âCompañero. A Word for which there is no adequate English equivalent, because soul mate, buddy, friend, comrade, even companion, do not contain, like an echo, the Spanish word for bread â panâ and it is that pan which speaks most profoundly in compañero of two people who break bread, of that other who is a brother even if you have never met him, of that trust.â (Dorfman 1998)
1 Introduction
Keywords associated with political and ideological traditions do not exist in a social vacuum, and their meaning is not necessarily the one that appears in dictionaries (Williams 2015 [1976]). Words, meaning, and sociohistorical context are inseparably interrelated as well as entangled in the historical trajectories of social groups (Tarrow 2013). This is the starting point of this chapter, and it implies that the keywords of activism cannot be taken in their linguistic-semantic dimension only but need to be considered in their contact with social life. Accordingly, we are interested here not only in words per se but in how words become ideological signs (VoloÅ¡inov 1973 [1929]) that can potentially become generic or stable forms of speech (Bakhtin 1986 [1953]) within specific socio-ideological frameworks. In this process, keywords condense groupsâ ideological and historical trajectories and refract broader contexts of relationships, political beliefs, and histories of struggle. To put it differently, contentious keywords speak to the collective memory of social groups and their shared frameworks of social thought (Halbwachs 1992 [1925]). However, as social thought is not fixed but evolving, keywords that are meaningful in a particular context can become meaningless, when they lose the meaning they once had for specific groups or traditions. A site of the imbrication between remembering and forgetting within activism, contentious keywords may lose their connection with particular traditions, and much of their meaning in the process (Erll 2011a).
As we will see, the Spanish term compañero works in a similar way to the English term comrade. Comradeâs exact translation in Spanish is âcamarada,â sharing the same etymology. However, âcompañeroâ bears a different emphasis in the Chilean left-wing context. The word âcompañeroâ comes from âcompaña,â which derives from âpanisâ or âpan,â i.e., the word for bread, and refers to âeating from the same breadâ (Corominas 1987, 162). Both âcompañeroâ and âcamaradaâ emphasise a togetherness that is accompanied by intimacy, creating a division that can be understood with the concept of âconvocativityâ: âa moment of scattered direct address, a vocative through which addressees interpellate themselves into Us or Themâ (Hill 2018, 62; see also Hill in this volume). While comrade or camarada emphasise sharing a space, âcompañeroâ emphasises a shared action, a goal and a common fate (Real Academia Española n.d.). Aside from these linguistic differences, the Chilean left mostly uses compañero/a rather than camarada.
In line with these etymological studies, our argument in this chapter is that compañero/a speaks of a relationship between people and, more importantly,
2 Words, Ideology and Speech Genres
We address the relationship between language and ideology from the viewpoint of dialogism, as developed by Vološinov (1973 [1929]) and Bakhtin (1981 [1935]; 1986 [1953])2. This approach provides a rich framework from which to analyse how signs in general, and words in particular, are interrelated with culture and social life. Furthermore, these theories provide anchoring points to think about the relationship between language and collective memory, as the meaning of words cannot be separated from the social frameworks that constitute the cultural and ideological fabric of groups in society (Halbwachs 1992 [1925]).
In Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, VoloÅ¡inov (1973) situates the problem of language within the general area of ideology and signs. He explains that the main characteristic of ideological products is that they have meaning as they stand for something else, âlying outside of [themselves]â (VoloÅ¡inov 1973, 9). As signs, ideological products are directed, and direct us, towards a sociohistorical reality. More specifically, signs have meaning because they have their genesis in the interaction between people who are socially organised or are part of a group or class. Hence, signs are ideological in the sense that their meaning is shaped by the history and interactions between members of social groups with particular interests, concerns, and ways of living. Signs, and especially words, then, materialise the communication within and between social groups and cannot be separated from this context. VoloÅ¡inov (1973, 13â14) concludes that âthe word is the ideological phenomenon par excellence. The entire reality of the word is wholly absorbed in its function of being a sign.â At the same time, VoloÅ¡inov argues that a word can have multiple meanings in different contexts, as âthe totality of users of the same set of signsâ is broader than a specific class or group; thus, âdifferently oriented accents intersect in every ideological sign. Sign[s] become an arena of the class struggleâ (1973, 23). Words are multi-accented, they accumulate the memory of having been used by diverse voices with different, and sometimes clashing worldviews. One implication of this argument is that the meaning of words is continually subject to debate. Consequently, no language is uniform or coherent, rather, it is continuously reshaped by social lifeâs rhythms, flows, and contradictions (SuÄeska 2018). This quality of language makes words âalive,â VoloÅ¡inov (1973) explains, in the sense of being open to dynamics of stability and transformation.
