The study of memory sites through a Dialogical Accompaniment Interactive Group Method: a research note

Abstract

Collective memory studies have been growing in production of knowledge, but conceptual and methodological advances remain scarce. This research note contributes by presenting an innovative and interactive group method that seeks to analyze how collective memories are constructed by different generations in their interactions with four memory sites related to the Military Dictatorship in Chile. The theoretical and methodological conceptualizations that led to the proposed method are discussed. The method includes a dialogical accompaniment and triangular groups that enable the study of people’s interactions at and with memory sites. Methodological challenges encountered are discussed, as well as interesting findings regarding the construction of generational memories. The complexity of studying collective memory processes and generational discourse at memory sites in countries with traumatic pasts like Chile demands the construction of innovative methods. Researchers designing memory studies should dare taking methodological designs a step forward in order to generate challenging new methods.

Keywords

Chilean dictatorship collective memory generational discourses interactive methodology sites of memory

Current memory debates

Collective memory, both as a theme and analytic category, has irrupted in the last decades in the public debates, political discussions, and academic reflections, transforming itself into a central concept for interdisciplinary dialogue in the fields of humanities and the social sciences (Radstone, 2000). However, Kansteiner (2002) argues that one of the main critiques regarding the growing production of knowledge in these fields is the scarcity of conceptual and methodological advances in the research of collective memory processes (p. 185). The author identifies that one of the common methodological errors is to conceptualize collective memory exclusively ‘in terms of the psychological and emotional dynamic of individual remembering’ (p. 186). Similar claims have been made from the field of sociology regarding conceptual limitations. Conway (2010) argues that the sociology of memory and commemorations is not well developed theoretically identifying two important conceptual limitations. First, an

oversocialized conception of memory that tends to sidestep the question of whether collective images of the past map onto individual reminiscences and vice versa; and second, a tendency to homogenise collective memory and thus to underestimate the extent to which collective memory can be a container for a diversity of colliding and fragmented meanings of the past. (Conway, 2010: 444)

French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs proposed the concept of collective memory, understanding it as a process elaborated and configured in and from social relations (Halbwachs, 1992). His work deals with the relationship between memory and processes such as identity, language, time, and space among others. According to Halbwachs (1992), time and space are among the most important social frames. In this sense, time refers to the dates that represent meaningful events so they can be evoked later, allowing societies or groups to construct traditions, and an identity that can allow them to recognize themselves as members of a group (Halbwachs, 1992; Mendoza, 2005). Likewise, people leave tracks in places. Every society transforms the space they occupy in their own particular ways, and in this manner, they construct fixed frames where they enclose their memories. Spaces contain and construct memory given that experiences are kept in the corners, in the parks, or any other places where groups live their reality and make meaning of their experiences (Fernández-Christlieb, 1994; Halbwachs, 1992; Mendoza, 2005; Piper et al., 2012; Vázquez, 2001).

For Jelin and Langland (2003), the groups that seek to keep the memory of certain events of the past develop territorial patterns that materialize the memories in the city through markings that become sites of memory to the extent that they are recognized as such and are used to remember, following Nora’s proposal (1984), who asserts that a memory site is a place where memory works. According to Achugar (2003), memory sites operate as enunciation places, promoting certain meanings related to the past they refer to. However, as Piper et al. (2012) argue, memory sites are not only defined in relation to their enunciative dimension but also in relation to how they end up being interpreted, and whether the interpretations can distance or even contradict themselves in relation to the enunciative dimension of the place.

