Memory and Transitional Justice in Argentina and Uruguay Against Impunity

Existing memory studies literature has tended to focus on commemorative sites and dates while transitional justice scholarship has primarily centered on truth commissions, trials, and reparations. This book explores the interaction between memory and transitional justice and develops a theoretical framework for bringing these two fields of study together through the concept of critical junctures. Focusing on post-dictatorship Argentina and Uruguay, Francesca Lessa uses critical junctures to track and explain moments of change. She traces and analyzes across time the dynamic evolution of and shifts in transitional justice policies and the emergence and replacement of dominant memory narratives in the context of enduring struggles for justice and against impunity.

Francesca Lessa is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Latin American Centre and a Junior Research Fellow at St Anne's College, both University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests include transitional justice in the Southern Cone, particularly Argentina and Uruguay; the policies and politics of memory of state terrorism in the Southern Cone; and the question of impunity and continued human rights violations in Argentina and Uruguay. She is co-editor of The Memory of State Terrorism in the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (2011, with Vincent Druliolle); Luchas contra la impunidad: Uruguay, 1985–2011 (2011, with Gabriela Fried); and Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and International Perspectives (2012, with Leigh A. Payne).

1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Framework: Critical Junctures, Transitional Justice, and Memory Narratives
3. The Downward Spiral toward Dictatorship
4. Transitional Justice in Argentina (1983-2012): A Global Protagonist with its Ups and Downs
5. The Consolidation of Democracy vs. Trial and Punishment: Entwining Memory Narratives and Transitional Justice in Argentina
6. Transitional Justice in Uruguay (1985-2012): Latecomer or Unique?
7. Pacification or Impunity? The Ley de Caducidad and the Interweaving of Memory and Transitional Justice in Uruguay
8. Conclusion