VoloÅ¡inovâs argument is complemented by Bakhtinâs theorisation of âspeech genres.â This theory is helpful for understanding how cultural memory comes into play in the utterance of compañero in different contexts, and we will now turn to it in some detail. Like VoloÅ¡inov, Bakhtin (1981) argues that utterances are never spoken in solitude but engage in dialogical relations with other utterances. In this tension with the words of others, utterances take shape and acquire a particular style. In what follows, we limit our discussion of Bakhtin to his account of how utterances become stable over time. If utterances are not autonomous but are entangled in socio-ideological processes, then how is it that particular words or phrases, like comrade or compañero/a, acquire a stable meaning for a group?
Bakhtin (1986) addresses this issue in âThe Problem of Speech Genres,â where he explains that the content, style and structure of utterances is determined by the context in which the communication takes place. Even though each utterance is individual, âeach sphere in which language is used develops
Our speech, that is, all our utterances [â¦] , is filled with othersâ words, varying degrees of otherness or varying degrees of âour-own-nessâ [â¦] These words of others carry with them their own expression, their own evaluative tone, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate (Bakhtin 1986, 89).
Speakers do not have free reign in how they use words but assimilate them from othersâ speech, which they progressively rework and âmake their own.â Speakersâ words and expressions echo the voices of others, but not in a mechanistic way; they are renewed in the process of assimilation, changing their meaning. This flexibility allows for creative reworking and re-accentuation, which opens the word to novelty while maintaining its relative stability and, hence, its link to memory.
Turning to our case, we argue that compañero/a has acquired a stable meaning among Chilean left-wingers; that is, it shapes the active responses of those who are addressed with this term because of an ideological resonance that can be traced to forms of social communication among the working class and
3 Historical Context: Allende, the Dictatorship, and the Post-Dictatorship
On 4 September 1970, a politically unprecedented event took place when the socialist candidate of the left-wing coalition Unidad Popular (Popular Unity), Salvador Allende became president of Chile. This was the first socialist government that had come to power through a democratic election rather than a revolution. His election marked the beginning of the â1,000 daysâ of Allendeâs government (Gaudichaud 2020), which aimed to build a socialist country without an armed revolution (Austin Henry et al. 2020). The three years of Allendeâs government were characterised by economic, social and cultural transformations, including the nationalisation of industries, the granting of free access to health and education, and the improvement of rural working conditions (Austin Henry et al. 2020). However, Allendeâs government found itself involved in multiple geopolitical and ideological disputes (Corvalán Márquez 2020). External influence from the USA, as well as internal instability, burdened the conditions of governability in Chile, with high political polarisation among the population and economic hardships (Corvalán Márquez 2020; Kornbluh 2013).
