Why are some deaths forgotten, while others become memorable, infiltrating the social and political life of a country? How does private mourning evolve into collective action and change? These are the questions posed in Sandra Gayol and Gabriel Kessler's rich analysis of the deaths that have marked post-dictatorship Argentina. This is a welcome shift in focus from the vast literature on the emblematic disappearances of the 1976–83 dictatorship. At the same time, many of the crimes considered, perpetrated by the state or implicating the state, demonstrate that the advent of democracy does not mark the end of violence, but precipitates different trends, narratives and responses.
Ranging from kidnapping to police brutality and larger-scale tragedies, the deaths are selected according to two criteria: their violent and unprovoked nature, and the relative anonymity of the victims until their deaths. In contrast to the passing of public figures, these are deaths that might otherwise have been forgotten; lives that, according to Judith Butler, are ungrievable. The comparative approach is enriched by the geographical spread, permitting the authors to shed light on local and national dynamics.
Although it touches on concepts of memory, impunity and violence, the study is not overly theoretical. There is some disentangling of the relationship between violence, power and the state, but this is developed in connection with solid empirical research. This is a strength of the volume as the theoretical light touch permits a broad lens through which to scrutinise case studies that are as revealing as they are shocking. The interdisciplinary approach allows the authors to trace and map these deaths historiographically as well as sociologically, considering the way in which these deaths shape and are shaped by a range of political and social actors and institutions over time.
The book is split into five chapters, the first setting the scene for the analysis that follows by plotting the case studies over the period 1983–2015/6. The phases delineated between are not absolute, but they roughly correspond to four key political movements. First, Alfonsinismo in the 1980s, when systematic state repression of the dictatorship came under scrutiny alongside an upsurge in violent deaths: kidnappings for ransom (such as that of businessman Osvaldo Sivak) and killings, including a number of feminicides. Second, Menemismo in the 1990s, when deaths were framed as the result of rising insecurity, as well as in connection with endemic political corruption (for example, the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israeli Mutual Association, AMIA) and Israeli Embassy bombings). The third period, the various governments of the Alianza at the turn of the century, is characterised by killings within the context of social crisis, such as those of piqueteros (picketers) Maximiliano Kosteki and Darío Santillán in 2002. These latter deaths mark the beginning of the final phase: Kirchnerismo in the period 2003–16, when the government played a role in critiquing state violence and the ‘trigger-happy’ police violence of the 1990s, against the backdrop of renewed preoccupation with personal safety and a number of large-scale violent events such as the Once rail crash in 2012, which shone the spotlight on the state's failings. Whilst there is possibly more continuity between these phases than the authors first suggest, the mapping does point to a typology of deaths and indicates that violent deaths should be read in context.
Chapter 2 interrogates the role of the Argentine media in reporting on, analysing and shaping public opinion about certain violent deaths. Drawing on examples from the written press, as well as broadcast media, and interviews with journalists and broadcasters, the authors explore media interest in a nuanced and original way that elucidates the synergies and affinities between different national dailies, and the dynamics between local and national press, thus charting the process by which an arguably ‘local’ news story gains traction and becomes ‘national’.
Chapter 3 turns to the body, and the ways in which it is treated before, during and after death. In spite of the limited circulation of images of the bodies in the press, information about the deaths provoked a range of reactions; indeed, the authors find that it is the emotional responses that tend to precipitate change. There is, therefore, a connection between the type of violence, how a victim is treated after death and the shaping of political and social processes.
Chapter 4 shifts the focus more explicitly to direct political change in the wake of these murders, such as hastening presidential elections (Kosteki and Santillán), the end of military service (Omar Carrasco) and a decline in feudal politics in Catamarca (María Soledad Morales). Although concrete political shifts are difficult to unpack, the authors measure change based on their own analysis of elites and institutions and the perception of change by those who lived through it. Although the chapter indicates that change is possible, interviews with residents in the case of Morales make it very clear that history could be repeated.
The final chapter is perhaps the most insightful, focusing on deaths that have failed to reverberate beyond the locality in which they occurred, as a counterpoint to the previous chapters. The case studies encompass places of different sizes, demographics and geographies. In understanding why some deaths come to matter, we also need to probe the reasons why others do not provoke national collective mourning and calls for change.
Indeed, this final chapter raises an important point in its discussion of the ways in which deaths are framed, metabolised, represented and politicised by a range of state and non-state actors. At the heart of this is the question of societal forgetting and political amnesia. The ‘muertes que importan’ (‘deaths that matter’) discussed in the first four chapters are the ones we know about, but what about the others, the ones deemed not to matter? Indeed, this is the troubling aspect of the book; not only the grim subject matter, but touching on other deaths that have not, for various reasons, garnered the same attention.
