-
ing the transition have played in materializing the narrative of the victims and
human rights. This museum, inaugurated in 2010 by former president Michelle
Bachelet,9 involved an impressive investment of more than US$18 million, has
attracted more than 150,000 visits every year, and has become a must-visit destina-
tion for foreign tourists. The museum clearly represents the official narrative of the
dictatorship, which focuses on the crimes and posits a clear-cut temporality, begin-
ning with the day of the coup d’
etat on September 11, 1973, and ending in 1990 with
the end of the military regime. The magnitude of this initiative illustrates the impor-
tance that authorities ascribe to materializing the official narrative and reveals the

9
Bachelet finished her second term in March 2018.
738 Badilla Rajevic

scope of the belief that in order to transmit the past, it is necessary to inscribe mem-
ories in stone (Young 1993).
Another example of this materialized master narrative is the main memorial to
the detained-disappeared and the politically executed during the military dictator-
ship period inaugurated in 1994 in one of the exits of Santiago’s General Cemetery:
a huge wall with the names of the 3,079 victims who were recognized by the state
through the Truth Commissions. This narrative is also transmitted by memorials
and plaques erected by organizations of survivors, victims’ relatives, or neighbors.
These typically include inscriptions of the names of the victims without political dis-
tinctions or backgrounds (Aguilera 2014). Making those decisions regarding how
and what to represent on the memorials has not been easy for the participants, and
there have been heated debates among memory activists.
In spite of the effort made by not only state institutions but also human rights
organizations, the postdictatorship generation does not fully embrace the museum,
the memorials, and most of the recovered sites of memory that the authorities have
managed to support. Many of my interviewees expressed that they were not drawn
to the official public memory within the walls of museums and monuments. In the
interviews, members of the postdictatorship generation illuminated a significant
change in the form of talking about the past that has not been reflected in these
memory initiatives, that stress the public, ludic, and the ephemeral as the following
section illustrates.

PERFORMING MEMORY IN THE STREET: A CREATIVE PATH TO

BUILDING PUBLIC MEMORY

While the official narrative has focused on the traumatic dimension of the dic-
tatorial past, the privatization of social life is just as significant. In fact, it has been
described by some authors as one of the main consequences of the socioeconomic
legacies of the military regime (Mouli
an 1997; Rovira 2007). It caused atomization
of political life by repressing public demonstrations and promoting fear among citi-
zens (Barrientos 2015). Furthermore, the privatization of public spaces was accom-
panied by extreme policies of urban segregation, especially in Santiago, where a
striking process of eradication and relocation of shantytowns increased urban
inequality and exclusion (Morales and Rojas 1986). The privatization of public life
has affected social mobilization, social actions, and consequently, public forms of
remembering. As a result, public manifestations of memory had to be delimited to
those spaces that have been created for that purpose, such as the museum, the sites
of memory, the cemetery, or the memorials. Otherwise, participants were at risk of
police abuse and detention. However, many of the 60 interviewees narrated how the
ephemeral mnemonic strategies they create, or in which they participate, reappro-
priate the public space without asking for permission and without long-term
planning.
Members of the postdictatorship generation are stimulating public memory by
bringing the past to the streets and transforming the public space, which for decades
has been part of the private realm. They are designing new compositions that
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 739

highlight other legacies of the recent past. Through mnemonic assemblages that are
constantly in motion, disappearing and leaving only vibrant, improvised, and some-
times uncomfortable traces, they highlight, originally and sometimes even joyfully,
other legacies of the military regime and, at times, find effective ways to be part of
the public debate. As Mariela (aged 24), one of my interviewees, noted, this is “an
issue that is more contemporary, that is, from the colors we use, all the slogans,
everything is thought by young people who were born into neoliberalism, but from
that, always linking with memory.” The interventions are original, generate strong
emotions in the participants and their public, and make participants feel different
from previous forms and strategies of remembering, such as the candlelit vigils or
the funerary marches of commemoration.
Performing the past through the ephemeral interventions of remembering, I
argue, is a new form of talking about the past that also constitutes a political
demand to be part of a political community and recover the neoliberal city, which
has promoted “invisibility, privatization, segregation, atomization, and a general
lack of concern for the public good” (Del Campo 2016:182). The provisional strate-
gies of remembering that I analyze in the following subsection illuminate the
attempts to weaken this urban legacy of the military administration.

