The practice of memory: Decolonial resistance in indigenous Chile and the Chilean diaspora

Through analysis of poetry, performance, and theatre – three sites in which body and text are entwined – “The Practice of Memory: Decolonial Resistance in Indigenous Chile and the Chilean Diaspora” argues that memory is a crucial site for decolonial resistance. It analyzes memorial practices in 20th and 21st century Chile and the U.S. within a continental American context. Staging a Performance Theory intervention in Memory Studies, “The Practice of Memory” identifies memory as performance revealing it as an always incomplete and repeated practice of translating experience, allowing for self-redefinition and social transformation into new, extra-national collectivities. The broader implications of this project are its effect on how we understand the relationship between contemporary Latinx and Latin American national identities and histories, specifically as their constitution emerges from an ongoing colonial project of Indigenous dispossession and Black subjugation. Through memorial performances we not only come to understand how subjugating systems such as state dictatorship, and neoliberal governance and sociality structure our every relation, but also how the decolonial potential in memory and memorial performance generates a space for living in ways that defy these systems.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Comparative Literature

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Madarieta, Ethan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kaplan, Brett A
• Ledesma, Eduardo
• Ruiz, Sandra
• Cacho, Lisa M

• Memory
• Latin America
• Chile
• Dictatorship
• Decolonial
• Performance
• Literature
• Indigenous Studies
• Poetry
• Theatre
• United States
• Empire

Statement dc:rights

• © Copyright by Ethan Madarieta 2020 All Rights Reserved

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108259

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108259