Partnerships between truth commissions and universities: Possibilities for developing an archival education in human rights in Brazil

Abstract

As part of a doctoral research, eighty-eight local truth commissions created in Brazil between 2012 and 2018 were identified. Among them, it was selected the eleven final reports that described partnerships between truth commissions and universities. The paper analyzes the phenomenon of creation of local truth commissions in Brazil and the partnerships established between them and universities, especially, with Archival Science and History programs. It was found that the partnerships were established to make the work of truth commissions feasible and consisted of archival activities such as preservation, description, and scanning as well as research. It concludes that, although the educational engagement of Brazilian truth commissions has been limited, partnerships with universities have provided students the contact with the theme of human rights, in line with the callings for the profession to address activism and human rights within the context of archival education. Finally, the paper suggests that experiences developed by these partnerships could be incorporated into Archival Science programs in Brazil.

Keywords

Brazil truth commissions Archival Science education human rights

1. Introduction

On May 16, 2012, at the installation ceremony of the Brazilian National Truth Commission, known as CNV (Comissão Nacional da Verdade), former President Dilma Rousseff emphasized:

Ignorance about history does not pacify, on the contrary, it maintains latent bitterness and resentment. Misinformation does not help to appease; it only facilitates the transit of intolerance. Shadow and lies are not capable of promoting concord. Brazil deserves the truth. The new generations deserve the truth and, above all, deserve the factual truth those who have lost friends and relatives and who continue to suffer as if they die again and always every day (Rousseff, 2012, in translation).

Invoking Galileo Galilei, Rousseff also recalled that “force can hide the truth, tyranny can prevent it from circulating freely, fear can postpone it, but time ends up bringing the light. Today, this time has come” (Rousseff, 2012, in translation). The time, to which the former president referred, was that which, 27 years later, counted from the end of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964–1985), brought a truth commission to clarify serious human rights violations committed by the dictatorial government, and to recommend measures to prevent these violations from occurring again.

Unlike its Latin American neighbors that installed truth commissions almost immediately after the end of dictatorial regimes, Brazil was slow to create a truth commission, as demonstrated in the following chronology of some Latin American truth commissions: Bolivia (1982–1984; 2017–); Argentina (1983–1984); Uruguay (1985; 2000–2003); Chile (1990–1991; 2003–2005); El Salvador (1992–1993); Haiti (1995–1996); Ecuador (1996; 2008–2010); and Guatemala (1997–1999).

Truth commissions are considered one of the most important developments related to investigations into human rights violations. Their emergence dates in Latin America to the 1980s, highlighting a need to deal with the legacy of large-scale abuses that occurred during repressive regimes. Truth commissions are part of a set of transitional justice instruments, consisting of guiding principles relating to prosecuting perpetrators, revealing the truth about past crimes, providing reparations to victims, reforming institutions, and promoting reconciliation (Van Zyl, 2011). Nowadays, more than 40 truth commissions have been created in all continents, especially in the last 25 years (Chapman & Ball, 2001; Hayner, 2011; Wiebelhaus-Brahm, 2009).

In Brazil, implementation of transitional justice measures began in the 1990s, with an emphasis on financial redress, through the creation of the Special Commission on Political Murdered and Missing Persons,1 in 1995, and the Amnesty Commission,2 in 2002. Within a national agenda focused on human rights started by former President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, CNV was created through a federal law – Law N ${}^{\circ}$ 12,528/2011 – and officially entered into force in 2012. It aimed to “examine and clarify the serious human rights violations practiced in Brazil between 1946 and 1988 in order to enable the right to memory and truth and promote national reconciliation” (Brazil, 2011, in translation).

CNV was created concurrently with the Access to Information Law – Law N ${}^{\circ}$ 12,527/2011 – known as LAI (Lei de Acesso à Informação). In addition to regulating the right to information, established in the Federal Constitution of 1988, LAI establishes rules for document classification and stipulates that information on human rights violations cannot be denied. Theoretically, LAI laid the groundwork for the necessary access to the information for CNV’s investigations.