The Creative Reappropriation of the Streets

“To stick a paper on the wall is really powerful; until that moment, I did not grasp the weight of
that, but then I really realized the power of taking photographs to the streets.” (Cristi
an, aged
26)

The first strategy of the postdictatorship generation in terms of problematizing

the master narrative of the past treats the street as one of the main settings in which
many of those who were born after the end of the military regime remember cre-
atively, through original interventions, subversion of meanings, or provocative
actions that, according to many of them, provide hope and a sense of transforma-
tion. These actions reinforce positive feelings about their interventions. They consti-
tute a blossoming of novel forms of remembering that are in tension with the more
traditional and concrete memorialization initiatives in an attempt to deprivatize
the city.
The street is the place to talk and act in connection to the past. The urban
actions take the form of demonstrations, marches, or public installations, as the
introductory example illustrates. Teo, a 22-year-old college student, asserted the rel-
evance of displaying his actions, and those of his peers, in the street to build public
memory by imagining how this process felt for those who were not able to publicly
protest—in other words, the previous generation that experienced the closure of the
street: “When you do not have a period when people are on the streets, living that
experience, it is necessary to rearm it [memory], reenact it [memory], so we do not
lose that historical sense, that social memory, but not as a museum, I mean, recov-
ering the motivations that mobilized those who died.”
Marches organized by students have been one of the main channels for display-
ing this strategy: banners and performances in open spaces have pushed to
740 Badilla Rajevic

overcome the human rights paradigm of remembering. Since the emergence of the
Chilean student movement in 2011 that has constituted the largest social mobiliza-
tion in Chile since the return to democracy in 1989, public demonstrations have
become an almost regular space where members of the postdictatorship generation
act, think, and talk differently about the past, and where this conversation has
become part of their political repertoires to express their current demands.
These interventions also occur in quieter streets and at less eventful moments
but nonetheless show the relevance of the public space as a setting and a tool for
remembering. The work developed by The Paste is an excellent example of this
strategy. This artistic collective has taken the street as its main exhibition space and
the passersby as its main audience (Fig. 1). The Paste, most of the time, does not
ask for permission to populate the space with photomurals, and its members are
willing to face the consequences of doing so, including being arrested. Their positive
experiences in terms of receiving feedback from neighbors are important elements
when they evaluate the effects of their actions. They aim to generate debate wher-
ever they work by setting up photomurals of repression and protests from the dicta-
torial time, which are able to dialogue with the neighbors’ current experience of
repression and everyday violence.
As Andr
es (aged 26), one of the members of The Paste, powerfully narrated,
“When we went to work on the periphery of Santiago, we made a shift in the sense
that we no longer started to work with our images; instead, territorial change
toward the periphery created the possibility of working with images of the same
people, of residents. We opened family albums that were in houses in order to take
those memories that are in the family albums to the street, to expose them in the
street, to create a photographic gallery or a photographic mural, that has brought
many more benefits, both for us and for the people for whom we have worked, for

