Presentation

Abstract

This dossier is the result of the technical assistance agreement between the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and Abuelas Plaza de Mayo, which we coordinated. Its goal was to collaborate with the association’s Archive on the development of preservation, identification, and dissemination policies for its holdings. A key aspect of the work was to delve into the challenges the Archive’s task posed for the institution. The Abuelas Archive holds documentation related to the struggle to recover children and babies who were kidnapped and appropriated: complaints, investigations, correspondence, travel diaries, publications, and information from its various areas. It consists of 145 linear meters of documentation, with dates ranging from 1950 to the present. The agreement opened a fascinating opportunity for us to collaborate and learn throughout the process. We aimed to contribute from our own backgrounds and foster the formation of a team committed to collective work. During the agreement, which concluded in 2023, we carried out various activities in a particularly special phase where the institution prioritized its legacy for future generations while losing many of the grandmothers. In the face of the current challenges, worsened by the government's attack on memory policies, the Archive plays a critical role. We wish to thank the entire Archive team, especially Marcelo Pablo Castillo, who initiated the agreement as the Archive's coordinator, and Daniela Drucaroff, who took over in 2021, along with the interdisciplinary team that was formed. Initially, this team included Jorge Castro Rubel, Milena Durán, Soledad Gesteira, Francisco Laino, and Carolina Perelló from CONICET, as well as Victor Iván Fina, Matteo Maiorana, and Clarisa Veiga from Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, with later additions of Agostina Gentili, Ana Laura Sucari, and Paula Erijman. The work developed created a valuable space for reflection and training, started the historical documentation of the Abuelas Archive, and built a corpus of interviews with its legal team and collaborators. We also systematized various regulations, protocols, and access policies. From the start, the Archive was concerned with the sensitive nature of its documentation, a key issue faced by many other archives in Argentina and abroad, especially those created by NGOs or community organizations. In response, we organized the meeting “Archives with Sensitive Information: Confidentiality, Accessibility, and Memory Policies. Experiences and Reflections within the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and CONICET Agreement” in June 2023. This gathering included 130 archivists, researchers, public institution workers, human rights organizations, and activists. The goal was to reflect on the dilemmas surrounding confidentiality, the tensions between democratizing archives and preserving privacy, access policies, and the relationship between public and private documentation and its connection to social memory, justice processes, historical research, and memory policies. We were honored to have Giulia Barrera, an expert in African history and archivist who advised the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office on the Italian investigation into Operation Condor, and Vania Markarian, a Latin American historian and director of the General Archive of the University of the Republic of Uruguay. This dossier includes the valuable presentations they gave at the event. Additionally, we published a lecture by Kirsten Weld, a Harvard professor and expert in modern Latin American history, delivered at our second workshop, "Archives and Human Rights," held in July 2024. We wanted to preserve the oral nature of the lectures to maintain their dynamism and relevance. Along with these valuable contributions, we’ve included an article by us reflecting on the work done throughout the agreement. We appreciate the interest of Políticas de la Memoria in this dossier and their immense patience and support in making these contributions available. As we know, archives have become crucial in engaging with the public sphere, shaping social memory, forging identities, and creating judicial evidence. They are a decisive and contested field for democratic policies, transparency, rights defense, and the ongoing struggles over memory and the meaning of the future. In today’s climate, with the rise of anti-democratic and reactionary discourses, the task of preserving and safeguarding the documentary heritage accumulated over 40 years of activism and tireless struggle is even more significant. Therefore, for us, the publication of this dossier is not only a source of great satisfaction but also an invitation to continue deepening the reflection on the importance of archives, their political significance, and their role in democratic culture.