The civil-military dictatorship was characterised by structural transformations paving the way for neoliberalism and by the systematic violation of human rights. On the one hand, neoliberal policies diminished the Stateâs role as a guarantor of social rights, with the education, pension, and health systems becoming privatised. Moreover, they led to a cultural transformation of values, emphasising individualism and consumption, which transformed Chilean social relations (Araujo 2019). On the other hand, the extensive violation of human rights systematically targeted left-wing parties, their leaders, and political dissidents in general.3 Official numbers recognise the execution of more than 3,200 people (National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation 1991) and the imprisonment and torture of more than 27,000 (Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture 2005). Additionally, many lost their jobs due to their political orientation, and there was a general climate of fear and threat (Lira and Castillo 1991). Given all these factors, thousands of Chileans forcibly migrated overseas and were exiled with their families, with estimations ranging from 400,000 to up to 1,000,000 people displaced (Cornejo 2008; Shayne 2009; Wright and Montupil 1995)
The dictatorship officially ended in 1990, inaugurating a period of transition to democracy which, however, left the dictatorshipâs structural changes in place. Post-dictatorship governments, aiming to ensure governability through political pragmatism, made concessions to the military by limiting the processes of justice and democracy â hence the idea of a âChilean way of political reconciliationâ (Loveman and Lira 2007). In terms of political culture, the memory of the dictatorship has been characterised by active disputes marked by political and class antagonisms (Stern and Winn 2013; Waldman Mitnick 2009), as well as silences that are transmitted across new generations (Stern 2009). These silences have become especially visible in âhijos literature,â i.e., the literature of the generation raised during or after the dictatorship (Fandiño 2016). Under the influence of neoliberalism (Araujo 2019), the discourse of
The meaning of compañero, as a stabilised social relationship of being on the same side of a political struggle, has been contested and redefined as new actors emerged and disputed the public arena. We begin our analysis with Allendeâs speeches to show how he used compañero to differentiate diverse political actors. We also analyse how Allende positioned himself as the compañero presidente, a phrase that encapsulates the spirit of the Unidad Popular as a political project that was connected to the people.
4 Allende, el Compañero Presidente
Compañeros workers of the land who have come from all over Latin America and from socialist countries; compañeros leaders of the different Chilean peasant organisations; mister (señor) Cardinal Raúl Silva HenrÃquez, head of the Chilean Church and good friend of the peasants; compañeros Ministers of Agriculture and Labour; compañeros agricultural leaders, representatives of the CUT,5 parliamentarians of the people and compañeros leaders of the popular parties.
[Compañeros trabajadores de la tierra que han venido desde toda Latinoamérica y desde paÃses socialistas; compañeros dirigentes de las distintas organizaciones campesinas chilenas; señor cardenal Raúl Silva HenrÃquez, jefe de la Iglesia chilena y buen amigo de los campesinos; compañeros ministros de Agricultura y del Trabajo; compañeros dirigentes del agro, representantes de la CUT, parlamentarios del pueblo y compañeros dirigentes de los partidos populares.] (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile [BCN] 2020, 89)
The commitment that I make to my conscience and to the people â a fundamental actor in this victory â is to be authentically loyal in the great common and collective task. I have said it: my only desire is to be the compañero presidente for you.
[El compromiso que yo contraigo ante mi conciencia y ante el pueblo â actor fundamental de esta victoria â es ser auténticamente leal en la gran tarea común y colectiva. Lo he dicho: mi único anhelo es ser para ustedes el compañero presidente.]
(BCN 2020, 29, italics added)
In this context, the expression âcompañero presidenteâ positions Allende not only as the president but as a compañero in the larger collective task of building a socialist country. It acquires a particular weight, as it signals both a political commitment to the Chilean people and a collaboration among equals in the struggle against capitalism. Allende concluded his speech with the remark: âTo your loyalty, I will answer with the loyalty of a ruler of the people; with the loyalty of the compañero presidenteâ [A la lealtad de ustedes, responderé con la lealtad de un gobernante del pueblo; con la lealtad del compañero presidente] (BCN 2020, 34). Here, his positioning is even more explicit, as a ruler of the people who is on their side, working towards a shared ideological horizon (see also Grimmer in this volume about âel puebloâ and the Unidad Popular).
I call you with passion, I call you with affection, I call you like an older brother to understand our responsibility; I speak to you as the compañero presidente to defend the future of Chile, which is in your hands, workers of my homeland.
[Yo los llamo con pasión, los llamo con cariño, los llamo como un hermano mayor a entender nuestra responsabilidad; les hablo como el compañero presidente para defender el futuro de Chile, que está en manos de ustedes, trabajadores de mi patria.] (BCN 2020, 122â123)
In this speech, the articulation of Allendeâs position as the compañero presidente comes after addressing and reprimanding the workers, reminding them of their responsibility for Chileâs future. Using the keyword compañero, he sets expectations and determines the position of the workers, stressing that their responsibility to achieve socialism is as crucial as his own. Even though he is speaking from a position of authority, he also positions himself as an older brother who is affectionate towards his compañeros.