Fig. 1. Photomural by The Paste in One of Santiago’s Main Avenues

Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 741

whom we have made these murals.” After Andr
es describes their interventions and
the central role that the streets plays on them, he explains the effects of these actions
to strengthening local memories: “In the end, the experiment works like a mirror;
people see this picture stuck in the street and they also see themselves; . . . they
remember their own memories.”
The Paste’s interventions are a significant example of these creative practices,
led by the postdictatorship generation and displayed in the public sphere, which
have been able to garner the attention and sympathy of spontaneous spectators.
These creative actions will not be enshrined within the walls of any museum, nor
will they be engraved in a memorial site or monument. Instead, they will vanish
sooner rather than later. In this way, these practices challenge traditional ways of
symbolizing the past, both by not asking for the preservation of their actions and
by using the street not just as a canvas but also as a space for demanding recogni-
tion, for example, of the link between past and current police repression.
The use of the streets has expanded the geographies of remembering, carrying
these strategies and vocabularies to new areas of the city and to marginal neighbor-
hoods where there have not been official materialized memorials, except for some
memorials promoted by local organizations and sponsored or funded by the state.
For instance, Germ
an was 22 years old, studying history, and, with some friends,
had been working on a memory project in his neighborhood with the aim of exhibit-
ing the political biographies of some of his neighbors that had not been made public
anywhere else. For him, the public space where people converge every day has been
essential to present his work. One goal of many of these initiatives is to intervene in
the regular activities of the passersby. In these public settings, many neighbors or
bystanders have appreciated the installations and actions. For example, another
member of The Paste, Gonzalo (aged 25), noted, when reflecting on the public
installations, “This snowball was growing, in addition, was fed by all these experi-
ences we had with people who saw these photos that were stuck up in the streets,
not only when they were up, but also when we were working on it, which was very
enriching for us because we were filled with good energy to continue doing this,
because people were saying, ‘Well, kids, it is good what you are doing; this is good,
because you are making people remember.’” These performances, and those that
take place in social demonstrations, inspire interactions in the public space as well
as emotions. Most of the interviewees expressed that these interactions and the emo-
tions that they trigger are the main reason for implementing these transient public
projects.
The notion of the public space has changed considerably in the last 10 years
with the eruption of the Internet and social networks, all of which represent a pow-
erful expansion of the public settings to unfold and communicate new mnemonic
assemblages. The virtual space presents conundrums and potential, as it constitutes
a new dimension for building, archiving, and also disputing collective memory
(Hoskins 2018). Social networks have become a new tool and a territory where
members of the postdictatorship generation have expanded ways of talking about
the past and exploring the possibility of broadening their audiences and, purpose-
fully or not, of registering and archiving these actions. Ra
ul was 26 and part of an
artistic collective working with photography. He stressed the relevance of digital
742 Badilla Rajevic

media: “I think that it’s really awesome [posting online], because there are 80,000
graphic stories, there are 80,000 experiences that come out of there, and I think it’s
beautiful; it has not lost the ability to crystallize subjectivities and make visual nar-
ratives and all that.” Digital media, as Ra
ul said, has the capacity to exhibit an
incredible number of images and actions that otherwise would not leave personal
archives. Indeed, Nadine (aged 21), who was also part of a group of young photog-
raphers, maintained, “The social networks have been really important in informing
and transmitting the latest changes of the mobilized youth.” She highlighted the role
of virtual media, especially as alternative channels of communication that would
not censor the images that she wanted to depict.
The interviewees articulated some concerns about the potential of their work
within this virtual expanded space, such as the possibility of overexposure to the
point that people lose interest. They mentioned a sense of an almost infinite space
that can be difficult for them and their public audience to navigate because of the
flood of images and information. Yet, they and many of the members of the post-
dictatorship generation continue to post online stories and pictures of their inter-
ventions of remembering as part of, or maybe a continuation of, the urban actions,
showing new unplanned territories for talking about the past. Social networks are
social spaces that change and grow every day, and their relevance in reaching an
extensive audience is irrefutable. It seems necessary to keep exploring the scope of
this spatial virtual expansion in the design, growth, and possible changes of public
memory in postconflict societies. It is clear that both the street and the virtual space
constitute more than the setting for new forms of remembering; indeed, they are a
key component of these strategies.

