Cara Levey (Cork): Documenting Diaspora, Diasporizing Memory: Screening the Hijxs del exilio
| Dates: | 23 November 2022 |
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| Times: | 17:00 - 19:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Speaker: | Cara Levey |
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Part of the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies research seminar series.
This event will take place in Samuel Alexander Building A202. However, it can be followed online via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/95860231166
Abstract: Hundreds of us children are burdened with this gaping wound, a legacy of the dictatorship: (we are) broken, placeless, orphaned and in search of identity” (Carolina Meloni). Exile and migration to, from, and between the Southern Cone countries have been commonplace in the history of the region. However, from the 1960s onwards forced displacement became a ubiquitous phenomenon, with Europe a natural destination for an unprecedented exodus of individuals and families fleeing dictatorships. For the Hijxs del exilio, (Children of Exile) — those who were born and/or brought up in exile — there is no neat division between country of origin and country of exile. Whilst there has been significant academic interest in the first generation of exiles — those who were adults when they left South America — the words of Carolina Meloni allude to a notable absence of second-generation exiles from the post-dictatorship memory landscape. She raises the more pronounced marginalisation of those hijxs who never returned to the Southern Cone, the so-called no retornadxs non-returnees. This paper explores the simultaneous geographical and generational displacement that characterises this experience, comparing a series of recent documentaries that foreground the testimonies of now-adult children of exile, the majority of whom are no-retornadxs. Drawing on Hora Chilena (2013 - Chileans in Britain), Tus Padres Volverán (2015 - Uruguayans in Europe), Secretos de Lucha (2007 - Uruguayans in France) and Los Descendientes (2013 - Chileans in Britain), I consider the use of testimony and conversational remembering as documentary techniques to reveal the evidentiary potential and creative projection specific to this type of documentary work. I reflect on these ostensibly transnational iterations of memory to propose new ways of thinking about the impact of forced displacement on children and adolescents, a cohort that inhabits multiple places and temporalities, challenging the idea of placelessness and various myths and assumptions about the exile experience.
Cara Levey
Speaker
Cara Levey
Role: Lecturer
Organisation: University College Cork
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
A202
Samuel Alexander Building
Manchester
