Military Families, Political Violence, and Transitional Justice in Argentina

Perpetrators within? provides the first ethnographic account of the experiences of military families of the Argentine dictatorship (1976-83). At the crossover of multiple disciplines, this groundbreaking study brings advancements in the fields of military and conflict studies, Latin American history, transitional justice and ethnographic methods. The military juntas that seized power in Argentina in 1976 waged a brutal 'dirty war' against communism, leading to seven years of authoritarian rule that claimed thousands of lives. The regime suppressed political opposition through kidnapping, torture, and clandestine executions. Although efforts to bring the military to justice began in 1985, legal obstacles delayed prosecutions for over 20 years. It wasn't until 2005 that trials resumed, resulting in the conviction of hundreds of former officers for crimes committed during the dictatorship. Perpetrators within? questions these unique subjects directly. For the first time, the military of the dictatorship are approached as a community of families and comrades (which includes spouses, children and ‘brothers in arms’) better to understand the personal and collective experiences of those linked to the regime's violent past. Based on extensive research with former junior officers –many now imprisoned – their wives and adult children, the book unveils the social and family life of the military of the 1970s, it investigates the everyday unexceptional scenarios of repression, and it describes the long road to justice from the point of view of military families involved in the trials. A vital contribution to understanding the workings of kinship, military power and violence, this book offers a deeper ad original perspective on one of the darkest chapters in Latin American history. Eleonora Natale is Lecturer at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She is an experienced ethnographer and political scientist working on violence, conflict and militarisation in Latin America.