Cheerful and Springlike Remembering

“During these six years that I have been dancing, millions of things have happened to me, and
among those is to march every September 11 to the tomb of Vıctor Jara, Violeta Parra, Gladys,
and Allende; to finish a performance it is important there to dance to the death.” (Caro, aged 24)

One of the fascinating changes in the new forms of talking about the dictatorial
past is the sparkling and sometimes cheerful character that members of the postdic-
tatorship generation display at marches, protests, or other types of public demon-
stration. This optimistic aspect is another form of challenging the paradigm of
human rights and its focus on honoring and mourning individual victims that has
framed the public and materialized memory in Chile. Interrogating this paradigm
of public memory has entailed a transformation in the emotional level of these
actions, putting aside the funeral-like characteristics of remembering.
Acting in these public interventions can be understood as being part of Bakh-
tin’s carnival, as it is an out-of-the-ordinary event where joy and happiness have a
central place; but it has a transient temporality. In Bakhtin’s (1984:10) words, “one
might say that carnival celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth
and from the established order.” These urban actions allow a different language to
emerge that often involves music, dance, and colors in contrast to the solemn and
sometimes funerary affects that have characterized the state-sponsored memorial
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 743

events. This is not a time for crying but rather celebrating the possibilities of contin-
uing a transformative project. As Ra
ul (aged 26) noted, “I think it is so nice to have
the ability to carnivalize Chile, and not as a carnival of peace and love, but I see it
as a process of resignification to review memory as. . . . f**k, if they broke us
through torture, they broke our political subjectivity throughout the dictatorship,
but they did not kill us, and even if they killed us, we are vital enough to survive
that and to have creative abilities beyond that.” Participants in these interventions
reveal the urgency to imagine different forms of interacting with the past.
Cheerful actions have the potential to engage other people and to transmit
these new vocabularies of memory. These forms of remembering mobilize positive
and optimistic affects among those who participate and those who witness them,
often blurring the lines between the street as the scenario and the street as the place
to watch or simply to pass. Joyful interventions invite spectators to get involved
and demonstrate the possibility of transmitting memories that go beyond the indi-
vidual violence suffered by many Chileans that has been the focus of museums and
memorials. As Julieta (aged 20) remarked, “I find that places of memory are very
much in the morbidity of what torture was like, what the prisons were like, what
exile was like, the emphasis on the trauma of violence from the state, and they do
not honor the lives of those people [those who were killed]. I would like to know
what they did.” Julieta, in other words, was forcefully demanding to know the polit-
ical biographies of the people who are named in the memorials and monuments. In
the same line, Mabel (aged 25) also expressed regarding her participation in com-
memorations organized by older generations, “We always went to the commemora-
tions, but they always seemed to us, sorry the expression, but weeping, everyone
were crying. . . . And when you talked with the families of those who died, families
told you, ‘He was very happy, he militated, he liked that a lot, and he was with his
colleagues,’ so you were wondering, why are we treating him like a victim.” Julieta’s
and Mabel’s reflections are being reflected today in ludic forms of memory that go
beyond the crimes against human rights.
This is what has happened in some areas of Santiago, where actual carnivals of
memory have emerged, incremented the number of participants, and also gained
visibility. These carnivals honor the life and political work of some of the victims
murdered by the military apparatus, such as the carnival in Villa Francia to com-
memorate the murder of the Vergara Toledo brothers, two young students who
were killed by the police in 1985 (Badilla Rajevic 2017); the carnival to commemo-
rate the death of Victor Jara, a famous singer murdered by the military (Fig. 2); or
the carnival that takes place in La Victoria, a peripheral neighborhood in Santiago
that has a powerful history of popular organization before and during the military
dictatorship. Raquel, who was 19 and had participated in some of the carnivals
organized in La Victoria, remarked, “Carnivals are a powerful political instance.
There, they [the neighbors] meet, and as the story of La Victoria is, . . . I have the
impression that this neighborhood has everything alive there, as if the neighbor-
hood would store all the political struggles that could exist there and all the rav-
ages/ruins of the dictatorship that could exist there, all the people who were killed,
murdered in those spaces. . .. Those carnivals, ending violently with the eruption of
the police as always, they are. . . . it’s like reliving a moment. . . .” Year after year,
744 Badilla Rajevic

