"Disculpe, señor juez… ¿Me permite decir unas palabras?" Identidades, performances jurídicas y drama social en los testimonios de sobrevivientes en la Mega Causa La Perla, Córdoba (Argentina)

Abstract

In Argentina, the judiciary has become the principal way to deal with the atrocities committed during the last dictatorship (1976-1983), framing identities either as perpetrators or victims. Although legally those identities are defined by the fact of having committed or having been the target of a crime; an anthropological approach to this case reveals the malleability of those representations and the continuous struggles around it. This article focuses in a particular kind of victims, who are also the main witnesses of the crimes committed during the dictatorship: the survivors of the clandestine detention and extermination centers. More precisely, it analyzes the memories and identities linked to the experiences of those who survived the clandestine detention centers, based on an ethnographical approach to the judiciary testimonies presented in the mega trial "La Perla" (Córdoba, Argentina). The article studies how categories such as "witnesses" or "victims" are constructed and performed through different judicial scenes. It then focuses on the court hearings, more precisely in the statements that survivors use to introduce themselves. These introductions are particularly revealing, constituting privileged contexts for the struggles on the representations of the 70s', the identities of their protagonists and the management of those identities over the last three decades.