Diverse studies have shown that collective memory is a dynamic and changing process, which is related in an immanent way to the social and political contexts in which it is produced, to the places involved, and to the collective identities of the actors involved within which we find their generational belonging (Bartlett, 1932; Fernández-Christlieb, 1994; Halbwachs, 1992; Middleton and Edwards, 1992; Piper, 2005; Vázquez, 2001). These studies make evident the importance of studying some of these relations in depth, especially the one that exists between the accounts about our recent past and the social place from where one lives the experience. Analyzing the Argentinean case, Elizabeth Jelin (2009) asserts that memory—viewed as an operation to give meaning to the past—is different for those who had a direct experience than for those who did not have their own past experience. This lack of experience puts them in a seemingly different category: ‘others’ (Jelin, 2009: 122). The struggle of those sectors that did not live the experience directly, either because they did not suffer the violence in their own bodies, or because they were not born yet, is part of a ‘silent or not heard space’ (Jelin, 2009: 122). Lechner (2002) describes this space using the concept of banal memory or nondramatic memory. The author refers to this kind of memory as ‘a memory of everyday life pains and fears, without legitimating discourses, where what happened is assumed as part of the normal and natural’ (Lechner, 2002: 72). Therefore, this normality does not allow reflecting about the damage. Along the same lines, Marianne Hirsch (1997) has developed the notion of postmemory. It is understood that postmemory moves one or more generations away from memory and remains separated from history not only because of the time that was not lived but mostly because of the enormous amount of emotional information transmitted from the home environment. Therefore, the importance and the particular and powerful effects of postmemory reside in the fact that the relationship of the person with the objects is not mediated by his or her own memory, but rather, it is only implemented by his or her imaginary, which is fed by the cultural creations that surround the person. It would seem clear then that the influential family memory that is transmitted would act as a mediator between the past and the person who has not lived it.

The issues regarding the transmission of memory and different forms of dialogic construction of memory among generations have recently entered the academic debates in Chile, positioning new social actors in the public scene such as the case of young people born in the 1990s—the post dictatorship period (Magendzo et al., 2010). However, the emphasis of these studies centers on the processes of transmission from one generation to another. Instead, our research focuses on the study of the memories that different generations construct in the interaction with memory sites. In this regard, Conway (2010) argues that for memory studies to go beyond static conceptions of memory, it is necessary to focus on ‘how people remember the past via their physical bodies and in practices such as marches parades and processions’ (p. 447).

These debates and conceptualizations are particularly relevant, for those researchers and scholars interested in studying the complexities of collective memory construction, and their implications for understanding past traumatic events, generational transmission of trauma, and in general, meaning-making processes in countries that have experienced recent traumatic events, such as violent dictatorships or wars in places like Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Spain, Germany, Iraq, or currently Syria.

Historical context

On the 11 September 1973, a military coup d’ ètat in Chile, led by Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which ended in 17 years of military dictatorship, followed by a period of democracy. Despite the time that has gone by since Allende’s government (1970–1973) and the military dictatorship (1973–1990), memories of this period are still creating tension in Chilean society. The social actors have been changing over the years, and today, a significant part of Chileans did not experience this period directly, either because they were children at the time or because they were born after the return to democracy. This implies that memories have become plural, including not only those constructed in relation to the direct experience of the events but also the memories resulting from the experience of others, in a process of transmission/appropriation of a past, which, for many, can be perceived as remote or detached. According to Sarlo (2005), when the past is not lived, you can only access it through mediations such as the ones developed within the family, school, and through the mass media.

In Latin America, certain types of memory studies have devoted themselves to the identification of versions of the past associated to specific groups, such as the victims or groups of left-wing militants (Candina, 2002; Haye, 2004; Joignant, 2007; Lechner and Güell, 1999; Piper, 2005; Stern, 2004). There are some other studies that focus on the repression and its effects, human rights movements, the politics of reparation, and the construction of memory sites (Espinoza, 2010; Fernández, 2006; Joignant, 2007; Loveman and Lira, 2000; Piper, 2009).

The purpose of this research note is to present an innovative method to study the interaction that people and groups establish with and at memory sites through a Dialogical Accompaniment Interactive Group Method. First, we discuss the theoretical debates and methodological decisions that informed the design of this method. Next, we describe the methodological challenges encountered throughout its implementation. Then, we present some examples of how this method allowed us to draw information regarding the construction of generational memories. Finally, we comment on the methodological potential and practical benefits of implementing this method for the construction of group memories in the context of studying meaning-making processes.