Fig. 2. Carnival to Commemorate the Death of Victor Jara/Source: Photo by the author

these activities have become more popular, hosting groups of young people from
different areas of Santiago that participate through colorful and traditional dances.
These carnivals of memory welcome the neighbors and many visitors, but the
youth, all members of the postdictatorship generation, play a key role in the success
of these events, both coordinating and actively participating in them. Miguel (aged
19) observed, “That [participation in the carnival] is pretty nice; it’s nice to see that
you go to Villa Francia and you are with your friends, and there you meet comrades
from other organizations, and there are your neighbors, and they are also doing a
carnival; there are speeches, there is music, there is like everything. It is so nice in
that moment to be quiet, to be sitting. . . . being with comrades in a familiar environ-
ment, knowing that this is an important day, like many others in the rest of the year,
but it is a day to be together.” Miguel’s description of this intervention celebrates
the collective encounter, the positive vibe of the activities, and the engagement of
diverse people. He described feeling part of this commemoration as well as the com-
munity that participates in it.
Remembering the socioeconomic effects of Pinochet’s rule through joyful per-
formances has become relevant in producing sympathy in the spectators, who,
although not part of the same generation, can understand and feel the effects of the
economic transformations. Many of these urban interventions of memory have
taken place in central avenues of the city during demonstrations or marches. At the
same time, these fun actions have brought young people together, not only from
Chile but also young migrants, making the conversation about the past and the
transmission of these other memories a common ground of the relationships among
peers. Participation in these urban actions is key to the expansion of this new talk
about the past, as it brings people together. Behind the blossoming of cheerful
actions, there is a promise of change and hope for transformation. Remembering,
for example, the strong impact of the socioeconomic legacies of the military
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 745

administration not only involves a different form to talk about the past but also
turns this conversation into a political mechanism for social change. Yet, these
urban actions are not enshrined, nor do they aim to be so.

Recovery of Public Debate

“What I remembered most about the march of 9/11 was an instance after the march;. . . then we
went to a bar that was very close. . . then it was a really nice instance in the bar, with people
approaching or just talking about the subject [violence].” (Juli
an, aged 20)

This excerpt from Juli
an, as well as the experience of the members of The Paste
presented in the introduction, highlights the effects of the public conversations and
debates that have emerged from these public interventions on them, on their prac-
tices, and on the numerous neighbors and passersby. Discussing the past using a dif-
ferent mnemonic template affects those who talk and those who observe. According
to the participants in these interventions, the encounter with unknown people pro-
duces strong emotions, as these talks signify a recognition of not only the work they
are doing but, most importantly, of the power of affecting others and unsettling
everyday trajectories. They have stirred the emotions of observers who were not
expecting to encounter images of the past in their everyday life.
Valuation of the moment itself and a disbelief in long-term memory projects
that aim to endure was very impressive in the narratives of my interviewees. For
instance, Germ
an (aged 22) narrated a moment in which, while he was setting up a
mural, a young woman suddenly came up to him and said, “Hey, the last name of
the person in that image is not like that; his name is misspelled.” Germ
an was very
surprised and asked her, “How do you know that?” She replied, “I am her grand-
daughter.” Germ
an was shocked that he had the opportunity to meet the family of
the protagonist of his mural, one of the victims from his neighborhood. Moments
like this are among the ones that he loves most, the moments that he wants to keep
and reproduce. Germ
an’s experience with his neighbor shows the central role that
the interactions with observers, inspired by members of the postdictatorship genera-
tion, play in the expansion of new forms of remembering. The encounters in the
streets are key, either through heated debates or constructive dialogue. These
encounters mobilize memory through the city, as those who engage in these debates
carry these other contents and time frames with them, not only within the areas in
which the interventions take place but also in different sectors of the city.
Public interventions, photographs, and photomurals become evanescent
memorials that interact in the very moment of the performance with those who are
creating them, with those who are observing, and also with concrete objects such as
the walls, the paper, the strings, the hangers, and the road. These multiple composi-
tions eventually connect and potentially have “the ability to make something hap-
pen” (Bennet 2010:24). Herein lies the power of these ephemeral actions. The
organizers of these urban interventions, and those who have participated, recognize
and appreciate the opportunity to generate encounters between people, or at least
to attract the attention of those who pass by through unexpected interruptions on
their everyday journeys. As Juli
an (aged 20) mentioned, face-to-face encounters are
746 Badilla Rajevic