The law that established CNV also determined that the Commission could “promote partnerships with bodies and entities, public or private, national or international, for the exchange of information, data and documents” (Brazil, 2011, in translation). This provision allowed the inauguration of a phenomenon that seemed to be unique among international truth commissions: the installation of truth commissions at states, cities, universities, and professional associations in every part of Brazil.

However, unlike CNV, which had a dedicated financial budget, several local truth commissions had to source alternative funds to make their activities feasible. One model that emerged between local truth commissions was the partnerships with universities, often supported by cooperation agreements with research funding agencies.

Within the scope of these partnerships, archival activities and research stood out, mainly developed by students from Archival Science,3 History, Graphic Design, and Law programs. Some of these partnerships also resulted in educational projects with public and private schools, through lectures and exhibitions about the military dictatorship.

By taking the debate of military dictatorship to university lecture halls and classrooms of public and private schools, the initiatives of Brazilian truth commissions corroborated with the considerations of Paulson and Bellino (2017) who addresses the growing trend of the engagement of truth commissions in educational activities over the last few years.

Additionally, these partnerships enabled university students to be familiarized with human rights issues as they got involved with the works of truth commissions. In this sense, these experiences also tied in closely to the debates regarding the importance of archival education to support human rights (Gilliland, 2011; Caswell et al.; Wood et al., 2014; Geraci & Caswell, 2016).

Discussions on human rights and archives have intensified in recent years, however debates about archival education in this agenda are minimal in Brazil. Even after the installation of CNV and dozens of local truth commissions, little has been developed, including in the field of Archival Science research. This absence led us to reflect on the archivists’ role in the current Brazilian political context where the government of President Jair Bolsonaro constantly flirts with the possibility of the return of a military government. Would the treatment and access to Brazilian military dictatorship archives contribute to a greater understanding of the importance of democracy and the defense of human rights? What is the role of the archives and archivists on this debate? We believe these questions need to be inserted in Brazilian Archival Science research and curriculum.

The paper is part of a doctoral research that analyzed the strategies and actions implemented by truth commissions in Brazil to access archives of the military dictatorship. After the identification of 88 local truth commissions created between 2012 and 2018, the 11 final reports of truth commissions which explicitly described partnerships with universities were selected for this paper.

The paper will begin by outlining debates about the role of archives and archivists in the defense of human rights at the international level and in Brazil. Then it will present a brief historical background of the creation of CNV and the Brazilian local truth commissions. Finally, it will describe partnerships of truth commissions with universities, projects resulting from them, and activities developed within Archival Science and History programs, aiming to analyze possibilities that these experiences can offer to archival education in Brazil. The paper concludes that the experiences of partnerships between truth commissions and universities should be replicated in Brazilian Archival Science programs.

2. The emergence of the role of archives and archivists in the defense of human rights

Although the relationship between archives and human rights is longstanding, it has become more prominent in the last decades, with the inclusion of archivists and researchers in this debate. The process of dismantling military dictatorships and civil wars in Latin America, totalitarian regimes in Europe, and segregationist regimes in the African continent has made the archives and their access central to the discussion around the defense of human rights (Quintana, 2009; United Nations/Commission Human Rights, 2005).

In 1993, the International Council on Archives (ICA) listed some of the individual and collective rights that required access to information. It approved a working group to analyze the issues related to the treatment of the archives of repressive regimes (Quintana, 2009). Gradually, hundreds of records from such governments were transferred to archival institutions and made available to the public, often driven by the establishment of access to information laws. As noted by human rights and freedom of information legal expert David Banisar (2006), the rise of legislation on access to information in many countries was linked to the need of transition from a repressive regime to democracy.

