Memory as a discursive Action: Commission of the present causes and situations of violence 1958, a policy for oblivion

Abstract

The article seeks to expose the discursive configuration of violence in the country through the first commission of 1958; understanding the commissions as narrative instruments of violence in the country. Positioning a discourse from the officers, which has built memories about the past, assigning some notions of truth and political uses to these narratives.

The memory category was used as a discursive action by Isabel Piper, a category that seeks to understand the “What” and the “How” of memory. Regarding the methodological, the archive work was used, taking as sources official documents from 1954 to 1958, in addition to analyzing some newspapers with mass circulation.

The article addresses three moments, the first refers to the conceptual construction, the second to the construction of the discourse on violence during the government of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla; which established the bases for the understanding of violence and the last moment addresses the work of the 1958 commission, analyzing the plots and discourses that revolve around it to give meaning to violence, mobilizing a memory of oblivion that served as a basis to consolidate the project of the “Frente Nacional”.