valued highly: “[The territorial work] is a more personal matter, as I said to you, as
to know people, to really build ties, then I have met many people, we have traveled
a lot, and this way I have traveled through Santiago.” The latent power of the dif-
ferent vocabulary to talk about the past built through these urban actions lies in the
possibility of publicly discussing and creating new ties with other neighbors or spec-
tators—or, in other words, in the deprivatization of the urban space, reclaiming the
city and its streets as a space of encounter and political activity.
Photography is one of the elements within the urban mnemonic assemblages
analyzed in this article that stands out in the narrative of many of my interviewees
because of its impressive capacity to facilitate urban encounters and to move and
remove past and present affects. Through photography, members of the postdicta-
torship generation go beyond dominant public memory—for example, by superim-
posing pictures of the police repression in dictatorial times and current police
repression, and by exhibiting these pictures outside conventional spaces for remem-
bering. Pictures of those who were killed, pictures of those who fought, and pictures
of different kinds of protest and collective activities that were common during the
dictatorial time have traveled with the urban interventions within Santiago and the
extended virtual space, reaching people who are not commonly in contact with these
images.
Six of my interviewees were part of six different photography collectives or
political groups that explicitly use pictures as one their essential mediums. Interest-
ingly, for them photography is seen not only as a tool in itself but also as a way to
talk about the past. Using pictures has the capacity to condense different events and
temporalities and to challenge the official public memory. The work of these six
groups contains a mixture of pictures that portray, for instance, protests during the
resistance and pictures of recent demonstrations (Fig. 3). On these occasions, the
images go beyond their indexical features to enable multiple interpretations that
facilitate a sense among spectators of continuity between the dictatorial past and
the postconflict period by triggering public debate.

Fig. 3. Photography Exhibition by Memories of the Periphery

Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 747

Ra
ul and Leandro, members of a photography collective, described the differ-

ent moments in which they took their pictures to the streets and the diversity of
reactions that their pictures elicited from passersby. For example, they described
one of these interventions in a street market in Santiago in which they exhibited pic-
tures of hooded demonstrators from the eighties and also of recent student demon-
strations: “We were showing it [the exhibition] to people who did not. . . we were
showing another framing, another approach, another material, another contribu-
tion, and they were sometimes full of arguments, or sometimes, of course, they
wanted to break the photos.” After a few of these actions, Ra
ul and Leandro tried
another formula in which they simply hung the pictures out and then left in order
not to interfere with the public debate, or they participated in it but not as authors
or protagonists of the exhibition.
The urban mnemonic assemblages, whether they include photographs,
incorporate debate as part of the new mnemonic template and as a possible
outcome of these political actions. As Leandro expressed, the lack of interest in
highlighting the authorship reveals the importance that for them have the
ephemeral encounters and conversations. Many of my interviewees described
several occasions when their urban interventions generated strong emotions
among observers, such as awkwardness, discomfort, anger, or joy, as in the case
of the carnivals. Although members of the postdictatorship generation who are
part of these fleeting initiatives appreciate these emotional reactions, they do
not intend these initiatives to be materially preserved. The narrow temporal
boundaries may be a limitation to the opportunities of transmission of the past
to members of this generation or to future ones.