In 2003, ICA established a protocol for the preservation of records related to human rights violations and created the Working Group on Human Rights (WGHR), currently called Section on Archives and Human Rights. In 2016, the group presented the report Basic principles on the role of archivists and records managers in support of human rights, whose Principle 2 states that “institutions, archivists and records managers should prevent the destruction of archives that are likely to contain evidence of the violation of human rights, or humanitarian law institutions and archivists must prevent the destruction of files that may contain evidence of violations human rights” (International Council on Archives, 2016, p. 4). Furthermore, Principle 20 recommends that archivists receive appropriate education and training focused on archival ethics in relation to human rights.

As archives became central to discussions about human rights, archival practices and concepts began to be reinterpreted in the light of these debates. Far from being “a true reflection of the society that produces them” (Quintana, 2009, p. 47), archives are “multiple social constructs, that bring together a diversity of institutions and agents” (Da Silva Castela, 2002, p. 218, in translation) and must be comprehended within power relations, as “a slice of social memory” (Harris, 2002, p. 64) and covered by “layers of intervention and interpretation” (Ketelaar, 2001, p. 141).

When analyzing “Khmer Rouge archives”, Michell Caswell (2010) has argued that archives play a significant role in fostering accountability, truth, and memory in Cambodia. Other authors have argued that archives have a prominent place in the construction and transmission of collective memory (Alberch Fugueras, 2008; Jelin, 2002).

Neutral and impartial nature of archivists, whose first duty would be “to take all possible precautions to safeguard their archives and for their custody”, without having to deal with “questions of policy” (Jenkinson, 1922, p. 15), has been reinterpreted in the context of human rights. Verne Harris reminds us that, when investigating the responsibilities for the large-scale destruction of archives, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) included the State Archives Service for the “indecisive and ineffective steps it took to halt the destruction effort” (Harris, 2000, p. 41).

By bringing the debate about neutrality and social justice into the context of archival education, Anne Gilliland has wondered whether there was “an ethical obligation for archival education and scholarship to raise professional consciousness about the politics associated with archives, even to act to redress past and ongoing injustices and inequalities” (Gilliland, 2011, p. 194). Likewise, Caswell et al. have discussed what constituted a pedagogical structure focused on social justice in archival education (Caswell et al., 2012).

Within the scope of archival practices, Stacy Wood et al. (2014) have reflected on the function of archival description and the consequences of applying the Principle of Provenance to archives in the context of human rights, and Geraci and Caswell (2016) have proposed a typology of human rights documents.

From the 1990s, Brazilian archival policies started to be implemented to facilitate the transference of documents of the former repression bodies – including the Departments of Political and Social Order, known as DOPS (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social)4 to public archives. In 2005, the archives of National Information System, known as SNI (Sistema Nacional de Informações)5 were transferred to the Brazilian National Archives Regional Coordination in Brasília.

In 2009, under the conduction of the National Archives, the Centro de Referência das Lutas Políticas no Brasil (1964–1985) – Memórias Reveladas was created to gather and make available military dictatorship archives available in public and private collections. Nowadays, the center maintains collaboration with 155 institutions in Brazil and abroad.6 In addition, the National Archives created the annual research prize “Revealed Memory”, aimed at academic research uses of documentary sources from the period of the military dictatorship.

In this sense, research on Brazilian military dictatorship has increased in recently years, encouraged by a national agenda which, until 2016, focused on human rights.7 However, within the scope of Archival Science programs, these debates are still scarce. For example, in 2014, the year of CNV’s final report presentation, among hundreds of papers, only five of them relating to truth commissions and human rights archives were presented at the National Research Meeting in Information Science, known as ENANCIB (Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação), the largest event in the area which includes the field of Archival Science.8 The lack of interest in the subjects is also noticeable in the following years of the event. In addition, pedagogical debates on human rights and archives are practically nil in the country.

Indeed, it would be interesting to analyze why the creation of Brazilian truth commissions had failed to raise a greater interest within Archival Science programs, including about the role of the profession in the defense of human rights. The experiences carried out by truth commissions and universities have the potential to bring these matters into the Archival field.