Allende used âcompañeroâ in most of his speeches, even when he addressed the Chilean people in his final hours during the coup dâétat, which indicates the significance of that word in the context of his government. However, not everyone is a compañero: compañeros are the ones who are equals, and directly responsible for working towards the achievement of socialism â the members
5 What Compañero?
The teen reads the card, nervously ponders a second, and then says â âcompañero? Compañero de curso?â (classmate) The other teens chime in â schoolmate? Bench mate? They are all a bit confused about what the card is asking from them. They are not sure why it is even asking them about the word, as it does not make sense to them (authorâs fieldnotes).
The teenagers quickly moved on to other phrases in the game, which prompted intense discussions about families, schoolwork, and other issues in which they were involved. It was evident that the word compañero did not prompt any
We might interpret this response with reference to the types of forgetting described by Paul Connerton (2008). As explained above, the post-dictatorial years were defined by the âChilean way of political reconciliationâ (Loveman and Lira 2007), which combined remembering and forgetting. While some victims were recognised in the reports of the Stateâs commissions in 1990 and 2003, there was also an insistence on behalf of the Chilean State on reconciliation, which resonates with Connertonâs (2008) analysis of prescriptive forgetting. As he explains, prescriptive forgetting is a strategy fostered by states, especially after civil conflicts, when remembering might compromise governability and the possibility of achieving some degree of social peace. In other words, groups and individuals are urged to forget in order to maintain social cohesion. In the Chilean context, the political meaning of compañero became problematic, as its meaning involves a particular form of socialisation, i.e., a way of being with others as fellow comrades in the struggle for an alternative sociopolitical project. An unmistakably political word, it projects a division between âusâ and âthem,â of political adversaries in the best scenario and of enemies in the worst (Mouffe 2013). We might interpret the teenagersâ lack of reaction as an effect of prescriptive forgetting fostered by the reconciliation discourse. Furthermore, the post-dictatorial years have been defined by the reaffirmation of neoliberalism and consumption (Araujo 2019). This form of capitalism is characterised by an accelerated experience of time, which pushes people to live in the present. The present breaks away from the pastâs continuous influx, as âthe impatient tempo is irresistibly drawn to temporal boundaries, to beginnings and endings, comings and goingsâ (Connerton 2009, 61). This temporality of immediacy compounds prescriptive forgetting, resulting in a detachment between the present and the past, or between the younger generations and the history of struggle condensed in compañero. In disconnecting from left-wing sociopolitical frameworks, the political sense
This example shows that in post-dictatorial neoliberal Chile, the conditions for the continuity of social frameworks (Halbwachs 1992) are not met. The demands to forget, as well as the temporalities of immediacy, weaken the connections between the present and contentious histories of past activism. However, in the face of attempts at prescriptive forgetting, utterances may still activate ideological responses when they resonate with the words of others, or with the collective memory of specific groups.
6 Learning to Say Compañero in Exile
Compañero can become a site not just of memory, but of resurrection, as new generations familiarise themselves, sometimes in embodied ways, with the social relationships the word historically indicated. Our third vignette comes from the first authorâs fieldwork during his doctoral research on the memory of the dictatorship with Chilean exiles in Australia. For context, more than 20,000 Chileans migrated to Australia during the years of the dictatorship (Kuhnel et al. 2019; Mártin Montenegro 2004), and many stayed after the restoration of democracy. The context of exile produced an estrangement from everyday Chilean language and political culture, making familiarity with Chilean social and political left-wing frameworks not a given within this community. In 2020, the first author conducted individual interviews with participants from the first and second generations of exile, including dyads of parents and their children. One dyad involved a father who belonged to the Communist Party of Chile and his daughter, who was born in the late 1970s and grew up in Australia. At the moment of the interview, she was not involved in any political party. This vignette only focuses on the interview with the daughter, as it illustrates the role of the word compañero in her socialisation.
