Social Trauma, National Mourning, and Collective Guilt in Post-Authoritarian Argentina

How has Argentine society coped with the tens of thousands of civilians who disappeared and were assassinated during the 1976–83 dictatorship? Grief-stricken relatives, survivors of disappearance, and indicted perpetrators have all been involved in processes of social trauma and national mourning as members of a bereaved society. The prosecution of more than 2000 perpetrators in the last decade might indicate that Argentine society has come to terms with the past, but their imprisonment for crimes against humanity has not convinced the human rights organizations that justice is being served, because they have come to regard the disappearances as genocide. They have been holding increasingly more people accountable, and consider Argentine society as a whole responsible for the repressive violence.