Theoretical and methodological conceptualizations

In the continuous process of designing, testing, and adjusting a methodology that was suitable for the study, our research team discussed a number of issues such as collective memory, generational transmission of memories, the embodiment of memory, and the materialization of memory and its relation to the interactions that individuals or groups might have with sites of memory. In previous studies, the team had reflected on the theoretical and methodological dimensions of conducting research on collective memory (Espinoza, 2010; Piper, 2005, 2009), as well as the materialization of memory in remembering spaces (Fernández, 2012).

These theoretical discussions led us to view collective memory as a dynamic and changing process, resulting from the permanent exercise of meaning-making processes of the past. The memory actions imply the production of discourses about the past (Vázquez, 2001), as well as their spatialization and materialization, that is, the recuperation of the sites where the violations of human rights took place and/or the construction in these places of material marks, such as plaques, monoliths, monuments, and memorials. We understand sites of memory as those urban spaces that while making reference to the past are also used by people as scenery to talk about the past, constructing and deconstructing interpretations about their own history and the country’s past (Piper et al., 2009). Furthermore, when we speak of the interactions that take place at these sites, we have to distinguish at least two phenomena (Rojas, 2012): first, people produce, share, and bring with them their own memories to these interactions, and second, memories are anchored, situated, and have roots in those places. Then, in order to study these interactions, it is important to distinguish two levels. The first one is related to the interaction between the material and the corporal or what has been denominated processes of embodiment (Cortés, 2007). Regarding memory and places, Simmel (2012) argues that memory has a stronger power of association with space than with time given that the places have what he denominates a sensitive character (Simmel in Rojas, 2012). Consequently, we can assume that the way in which the place has an impact on the visitors in a sensitive manner would be strongly related to the capacity of the place to make them interact with others emphasizing that the body is also a place of memories (Espinoza, 2010; Rojas, 2012). This assertion takes us to the second level of our analysis, which relates to exploring the notion that the body is also a place where we embody social memories (Espinoza, 2010). From a phenomenological perspective, Merleau-Ponty (1968, 2006) expands our understanding of the biologically and socially constructed nature of the body. In his view, the body is a living organism by which we move in the world, suggesting that our intentional consciousness is experienced ‘in and through our bodies; therefore we can never experience things independent of our experience as a bodily-engaged being in the world’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2006: 247). Understanding that memories are relational as well as corporal and sensorial in the way they relate to the bodies, therefore, the relations with others are not only rooted in the intersubjective level, but also in the relations with the environment and our spatial localization in it (Espinoza, 2010; Rojas, 2012).

The complex and intertwined interactive processes identified in the previous section can be reflected, in the case of Chile, in the strong connection people have with the memories of the dictatorship that have transformed discourses and material representations located at memory sites into a fundamental referent about our recent past. The use of these sites of memory has recently been studied, and has resulted in the finding that they are often used by members of associations of victims (tortured, disappeared, killed) of the dictatorship to perform rituals, commemorate anniversaries, grieve their losses, or communicate with the dead (Piper and Fernández, 2011).

Research design

We consider that qualitative research attempts to understand social phenomena by interpreting the practices and meanings of the social actors who are part of a given field of study (Alonso, 1998; Doménech and Ibáñez, 1998) by means of analyzing ‘the nature of the social world through the understanding of how people act and make meaning of their own life awareness’ (Alonso, 1998: 27). This understanding has led us to view methodology not as a set of procedures but as a way of conceiving both the research process and the social reality being studied. Likewise, we understand that the social reality possesses a historical character that is constituted by a symbolic dimension that research cannot abstain from understanding. Therefore, the method we propose, which is oriented to the understanding of the meaning-making processes, is pertinent to a particular psychosocial context. The meanings are produced in the development of the collective action itself, and they are woven into relational and subjective layers within specific cultural and historical contexts (Doménech and Ibáñez, 1998; Fernández, 2006; Fernández-Christlieb, 1994). The meanings studied refer to the past, and that is why we speak of social memory. Its construction assumes that there is no stable and harmonic consensus about past events, but rather, these meanings are constructed within a field of forces and tensions where there are a variety of intertwined viewpoints that emerge and configure fields of meanings in these given social contexts. We attempt to deal with the field of meanings that is constructed when people, who were not victims of human rights violations, interact with sites of memory, the collective construction of discourses about the past that take place at and with the memory sites, and the generational interactions produced by the participants in a group conversation.