FINAL REFLECTIONS

The ephemerality and creativity of the new forms of talking, acting, and think-
ing about the past constitute a significant transformation in the ways in which the
past is represented and transmitted, a change that emerges from the streets and pro-
motes the possibility of changing the status quo of the Chilean public memory.
Drawing upon triangulation of the different methodological tools, in this article I
have illustrated different strategies through which members of the postdictatorship
generation are creating new mnemonic assemblages that reclaim the streets as not
only a setting but also as one of the key elements of these ludic compositions of
memory. The city and its avenues erupt as significant category of the process of
inter- and intragenerational transmission. Understanding the opportunities and dif-
ficulties of the street as a central element in the process of building public memory
may contribute to the field of sociology of memory and the transitional justice para-
digm in illuminating alternative forms of dealing and transmitting a difficult past
that make sense for the generations to come. This is a form of memory transmission
that takes place beyond the boundaries of the family and the walls of museums and
memorials.
Members of the postdictatorship generation have politicized the city using the
public space to perform urban interventions of remembering. They are preoccupied
748 Badilla Rajevic

with recalling this historical period, especially the deep socioeconomic transforma-
tions, because much of that past is still present, helping these young activists and
artists to understand, validate, and communicate their present political actions.
They have worked through ephemeral narratives, images, objects, and actions and
have used these interventions to challenge the unequal and neoliberal city. “What
we do is very difficult. It is something that time will damage. It may be the case that
we set up a picture in the wall, and in two more months it disappears because of the
rain, or it may be there for two more years. . . . the way that the photography is
wiped away is like the way that history gets erased, so it has to be renovated, con-
stantly . . .” (Cristi

an, aged 26). As Cristi

an suggested when reflecting on his own
practices, the fleeting temporality of these urban performances may manage to
remain through repetitions and reactivation that regularly fuel the inspiration and
movement of those who participate. Here, the enormous weight of the virtual space
for the possibility of reappearance and repetition of this content, the expansion of
the new template to talk about the past, and the eruption of new forms of transmis-
sion that push for the public dimension of remembering all become clear. The pub-
lic and virtual space and the vivid and carnivalesque affects leave remarkable traces
that may constitute new and necessary frames to transmit a difficult past in postcon-
flict societies. The joyfulness and ephemerality of these urban interventions appear
to be meaningful for a new generation that has been raised under a neoliberal
context.
Yet, these practices interplay with historical urban segregation and different
types of passersby and neighbors who inhabit each area of the city. Thus, even
though these interventions have reached and sometimes regained the street, their
political scope will be tied to these urban differences and inequalities. Therefore,
many of the urban mnemonic interventions that unfold in peripheral and vulnerable
neighborhoods will often remain in these areas without reaching the rhythms of
memory of the entire city.
Why should postconflict societies pay attention to these forms of remem-
bering in the public space today? Providing a broader template to talk about
the past from the streets has the potential to invite more people to these mne-
monic interventions and to permeate social actions in which young people par-
ticipate. In this sense, these creative interventions have the potential to make
the public memory of a postdictatorial society thicker and to provide a different
kind of continuity—unofficial—that illuminates that the past is still alive and,
as this article has illustrated, that it can be used to circulate and drive contem-
porary mobilization constantly. Members of the postdictatorship generation, by
protesting or creatively intervening in the streets, are expanding the cultural
repertoires to talk about the past while simultaneously creating their own collec-
tive memory in which the socioeconomic inequalities and the legacies of neolib-
eral practices appear as the main axis to be remembered. The ephemerality of
the urban interventions of memory reveals the paradoxical political scope of
these actions, very affective but often transitory and blurred. Yet, as many of
my interviewees observed, the transient temporality works also as challenge to
continually reinvent these urban assemblages of memory.
Ephemeral & Ludic Strategies of Remembering 749

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