Paper short abstract:

Legal accountability and punishment in the aftermaths of mass-violence are seen as cornerstones of transitional justice efforts. My paper explores how members of H.I.J.O.S. contribute to the legal processes and to a historical narrative indebted to a moral and socio-legal universe of responsibility.

Paper long abstract:

This paper attempts a critical examination of the ways in which the post-genocidal generation in Argentina conceptualizes the meaning of justice within the frame of juridical and extra-juridical justice efforts, and the way the emerging moral narrative of "genocide" reflects back on the un/conscious construction of collective identities.

Specifically, the paper portrays the activities of the organization H.I.J.O.S. (children for identity and justice, against oblivion and silence) that came into being in 1995. Built on their shared perception of justice H.I.J.O.S.' members found their own belonging in a political activism. In a years time they developed the practice of Escrache in which they make visible the perpetrators of the military regime of the 1970s. Since the opening of the trials for crimes against humanity in 2003, they give testimony and work towards the acknowledgement of the genocidal practices of the past. Various examples of judgements that give reference to the genocidal nature of the crimes on trial now reflect the changing character of the historical narrative. As such, the local legal justice efforts in Argentina transform the responsibility of the court from a merely legal institution into a socio-political platform to establish historical "truth".

Built on my fieldwork in Argentina, I therefore suggest analysing the current justice efforts as a discursive certainty production in which the interconnectedness of truth, morality, and punishment is established as a collective responsibility to acknowledge a historical narrative of genocide that meets the ethical and moral life-worlds of the victimized citizens.