Sites of memory

The sites of memory selected for this study are those considered as the most meaningful in the city of Santiago based on the results of a previous study (Piper and Fernández, 2011). In that research, more than 200 memory sites of the dictatorship were identified in Chile’s capital. According to this research, some monuments and memorials, as well as former detention, torture, and extermination centers were the ones identified as having more symbolic relevance in terms of remembering the violation of human rights during the dictatorship. The chosen places for the present study are as follows: the statue of the president Salvador Allende in front of the Presidential Palace ‘La Moneda’; the Park for Peace Villa Grimaldi and Londres 38, two former torture and extermination centers; and the Memorial of the Detained and Disappeared and Politically Executed Persons at the General Cemetery in Santiago.

Our methodological proposal

Taking into account that the materiality of the place has an impact on the form and content of the memories constructed by those who interact with it, we have designed a method to produce information that incorporates the research participants and the spaces that they inhabit, understanding both as social actors that interact in the process of constructing collective memories. Therefore, the method we propose has two parts: the first one centers on the interaction in and with the space, and the second is the implementation of a ‘triangular group’ at the site.

A method of interaction with the space

When we talk about memory sites, it is important to consider their dimensions for the analysis. Among these dimensions, we find the type of place (a house, a monument, and a name wall), its location (the nearby environment), its structure or materiality (how it is built), its discursive strategies (texts, plaques, names, and others artifacts that might help understand the site), and the uses that are promoted. Therefore, taking this into consideration, we adapted some elements of the methodological proposal of ‘walkabouts’ developed by Riaño-Alcalá (2006) in the context of a research on youth and memory in Medellín, Colombia. For anthropologist Pilar Riaño-Alcalá (2006), the walkabouts allow the researcher to locate himself or herself in the city or rural environment, which enables the recognition of ‘the mnemonic and sensorial power that places hold’ (p. 17).

Drawing from this technique and piloting different versions, we developed a method that we have called Dialogical Accompaniment Interactive Group Method. The method begins with an invitation to the participants to walk about freely with a research assistant interacting with the place and sharing his or her experience of visiting the place. Later on, the participants joined a group discussion that began with the comments and insights of the participants about their interaction with the place in order to get to a deeper understanding of their experience.

The triangular group

Taking into consideration that memory is a collective product, which is always constructed in interaction with others, it would seem appropriate that in research about the construction of memories, the strategies for the production of information would involve group strategies; therefore, we have chosen Triangular Groups. Triangular groups are considered an intermediate methodological instance between personal interviews and discussion groups (Conde, 2008). Like in the discussion group, an external agent—the investigator—artificially creates the group with a particular purpose in mind. The objective is

to demonstrate the ways in which both individuals and groups construct and give meaning to the events and circumstances they live, uncovering the categories and interpretations that are generated within the intersubjective frames of the social interactions, through linguistic and communicative processes. (Alonso, 1998: 99)

The triangular group comprises three participants and the moderator, who has the role of allowing the construction of individual and group meanings, as well as facilitating the discussion and debate among the participants. Thus, the person in a triangular group finds himself or herself in an intermediate place between two spaces that are characterized by one pole defined by the discourse and ‘subjective self’ and the other pole defined and occupied by ‘the others’ (Conde, 2008: 165). That is to say, these groups are constructed within the tension between the self and the others, as opposed to the individual interview that focuses on the ‘self’, and the discussion group, that constitutes a space for the construction of ‘us’. However, to the extent that memory is always a collective construction, the tension between Self and The Other is not understood as a tension among the people who participate but rather a tension related to the social positions they hold.