3. Brazilian truth commissions: a brief historical background

Since the 1970s groups of victims and family members had been exposing the murderers, disappearances and torture carried out by the military government. These groups filed dozens of lawsuits against Brazil, such as the famous case brought by the family of journalist Vladimir Herzog (1937–1975), who died under torture on the premises of an information center of Minister of Defense in São Paulo.

The creation of CNV and Brazilian local truth commissions dates to the approval, in 2009, of the 3rd National Human Rights Program which recognized the promotion of the right to memory and truth and established a working group to elaborate the bill to create a national truth commission (Brazilian Special Secretariat of Human Rights, 2010). In addition, in 2010, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, when judging the Case N ${}^{\circ}$ 11,552 (Gomes Lund and others versus Brazil), known as “Guerrilha do Araguaia”, condemned Brazil for arbitrary detention, torture and disappearance of 69 people during combat operations between the army and the guerrillas in an Amazon region where, nowadays, is the border of the states of Goiás, Pará and Maranhão. In addition, the Court recommended the creation of a truth commission as an instrument to clarify the events, establish responsibilities, and build historical memory (Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2010).

CNV was installed on May 16, 2012, and ended on December 10, 2014, with the presentation of a final report consisted of 4,300 pages over three volumes. CNV employed approximately 217 employees, including researchers, advisers, public servants, and technical and administrative assistants, working centrally in Brasília, as well as at offices in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.9

Driven by the law which established CNV, local truth commissions were created at various administrative levels (state and cities), universities, and professional associations, such as unions and the Brazilian Bar Association. CNV’s aim to establish truth commissions across the country laid on the possibility to carry out joint activities to support the preparation of its final report. However, some scholars argued that the proliferation of local truth commissions across the country was “a reaction to the federal government’s delay in making the national commission working” (Weichert, 2016, pp. 11–12, in translation).

In 2012, CNV visited 13 ministries and other federal agencies and requested that they searched their archives for documents relating to the military dictatorship and sent them to the National Archives (Comissão Nacional da Verdade, 2014). As Müller and Fagundes have observed, “this initiative, as well as the promotion carried out by CNV, motivated the creation of several truth commissions in universities” (Müller and Fagundes, 2014, p. 45, in translation),

CNV also invited governors to create truth commissions in collaboration with the legislative branch. In a cascade effect, some states encouraged the establishment of municipal truth commissions. For example, Rio de Janeiro State Truth Commission promoted the creation of local commissions in nine cities to have their contributions in its final report.

The proliferation phenomenon of local truth commissions surpassed CNV’s own initiative. As Hollanda (2018, p. 3, in translation) has noted, the Commission “was not even able to identify the exact number of local commissions dedicated to the search for the truth, approximating it to a total of around 100”.

Based on CNV’s methodologies with adaptations to their own realities, local truth commissions produced new interpretations and narratives about the military dictatorship, evidencing, for example, the violence of the economic actions of the regime in articulation with private companies. As a result, local truth commissions produced different notions of human rights violations, adjusting them to the various historical experiences and sufferings (Hollanda, 2018).

As discussed in the introduction, 88 local truth commissions created in Brazil between 2012 and 2018 were identified. Although the mapping is not an exhaustive task given the size of the data available on the internet, the survey partly demonstrates the initiatives created across the entire Brazilian territory.

After identifying the local truth commissions, it was possible to locate 27 final reports on the internet. As a result, it is possible to affirm that approximately 2/3 of local truth commissions did not deliver a final report (and possibly did not complete their mission). Among the reports, 11 of them described partnerships with universities and research funding agencies. The following section presents these experiences.

4. Partnerships between Brazilian local truth commissions and universities

The eleven Brazilian local truth commission that established partnerships with universities are shown in Table 1, among with their location (Federal State) and the description of the developed projects.

