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Writing exile(s) from the periphery: Hijos del exilio and transnational memory of the Southern Cone democratic transitions
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Date
2023-10-04
Authors
Levey, Cara
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Publisher
De Gruyter
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Abstract
Exile and migration to, from, and between the Southern Cone countries have been commonplace throughout the history of the region. However, from the 1960s onwards forced displacement would become a ‘ubiquitous phenomenon’ (Roniger et al. 2018, 32), with Europe a natural destination for an unprecedented exodus of individuals, as well as families, fleeing dictatorships from across the region, including Argentina (1976-1983) and Uruguay (1973-1985) (Graham-Yooll 1987). As this chapter elucidates, for the hijos del exilio - those who were born and/or brought up in exile - there is no neat division between country of origin and country of exile; their lives reveal ebbs and flows, multiple journeys and ‘returns’ during the democratic transitions of the 1980s, some permanent, others fleeting. Whilst there has been notable academic interest in the first generation of exiles - those who were adults when they left South America - there is a general absence of the hijos del exilio from the dictatorship and transitional memory landscape, which obfuscates the microhistories and diverse hidden voices of transition. This chapter challenges the exclusion of second-generational exile voices from dictatorship and transitional memory landscapes, by comparing the work of two child-exile writers: De exilios, maremotos y lechuzas (1990) by Dutch Uruguayan author Carolina Trujillo and El azul de las abejas (2013) by Franco- Argentine writer Laura Alcoba. These semi-autobiographical works challenge widely held assertions and myths about exile that circulated during the dictatorship and, in particular, the transitional periods, and allow for a deeper and more nuanced approach that destabilizes the notion of transition as a top-down or national process.
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Keywords
Hijos del exilio , Exile , Migration , Second-generational exile voices
Citation
Levey, C. (2023) 'Writing exile(s) from the periphery: Hijos del exilio and transnational memory of the Southern Cone democratic transitions', in Robbe, K. (ed.) Remembering Transitions: Local Revisions and Global Crossings in Culture and Media. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 261-284. doi: 10.1515/9783110707793-011
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Copyright
© 2023, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.