The participants

Our research focused on those people belonging to sections of the society that had not been directly involved in organizations related to memory and the defense of human rights, incorporating a generational dimension by working with three cohorts: people above 60 years, who were young or adults at the time of the coup d’ ètat; people between the ages of 30 and 60 years, who lived directly the period of the dictatorship; and young school age people, who were born after the end of the dictatorship between the ages of 18 and 30 years. We believe that the generational pertinence is an important factor in the configuration of these memories, given the diversity of interpretations in the construction of memories between and within each generation.

Analysis

Discourse analysis is the method chosen for the analysis, understood as the study of the social relations that the participants contribute to construct. Iñiguez and Antaki (1998) define discourse as ‘a set of linguistic practices that keep and promote certain social relations’ (p. 63). Therefore, the analysis consists of studying these practices in the present keeping and promoting these relationships: it means to bring to light the power of language as a constitutive and regulative practice. From the psychosocial perspective of our research, the discourses about the past not only suppose particular forms of understanding the past but also participate in the social construction of the collective versions about that past that is constructed in the present (Vázquez, 2001).

However, the analytical process goes beyond the discursive in order to integrate in the analysis the interaction produced among the social actors and sites of memory as well as the incidence of these places in the construction of the discourses. Unlike the analysis of the material produced by discussion groups, which centers on the discourse of the group itself, the analysis of the material produced through the triangular group seeks to analyze ‘the process of discursive construction in the concrete interaction of the participants, in the context of a “transitional space” and within the framework of the research topic’ (Conde, 2008: 168). Therefore, the analysis focuses on the double interaction between the participants and the space, and the interaction among themselves during the development of the group.

Our analysis is also nurtured from certain perspectives that understand memory as a form of discourse (Fernández-Christlieb, 1994; Vázquez, 2001), that is to say, meanings about the past are dynamic, unstable, and depend both on the social positions from which they are enunciated and on the contexts in which they circulate and are discussed. In this sense, it is assumed that memory as discourse implies necessarily a conflictive dimension, since different versions of the past—many of them contradictory and in confrontation with the past—will be elaborated from different social positions.

Methodological challenges

The process of implementing a new method in any research brings about the complexities of closely monitoring the effect that it has, both on the research objectives as well as on the research process. Initially, we had contemplated that the interactions with the sites of memory would be individual, where each participant would walk about the site, narrating his or her impressions into a voice recorder. However, initial groups showed that this method was somewhat uncomfortable for the participants, resulting in stories that lacked fluidity and depth. For this reason, we decided to incorporate a research companion who would accompany the participant throughout the walk of the place, filming her or him with a video camera in her or his interactions with the place while stimulating her or his insights of the experience. We have called this approach a dialogical accompaniment. In order to systematize these experiences and given that in each group there are three companions who deal with different people, we decided to design a protocol outlining some general procedures in terms of the kinds of questions, interactions, and interventions that they might want to use. In addition, we incorporated a meeting after this dialogical accompaniment, where the three companions get together to discuss issues related to their experience, particularly focusing on challenges experienced during the dialogical accompaniment and seeking to promote collective reflexivity of the research team. These discussions were tape-recorded and transcribed, becoming material for a pre-analysis and improvement of the method (Hall, 1996).

The research was conducted in Spanish, the audio and video recordings from the dialogical accompaniment and the triangular groups were transcribed using some of the norms established by Jefferson (2004). Considering that we are using discourse analysis, the team decided to use these norms because they help keeping the discourse language, idiosyncrasies, grammatical mistakes, silences, and intonation of the participants in their original form, allowing us to analyze possible generational differences. Another important challenge has been defining a method to analyze the visual material produced in the dialogical accompaniments. This process has led us to review pertinent literature and also to view and analyze the material in an attempt to develop an incipient method that is coherent with our entire methodological proposal.

Perhaps one of the most challenging experiences we encountered deals with our ideological view in dealing with issues as complex as the violation of human rights in the context of a violent dictatorship. We recognize that in this regard, our political views are far from accepting or justifying these actions. As researchers, we claim to be not neutral to this or other similar issues; therefore, we have to incorporate this element into the design of the research process by taking a reflective and critical position about our research practices (Fernández, 2006; Hall, 1996).