Table 1
Partnerships of local truth commissions with universities and research funding agencies

N ${}^{\circ}$	Truth commission	Federal state	Partnerships
1	State Truth Commission of Amapá	Amapá	Undergraduate students in History from Federal University of Amapá (UNIFAP). Project: “Memory goes to school”.
2	State Truth Commission of Bahia	Bahia	Financial support from Luiz Eduardo Magalhães Foundation (FLEM).
3	Truth Commission of University of Brasília (UnB)	Federal District	3 scholarship students e 45 volunteers.
4	Truth Commission of Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES)	Espírito Santo	Undergraduate students in Archives and Records Management, and History from UFES.
5	State Truth Commission of Minas Gerais	Minas Gerais	Undergraduate and postgraduate students from Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Minas Gerais Research Support Foundation (FAPEMIG) and Cristiano Otoni Foundation.
6	Municipal Truth Commission of Juiz de Fora	Minas Gerais	Law and History courses from Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), with the support of the Municipal Archives of Juiz de Fora.
7	State Truth Commission of Paraíba	Paraíba	Various undergraduate and postgraduate courses from Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB). Cooperation agreement with State University of Paraíba (UEPB).
8	Truth Commission of Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN)	Rio Grande do Norte	Undergraduate students in History from UFRN.
9	State Truth Commission of Rio de Janeiro	Rio de Janeiro	Research projects carried out by six universities and external researchers. Rio de Janeiro Research Support Foundation (FAPERJ).
10	Municipal Truth Commission of Volta Redonda	Rio de Janeiro	Federal Fluminense University (UFF). Rio de Janeiro Research Support Foundation (FAPERJ).
11	Truth Commission of University of São Paulo (USP)	São Paulo	São Paulo Research Support Foundation (FAPESP).

In 2012, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), through consultant Eduardo González, analyzed CNV’s legal mandate and observed that the Commission had a potential to establish partnerships with the Ministry of Education, universities, and schools, and to develop “educational tools to allow Brazilian youth to understand historical facts” (González, 2012, p. 14, in translation). However, after three years of operation, CNV did not develop a single educational project. In another hand, the same did not apply to local truth commissions.

Given the importance of the work resulting from the partnership with university students, the Truth Commission of the Federal University of Espírito Santo, known as UFES (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo), highlighted:

it is important to note that the preparation of this Final Report was possible, in the first phase of the work – gathering, organizing, and scanning – due to the collaboration of several students, mainly from UFES Archival Science program, who took turns in these activities. The Final Report was also prepared based on research and testimonies. It was only possible due to several contributions, mainly from Postgraduate students from the History Department who adapted their research themes to accommodate the Commission’s investigations (Comissão da Verdade da UFES, 2016, pp. 20–21, in translation).

Likewise, Municipal Truth Commission of Juiz de Fora, in the State of Minas Gerais, underlined the support of Federal University of Juiz de Fora, known as UFJF (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora):

Given the great historical, political, and social importance of this work, the Federal University of Juiz de Fora became an ally of the Municipal Truth Commission from the first moment through the involvement of UFJF researchers, teachers, and students, in collaborating in the development of the Commission’s activities (Comissão da Verdade de Juiz de Fora, 2016, in translation).

The importance of partnerships between universities and local truth commissions stood out because they were established to facilitate the Commissions’ works. For example, Truth Commission of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, known as UFRN (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte) reported that “in the course of the work, the Commission felt the need to recruit students to carry out documentary and bibliographic research” (Comissão da Verdade da UFRN, 2015, p. 40, in translation).

In the same way, State Truth Commission of Bahia, after eight months of operation and difficulties, managed to establish an agreement with the research agency Luiz Eduardo Magalhães Foundation, known as FLEM (Fundação Luiz Eduardo Magalhães) to enable the hiring of a team of seven people to complete archival activities (Comissão Estadual da Verdade da Bahia, 2016).

It was also possible to identify that Truth Commission of the University of São Paulo, known as USP (Universidade de São Paulo) requested financial support from São Paulo Research Support Foundation, known as FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) only in 2015, two years after the installation of the Commission and the perception of “the extensive dimension of research to be carried out in the Archives of DOPS” (Comissão da Verdade da USP, 2018, p. 7, in translation). The resources by FAPESP made the hire of six researchers possible.

