Senior Researcher at CONICET and Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Social Sciences UNGS-IDES , Elizabeth Jelin holds a PhD in Sociology and was awarded in the Houssay Prize for a Lifetime Achievement in Social Sciences in 2013 . She has been Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and member of the Academic Directory of that institution . Jelin ’ s main research focus lies on human rights , political repression memories , citizenship , social movements and family . Her book , “ Los Trabajos de la Memoria ”, the first of the series “ Memorias de la repression ”, originally published in 2002 , was currently revised and reprinted in Lima ( IEP , 2002 ). Furthermore , she is the autor of “ Pan y afectos . La transformación de las familias ” ( 2010 , Fondo de Cultura Económica ); “ Fotografía e identidad : captura por la cámara , devolución por la memoria ”, with Ludmila Da Silva Catela y Mariana Giordano ( Nueva Trilce , 2010 ); “ Por los derechos . Mujeres y hombres en la acción colectiva ”, with Sergio Caggiano and Laura Mombello ( Nueva Trilce , 2011 ); “ Las lógicas del cuidado infantil . Entre las familias , el mercado y el Estado ”, with Valeria Esquivel and Eleonor Faur ( IDES-UNFPA-UNICEF , 2012 ).
Fifteen years after the Research and Training Program for young researchers “ Collective Memory and Repression . Comparative views on the democratization process at the Southern Cone of Latin America ”, organised by the Social Science Research Council ( SSRC ) and coordinated by Elizabeth Jelin , she analyses the road travelled since then , as well as the progress achieved on the studies on memory and the current epistemological challenges in the field .
Laura Mombello holds a PhD on Social Sciences . She is member of the Núcleo de Estudios sobre Memoria ( IDES ) and took part in the program “ Collective Memory and Repression . Comparative views on the democratization process at the Southern Cone of Latin America ” ( 1999 ).
Laura Mombello : What is the origin of the Program ?
Elizabeth Jelin : When we started to think about the project , back in 1996 - 1997 , the main researches were mainly focused on the institutional questions of the transitions , such as : how to rebuild or build democratic parliaments , how do the legislatures work , which is the best electoral system , the political parties , etc . Attention was also paid to the executive powers and the State reforms , from the public administration to the public policies . At the same time , there was a “ Social gap ”; a gap in the study regarding what happened to people , what happened to societies during this transition process . Our first idea was looking into the meaning of building citizenship from the presence of the new and different social movements . Later on , following to the social movement logic and their claims , we started to work with the topic of memory . As I always say , I bumped into memory rather than choosing it , as during the study of the human rights movement , the concept used by their activists came up . That was the starting point .
Sometimes I feel institutionalist in front of those working with culture topics or culturologist in front of the political scientists of the institutionality . I think the lack of integration of those two dimensions is currently one of the issues missing . Observing Memories ISSUE 1
29