In this regard, Hall (1996) argues that reflexivity refers to the constitutive nature of the researcher, the data they collect, and the way in which it is analyzed and interpreted. Reflexivity can be defined as the capacity to constantly examine what we do, to open reflexive processes about this work with all the people we work with, as well as the capacity to be responsible for the work being done, and have a critical commitment to the people we work with (Burr, 1995; Fals-Borda, 1985; Martín-Baró, 1996; Montero, 2003). From this perspective, and embracing our own capacity to be reflexive, we acknowledged the fact that we had to include in our sample people with political views that are more in line with right-wing positions, so as to have a wider and more representative spectrum of participants. However, we were faced with the fact that our contacts, database, and possible sources of referral were insufficient for reaching this segment of the population. Although we managed to contact some people, the responses we encountered were negative, with people arguing that they were not interested or willing to participate in a conversation that takes place at a memory site of the dictatorship, associated with left-wing people. This is not a minor issue and to some extent reflects the divisions and contradictions of our current democratic society. However, we managed to conduct one group with right-wing people. This group comprised people above 60 years who did not know each other. The participants decided to take part because we agreed that it would be conducted with three people who supported similar political views so as to avoid confrontations with opponents. The group took place at the Park for Peace Villa Grimaldi, a former torture and extermination center.

We anticipated a couple of challenges in conducting this group. First, we expected that the participants could cancel their participation at any point, particularly after arriving at the place; second, we had some concerns about their reactions when confronted by the materiality of the place, therefore reacting against our research team. The following account provides an example of the reactions we anticipated from participants:

Participant 1: I am talking about something that you (0,2) ↑ not only didn’t live, and even more so, ↑I think you have developed a biased image, ↑that’s what Ithink …

Moderator: who, who has a biased image?

Participant 1: you, you, biased image

Moderator: because of the fact … because of my age↑ or …

Participant 1: No, because you work in this, and therefore, I mean … let’s sa::y youare es::pecially interested in (.) highlighting things and-and everything. ↑Me, I don’t’ have a biased image … I have my … ↓that is not the one that (.) ↓Allende has, that Allende had.

The research assistant, with regard to her experience as the moderator of this triangular group, explains, ‘in general it was not that difficult, perhaps due to the fact that as a moderator I only have to guide the conversation, and I do not get involved offering my personal opinions’.

Even though we might have been right about some of these initial apprehensions, the group provided some very interesting and unexpected information, while the participants were able to construct a generational memory that might have a genesis in a different social, cultural, and political context, which is also part of the universe of memories that constitute our recent past, and that were reenacted at the site.

The benefits of a Dialogical Accompaniment Interactive Group Method

The experience of implementing a new method has already been described as challenging. However, it has also proven to have successfully helped us achieve our main research objective that was to characterize, analyze, and compare the memories of the recent past of our country (1970–1990) that different generations of people, who were not direct victims of the violations of human rights, construct when interacting with sites of memory in the city of Santiago.

For the purpose of this research note, we present three of the most relevant topics that can be identified as emerging as a direct result of the dialogical accompaniment and the triangular groups: (1) the emotional impact of the place, (2) the dialogical accompaniment as an encounter with the facts, and (3) the importance of imagining what happened. Now we briefly describe these topics using as examples the experiences of people in two of the groups conducted. One of them (group 1) comprising young people (18–30 years) took place at the Park for Peace Villa Grimaldi.¹ The other group (group 2) took place at the Memorial located at the General Cemetery² in Santiago, and comprised people between 30 and 60 years of age.

The emotional impact of the place

In this regard, most of the participants have described that the dialogical accompaniment around these places have a strong personal impact on them. They describe these experiences as something that shocks, impresses, affects, and produces a variety of physical sensations that in some cases are difficult to describe. Even if the places are not visited intending to remember a particular moment, event, or period, they impose the duty of memory as exemplified below:

Participant 1: It is unavoidable to be here and not to get your hair standing up. It is difficult to not to get emotional, not to feel. (0,2) Memory has to do with feeling (Group 2).