Then I started to realise and ask or listen, and I listened to my dad. When he referred to another person, he said compañero, compañera, and I wondered why he referred to other people as mate (compadre) or friend (amigo), but this one is compañero.
[Ahà empecé a darme cuenta y hacer preguntas y o escuchar, y escuchaba a mi papá. Cuando él le decÃa a otra persona le hablaba compañero, compañera y yo âpor qué algunas les dice compadre o amigo nomás, pero este es compañeroâ.] (Interview, 20 August 2020)
With friends that were the children of the compañeros. We would joke sometimes, and one time, to get the adultsâ attention, a friend and I started (imitating the tone of the adults), âBut let me talk, compañera, let me talk!â (laughter) [â¦] âBut compañero, no, let me, I was talking, compañero!â (laughter) Because thatâs how meetings were, âBut compañero, with all due respectâ (laughter).
[Con puras amigas y amigos nomás de los hijos de los compañeros. Nosotros echábamos tallas, a veces, una vez para que nos escucharan los grandes, yo con mi amiga empezamos, (entonando la voz de los adultos) âpero déjame hablar, compañera, déjame hablarâ (rÃen) [â¦] âPero compañero, no, déjame, yo estaba hablando, pero compañeroâ (rÃe). Porque asà eran las reuniones, âPero compañero, con todo respetoâ (risas).] (Interview, 20 August 2020)
This last quote illustrates how the word compañero could be understood once the daughter became familiar with the frameworks of the Chilean left-wing culture, through listening to adults at political meetings. Compañeroâs meaning is shaped by the recollections of these moments, as well as of her fatherâs and his compañerosâ voices. As such, she uses the word to refer to herself and
7 Reaccentuations: Compañeras and Compañerxs
Among activist communities in Chile, the political meaning of compañero has been maintained. However, speakers are also shifting the wordâs conventional mode of address and focusing attention on new communities by changing its inflexion and orthography, adding new accents within the changing political landscape of Chilean society. Allendeâs use of the term was highly masculine.7 A simple search in one compilation of his speeches reveals he used the term compañero(s) 122 times. In contrast, he only used compañera(s) 13 times, and the gender-neutral camarada(s) 11 times (BCN, 2020). As such, we find it revealing that current feminist organisations explicitly address their readers as compañeras, which could be interpreted as a contestation of the masculine, traditional address of compañeros among left-wingers. For example, one cover of the feminist publication La Primera reads: âNot one step back. Unanswered emergencies and an increasing crisis. This 8M, to the streets compañeras!â [Ni un paso atrás. Urgencias sin respuesta y una crisis que aumenta. ¡Este 8M, a las calles compañeras!] (Coordinadora Feminista 8M 2023). In other volumes of La Primera, the addressees are the compañeras and the queer community [disidencias sexuales], rather than compañeros (see also Valenzuela Tapia 2017 for feminist voices critically analysing left-wing men, i.e., compañeros,
[T]he only defeat would be to deny who I am, my compañerxs and everything we built in these years. And that will never happen. I do not regret anything, the person I decided to be, nor the compañerxs I chose for life (and death).
[[L]a única derrota serÃa renegar de quien soy, de mis compañerxs y de todo lo que construimos en estos años. Y eso jamás ocurrirá. Yo no me
arrepiento de nada, de la persona que decidà ser, ni de lxs compañerxs que elegà para la vida (y la muerte).] (El Ciudadano 2010, para. 23)
This use of the word compañerx is another form of reaccentuation, denying its traditionally masculine gender and including other comrades who are struggling for a different way of living and structuring social relations. It is in this sense that Gabriela Curilem called on her compañerxs. By invoking âlife and death,â she projects the relationships with her compañerxs into the future, suggesting that they will last and survive lifeâs hardships and political persecution. This creates a layering of past, present and future that resonates with the previous utterances of compañero/a/x and its construction of an âus,â including Allendeâs discourses, representing a lifelong (and beyond) political commitment.
