Humanitarianism, violence and politics of memory: between local practices and global activisms

Abstract

Grounded in ethnographic research with activist organisations—families of the victims of State violence in Argentina and Brazil—this article analyses the implications of interactions established between activists from different localities and countries. The aim is to examine how the repertoires and actions of these groups of relatives of victims not only seek to oppose devices for management of life, death and social order, but also have been globalized into intense political contacts enable the construction of shared strategies of resistance and of claim for rights. The purpose is to advance discussions on the transnational dynamics of “global activisms” and their interaction with global humanitarian lexicon. The proposed reflection is still intended to contribute to broader efforts to critically understand the production of human rights violations in democratic and post-totalitarian contexts. In dialogue with the expertise and knowledge of the activists, the article problematizes how violence can be framed, managed and “legalized” in current forms of government, accommodating humanitarian devices to security devices and constituting unequal access to citizenship rights.