State Truth Commission of Paraíba established a partnership with Federal University of Paraíba, known as UFPB (Universidade Federal da Paraíba) from the moment it was created: “the truth commission was composed by university and high school teachers, university students and professionals, all from voluntary and collaborative way” (Comissão Estadual da Verdade da Paraíba, 2017, p. 26, in translation).

In the case of the State Truth Commission of Amapá, in the North of Brazil, the partnership with the Federal University of Amapá, known as UNIFAP (Universidade Federal do Amapá), enabled the recruitment of 14 undergraduate students from the History Department to carry out transcription from testimonies, cataloging, and archival research (Comissão Estadual da Verdade do Amapá, 2017).

The Municipal Truth Commission of Juiz de Fora, in partnership with the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) carried out research in the DOPS/MG collection, transcribed testimonies and digitized 250 books from the State Military Audit. The agreement also made it possible to carry out the transdisciplinary extension project called “Possible memories: the testimonies of the Municipal Truth Commission”, bringing together professors from four academic units and 30 students. In the project, students from Arts and Design courses worked in the production of logos and products for social networks whilst students from Journalism and History courses transcribed the testimonies (Comissão Estadual da Verdade do Amapá, 2017).

Analyzing the experiences between Brazilian local truth commissions and universities, it was possible to identify that the partnerships mainly involved archival activities and were carried out by students from Archival Science and History programs. These activities consisted of cleaning, cataloging, researching, and scanning. As a result, we believe that these partnerships had the potential to contribute to the training of archivists and historians in the context of the Brazilian military dictatorship and human rights.

However, in relation to educational activities developed outside academic circles, we identified only one experience: the partnership between the State Truth Commission of Amapá, the Amapá State Department of Education and UNIFAP which resulted in the project entitled “Memory goes to school”.

According to Amapá’s Commission, the project which was developed with public and private schools aimed to:

take to the State’s schools and academic spaces, through lectures, exhibition of videos/testimonies, and artistic and cultural manifestations, the theme of the military dictatorship and human rights, so this period could be better known and discussed in the classrooms (Comissão Estadual da Verdade do Amapá, 2017, p. 68, in translation).

Additionally, the Commission reported that the reason for establishing the “Memory goes to school” project was the perception of the “enormous ignorance and lack of interest by students about the authoritarian past” (Comissão Estadual da Verdade do Amapá, 2017, p. 68, in translation). Amapá’s Commission also stated:

In recent years, teachers, especially those in the areas of humanities in Elementary and High Schools, have been faced every day with the growing social demand and the increasing need to debate topics considered “sensitive” and difficult to approach, such as the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship, characterized by authoritarianism and state violence (Comissão Estadual da Verdade do Amapá, 2017, p. 68, in translation).

The project, which was developed between May and October 2014, managed to carry out 46 activities consisting of lectures, exhibitions, and teaching exercises over 31 institutions and 2,342 students.

From this perspective, it is interesting to note that the possibilities of “educational engagement” by truth commissions, as mentioned by Paulson and Bellino (2017) and González (2012), was conducted in Brazil, not by CNV but by a local truth commission from one of the poorest areas in the country.

Furthermore, from the scarcity of the debate produced at the national level, especially by CNV, Samantha Quadrat (2015) has noted that teaching about the military dictatorship in Brazil has been problematic and different from the compulsory teaching of History of Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous people at national curriculum. The author has also identified several Brazilian cities that made the teaching about the Holocaust mandatory.

Also, unlike Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, Brazil did not promote debates on the importance of teaching about the legacy of the military dictatorship and the impact that it has on the country nowadays. The situation leads us to reflect on “the ways that democratic societies choose to remember their authoritarian periods” (Quadrat, 2015, p. 279, in translation).