Participant 1: every time I walk by thi::s, thi::s (.) this place and this monument makes my brain tickle. It ↑always does something, always (.) it always works. It always works as a monument. (0,3) I cannot be indifferent (Group 2).

Participant 1: it always (.) moves me. >Besides I am very sensitive<, so it’s like immediately I get a knot in my thro::at, because it’s like (0,2) independent from thenames on the wall, the numbers and that, the ↑energy of the place I feel is very powerful (Group 2).

The examples presented show the interesting interactions produced by the place that speak not only of a sort of embodied experience, where feelings and physical sensations are produced at and by the place but also of the power of memory that the place imposes on people. These embodied experiences can be understood following what Das (2012) proposes: that the pain or whatever type of memory not only looks for a place in the language but also a place in the body (Das in Rojas, 2012).

An encounter with the facts

Strongly related to the physical experience of the place is the fact that for the participants, the sites of memory constitute a sample of the history of the country, objects of memory that show what happened to those whom they do not know or do not remember. The victims and their families would not need the information or a reminder, since they would have the experience of history. However, for those who do not have that experience, the encounter with the place is an encounter with history. In its materiality, it is possible to see and to experience history:

Participant 1: ↑No, this is a place where all the human rights were violated, the priva:::cy, ↑all the rights that have to be respected, >but here that wasn’t tha<t. This is a place where you can confirm that ↑here (.) in Chile, there were no human rights during the dictatorship, that in that period, people didn’t ↑have (.) any rights, that you would be walking down the street and you would be arrested, that’s it, >good bye<, you lose (Group 1).

The discourses of the participants construct a separation between those who directly experienced the violence during the dictatorship and those who did not. Those who did not would have information but not the lived experience; therefore, the experience of visiting the place allows joining these two positions. Likewise, the truth of what happened seems to be at the site inhabiting it and showing itself to those who visit it. The young people emphasize the presence of original elements, objects, because history would be in them, showing itself through them, as one of the participants comments, ‘the little bits of history that appear everywhere’:

Participant 1: There is very few monuments left of what really was. For instance (.) that room of 1 x 1 meter (a prison cell), you look at it, without having to look at what it’s written about it, and you ↑imagine what happened (0.3) Or the ↑tower there, in the back, one ↑without having to read can imagine what happened, but many of the things are no longer here. And the thing, this (.) of the names of the people that were here, you have already seen it in many places, even in ↑movies, and it’s not something that shocks you, but it’s the old things, the original things (.) the ones that evoke feelings in you, <without having to read what is written> (Group 1).

For young people, the visit would operate as a test in relation to their previous knowledge. It is about an encounter with truth, which is finally what allows them to form their own opinion, observing with their own eyes what happened and evaluating the veracity or accuracy of the information that their families, schools, or the media have transmitted to them.

To imagine what happened

Young people claim to have information about the dictatorship and the violations of human rights that happened during this period. This information has been provided by the schools and the media, or it has been transmitted to them by their families. Therefore, they do not need information because they have it or they have easy access to it. What they value about the dialogical accompaniment is the experience and the contact with history that this implies, given that this is what would really help them form their own opinion about what happened. However, in order to do that, it is not enough to know, but what they need is to imagine what really happened there:

Participant 1: I mean >I didn’t live this ever<, I ↑know through what they have told me, through what they taught me in school (.) and coming ↑here you begin to imagine things (.) and you think about what happened. For instance, there is a thing there, in the middle that says that they tortured people with cars, but ↑I don’t know <how that might have been>. ↓Imagine, to think about all that ↑traumatizes you with what happened, what that moment was like (Group 1).

