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We are all Ayotzinapa: The role of Digital Media in the Shaping of Transnational Memories on Disappearance

Descrizione del progetto

Il ruolo dei media digitali nella memoria della sparizione

In Messico, nel settembre 2014, sono scomparsi 43 studenti e i media digitali hanno svolto un ruolo cruciale nel catturare l’attenzione dei cittadini e nel generare una contromossa contro il governo messicano. Il caso del Messico funge da paradigma per ridefinire il rapporto tra media e memoria. Il progetto DigitalMemories, finanziato dal CER, si propone di l’impatto dei media digitali sulla formazione di memorie transnazionali legate alle sparizioni. Il progetto adotterà un approccio teorico che considera la «sparizione» come un crimine distinto, fornendo un quadro per l’analisi della memoria digitale. Sarà applicata una prospettiva multidisciplinare, considerando il caso del Messico nel contesto più ampio di una lunga storia di sparizioni nel mondo ispanico. Si confronterà inoltre l’uso dei social media in Messico con quello in Spagna e Argentina.

Obiettivo

The project seeks to study the role of digital media in the shaping of transnational memories on disappearance. It investigates a novel case that is in process of shaping: the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico in September 2014. The role of the new media in getting citizens’ attention and in marking a “turning point” was crucial to the upsurge of a counter-movement against the Mexican government and qualifies the event as significant for the transnational arena.
The groundbreaking aspect of the project consists in proposing a double approach:

a) a theoretical approach in which “disappearance” is considered as a particular crime that becomes a model for analyzing digital memory. Disappearance is a technology that produces a subject with a new ontological status: the disappeared are non-beings, because they are neither alive nor dead. This ontological status transgresses the clear boundaries separating life and death, past, present and future, materiality and immateriality, personal and collective spheres. “Digital memory”, i.e. a memory mediated by digital technology, is also determined by the transgression of the boundaries of given categories

b) a multidisciplinary approach situating Mexico´s case in a long transnational history of disappearance in the Hispanic World, including Argentina and Spain. This longer history seeks to compare disappearance as a mnemonic object developed in the global sphere –in social network sites as blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube– in Mexico and the social performances and artistic representations –literature, photo exhibitions, and films– developed in Spain and Argentina.
The Mexican case represents a paradigm for the redefinition of the relationship between media and memory. The main output of the project will consist in constructing a theoretical model for analyzing digital mnemonic objects in the rise of networked social movements with a transnational scope.

Meccanismo di finanziamento

ERC-STG - Starting Grant

Istituzione ospitante

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 1 403 150,00
Indirizzo
OUDE MARKT 13
3000 Leuven
Belgio

Mostra sulla mappa

Regione
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven
Tipo di attività
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Collegamenti
Costo totale
€ 1 403 150,00

Beneficiari (2)