Priscilla Hayner has noted that one special capacity of truth commissions is their “intention of affecting the social understanding and acceptance of the country’s past, not just to resolve specific facts” (Hayner, 2011, p. 11).

The partnerships between Brazilian local truth commissions and universities promoted debates about the military dictatorship in academic circles, especially within training archivists and historians, and at some private and public schools, and contributed to bring students closer to the theme of human rights. These experiences are especially important if we have in mind what has noted Eric Ketelaar: “archiving is not about history looking backward, but about storing and securing for the future” (Ketelaar, 2002, p. 233). In this sense, these experiences could be replicated within Archival Science programs in Brazil to contribute to the role of future archivists in the defense of human rights and to the understanding of the importance of democracy.

5. Conclusions

Truth commissions are important mechanisms for investigating human rights violations. In the past few decades, dozens of truth commissions have been created on every continent.

Brazil was the last Latin American country to implement a truth commission to investigate human rights violations during the military dictatorship. CNV encouraged the creation of local truth commissions throughout the national territory to facilitate its activities. As a result, almost a hundred local truth commissions were established in states, cities, universities, and civil society associations. An interesting phenomenon among local truth commissions was the partnership established between them and universities, often by the support of research funding agencies.

As part of a doctoral research which identified eighty-eight local truth commissions created in Brazil between 2012 and 2018, the paper selected the eleven final reports of truth commissions which described partnerships with university, including Archival Science and History programs. To facilitate their work and produce final reports, local truth commissions relied on university students to carry out archival activities such as cleaning, cataloging, researching, and scanning. These experiences connected future archivists and historians to the theme of Brazilian military dictatorship and human rights.

However, from a “social engagement” perspective (Paulson & Bellino, 2015), it was possible to establish that State Truth Commission of Amapá was the only commission to take the debate about military dictatorship outside academic walls. On its final report, the commission concluded:

A fact to regret is that this knowledge has been restricted to academic circles, without achieving sufficient impact on the broader society, and without achieving the construction of a culture of “non-repetition” or “never again” (Comissão Estadual da Verdade do Amapá, 2017, p. 11, in translation).

The partnerships between local truth commissions and Archival Science and History programs connected university students to the debate of military dictatorship and human rights violations although these discussions have been minimal between Archival community in Brazil. For this reason, we argued that those experiences could be developed and reproduced within Brazilian Archival Science programs.

Footnotes

With the creation of the Special Commission on Political Murdered and Missing Persons, known as CEMDP (Comissão Especial sobre Mortos e Desaparecidos Políticos) Brazil recognized its responsibility in the murder of people accused of participating in political activities between 1961 to 1988. Since its creation, the Commission has investigated and judged the cases related to 339 murdered and missing persons. After a new internal regulation, approved in 2020, during the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, there were complaints that the Commission’s attributions had been drastically reduced.

The Amnesty Commission grants economic reparation through recognition of the condition of political amnesty. Since its creation, 67 thousand applications have been received, among which 39 thousand applications were granted, 24 thousand were rejected and 11 thousand are still pending. Retrieved from https://www.gov.br/mdh/pt-br/navegue-por-temas/comissao-de-anistia-1/transparencia.

In Brazil, archival education takes place through undergraduate programs in Archival Science available at 16 public universities. Further archival education in master’s and Doctoral Degrees are inserted in Information Science programs.

DOPS were created in 1924 and were subsequently established in several states of Brazil.

Effective between 1964 and 1990, SNI coordinated the activities of national security. Currently, these functions are the responsibility of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, known as Abin (Agência Brasileira de Inteligência).

Information retrieved from http://www.memoriasreveladas.gov.br/index.php/historico.

It is noticeable that this agenda has been dismantled in recent years, especially after Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016 and the advent of Bolsonaro’s government which has implemented a series of funding cuts on public human rights bodies.

Information retrieved from http://enancib2014.eci.ufmg.br/documentos/anais.

The first author of the paper worked as an archivist at CNV in Brasília.

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