The place becomes a material evidence of the events that happened; therefore, it is possible to imagine the repressive experience. The texts that are located next to the objects of the site are informative, yet the participants do not see this as relevant. Instead, the material and visual dimension of the space appears as the most relevant for them, since this is what allows them to imagine and go beyond the information, thus helping them forming their own opinion and understanding those who lived that period. For the adults who visited the Memorial at the General Cemetery, it is the wall with the names of the disappeared and executed that constitutes the true referent because it provides the testimony of what happened, allowing them to get closer to the actual events, to the extent that many participants commented on the fact that they always look for their last names on the wall, trying to relate themselves to the victims or imagining that they could have been one of them.

This brief description of the material generated was intended to demonstrate just a few of the connections participants made in relation to the emotional impact that the place produces on them, the power of the dialogical accompaniment as a means of encountering themselves with historical facts, and finally, the importance of performing the ritual of imagining what happened there to people in order to integrate this information as a wholesome embodied experience in the context of constructing generational memories at these sites.

Conclusion

As has been discussed, the study of collective memory practices and particularly the interactions that people or groups have with sites of memory present the researcher with a specific set of challenges regarding the theoretical conceptualization and the corresponding methodological design. In this article, we have presented the conceptual and methodological framework that supported the design of an innovative method, arguing that each research method has to be designed taking into consideration the particular characteristics of the study. In this case, we adapted two seemingly disconnected techniques—the walkabouts and the triangular groups—and fused them into a Dialogical Accompaniment Interactive Group Method for studying the interactions of people in and with sites of memory and within the members of these groups. Through this method, the person visits the site with a researcher trying to connect with the place on his or her own, creating a particular pathway without a preestablished logic, that is to say, following the materiality of the place while engaged in a dialogic discursive construction that emerges from the interaction of these two people. These experiences and insights are later on contrasted with the experiences of the other two participants in the triangular group, constructing in this discussion a generational memory of the place.

Part of the challenges that we have encountered has been to integrate a more traditional textual analysis incorporating at the same time the materiality and dialogical characteristics of the sites without just interpreting the materiality of the place and translating these interpretations into the language of materiality. Furthermore, this complex task also implies an analysis of the visual material in ways that are consistent with our proposal.

Regarding the information obtained through its implementation, it has provided us with rich material that we might have not obtained otherwise. An example of this is the embodied connection the participants experience with the place, with what happened there, or with the materiality and the meanings the places convey. This connection takes them to a reflection about truth and history that impel them, in the case of young people, to imagine the different forms taken by the political repression, constructing therefore their own informed opinions based on the materiality of the place. These results confirm that memory can be viewed as a dynamic and fluid process that needs to be enacted through embodied material actions (Conway, 2010). People and places interact thus transforming our world and our being—in the world (Kontopodis, 2009). This interaction also allows generating new meanings from the mnemonic and sensorial power these places hold (Riaño-Alcalá, 2006) and the ongoing production of discourses about the past. The study of these interactions with and at these memory sites and the process of constructing generational memory that unfolds open an interesting avenue for understanding and debating about the transmission or construction of generational memories.

Finally, this research method has demonstrated that the design of each study presents us with many possibilities for the development of methods or techniques; therefore, as researchers, we need to be proactive in creating our own methods, thus improving current methodological practices as well as opening new avenues for much needed methodological debates as suggested by Conway (2010) and Kansteiner (2002), among others.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Scientific and Technological Research Commission, Government of Chile, Regular Fondecyt Project (No. 1110162) ‘Construction of generational stories about our recent past (1970-1990) at four memory sites in Santiago’.

Notes

Author biographies

Adriana E Espinoza is an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, of the University of Chile. She teaches postgraduate qualitative methodology courses. Her research interests include transgenerational transmission of trauma, collective memory processes, and psychosocial trauma in the context of natural disasters.

Isabel Piper is an associate professor of social psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, of the University of Chile. Her main investigative line is about the processes of construction of collective memories in contexts of political violence and democratic reconstruction. Currently, she investigates collective memory practices in public spaces using qualitative methodologies.

Roberto Fernández is an instructor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, of the University of Chile. He teaches social psychology and qualitative research methodologies. He also teaches at the Diploma Program on Qualitative Methodologies of Psychosocial Research. His main research interests include the relationship between collective memory and sites of memory, and commemorations in public spaces.

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