"Esperando justicia". Trauma psíquico, temporalidad y movilización política en la Argentina actual

Abstract

In the contemporary world victimhood has become a vector of collective identity, and psychic trauma has become a reasonable language for communicating their suffering. The victims of war, gender-based violence, disasters, etc., come into play psychological categories such as trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder to demand their rights. This is what happened with the victims of a fire occurred in Buenos Aires, who for several years mobilized asking for the punishment of those responsible of the incident. As related with public policy mental health care, victims were treated by psychologists and psychiatrists of a State service concerned with post-traumatic stress disorder. At the same time, a group of 'psi' professionals with recognized trajectories concerned with human rights supported their cause. Calling attention to the connection between trauma and impunity, they sued the State for the long and painful wait of the victims until the completion of the criminal trial. By doing so, they exposed a relationship between the psychological process and the criminal proceedings. Based on the materials produced during a three-year ethnographic fieldwork with the victims, I return here to the "anthropology of time" in order to analyze this coordination that occurred during the waiting time between those processes of different nature —the psychological and the criminal one—. I conclude that psi professionals and the State played a central role in defining the event as traumatic and in certifying the accuracy of victims' suffering that, at the same time, confronted it.