Paper short abstract:

We examine the theoretical and methodological instruments of approach to the event and the trauma, from a research concerning a far-left movement in Portugal, during the last moments of the dictatorship and the revolutionary process that followed the military coup of April 25th, 1974.

Paper long abstract:

We intend to examine the theoretical and methodological mechanisms of approach to the event and the trauma, from a research concerning a far-left organization in Portugal, during a period that includes the last moments of the dictatorship and the revolutionary process that followed the military coup of April 25th, 1974. The revolutionary processes, with the density of time that characterizes them, leave profound traces on its participants, creating a distinction between a before and an after. The notion of event, long undervalued by anthropologists, leads to the passage of the field of memory and the possibilities of new principles of comprehensibility. In this communication we focus on two moments that emphasize the caesura of time in biographies of the members of a militant group that meets monthly to socialize. These memories are contaminated by ucronia that characterizes the trajectory of the collective group, requiring the questioning of various scales of reality, of the various "pasts" and its many layers that emerge with a localized and detached approach, where the macro processes affect the micro levels.