These different recuperations and novel accents suggest that compañero/a/x still works as a contentious
8 Conclusion: Memory and the Future of a Contentious Keyword
In Keywords (2015), Raymond Williams suggests that the attempt to understand the keywords of contemporary struggles leads to the even greater challenge of making sense of social and historical changes. However, language is not a mere reflection of these changes, as âsome important social and historical processes occur within languageâ (Williams 2015, XXXIII). Like Bakhtin, Williams argues that new interpretations and even novel ways of understanding social relationships can emerge in language. In this process, current and past meanings coexist through adaptation, extension, and transfer, making room for novelty and creativity. Our analysis in this chapter resonates with Williamsâ arguments, as we exemplified how compañero/a/x works as a contentious keyword among Chilean activists and people who are familiar with left-wing sociopolitical frameworks. As demonstrated, the meaning of compañero/a/x becomes a field of contested memory shaped by diverse relations of political belonging, spilling over the semantic field to configure identities and encompass meaning beyond dictionary definitions. Therefore, keywords like compañero/a/x condense and evoke chains of previous relations, overlaying past and present, making room for the coexistence of multiple meanings, and enabling dialogical relations that shape compañeroâs trajectory among Chilean speakers.
Our analysis in this chapter outlines part of compañeroâs historical and political trajectory. We first focused on Allendeâs speeches and his use of compañero to distinguish different actors in the political field. We analysed how he referred to himself as the âcompañero presidenteâ to position himself as a compañero alongside the people and other revolutionary comrades, whom he addressed as working as equals and sharing the responsibility of building a socialist country; in contrast, he referred to the cardinal of the Catholic church as a âfriend.â Our second vignette brought to light how, in the present day, compañero does not always resonate with its political or ideological meaning. In its more abstract sense, the word compañero/a also means âmate,â and it can be used to refer to classmates (compañeros de curso), workmates (compañeros de trabajo), teammates (compañeros de equipo), and so on. In such cases, as our second vignette described, the term has no political weight but simply refers to people with whom we share an activity. We interpret this detachment from compañeroâs political meaning as a reflection of prescriptive forgetting (Connerton 2008), reinforced during the post-dictatorial years by the Chilean way of political reconciliation (Loveman and Lira 2007) and by the fast pace of neoliberal capitalism (Connerton 2009). However, forgetting does not always mean a word is dead, as older senses can be resurrected and enter into dialogical relations with the voices of the present. Our third example brings the word compañero into the entanglements it has with specific forms of social communication of Chilean left-wing culture in exile. As the interviewee noted, she came to grasp the meaning of compañero by listening to her fatherâs interactions with other activists â which ultimately allowed her to understand its specific, historical meaning in organising the social world. This led to the creative assimilation of the word, which was later utilised to imitate the adults in playful interactions with the children of the compañeros. Finally, our last section explored how the word compañero/a/x acquires new meanings and accents in feminist and anarchist social movements, showing how it is still a living keyword that configures relationships between activists. We also analysed how these new accents contest the patriarchal tone prevalent among traditional
As Halbwachs (1992) argued, words are accompanied by groupsâ recollections, but at the same time, the memory of groups can only be articulated in language. Considering this, language connects with social frameworks only as long as people are familiar with such spheres of social communication. If there is no connection with such communities, words lose their potential to condense a groupâs history and to meaningfully participate in the present. This does not mean that words die, but that part of the memory of groups is forgotten and that keywords may change their meaning. This might happen due to political processes of forgetting (Connerton 2008; Loveman and Lira 2007) or transformations in political horizons as groups change. A keyword, then, can be suppressed, played with, and challenged; all these processes can lead to its transformation or reappropriation. Halbwachsâ (1992) considerations work well with Erllâs (2011b) understanding of semantic memory. She proposes that collective-semantic memory is connected with processes of organisation and with the preservation of knowledge by a certain group or society. The meaning of a keyword is kept and reconstructed as the common knowledge of specific groups because of its value as an organising force. The preservation and transmission of meaning help produce those social relationships constitutive of the groupâs identity, which means that the semantic field also becomes a site of contestation. This analysis suggests, then, that semantic memories have a contextual dimension, and that, following Bakhtin (1986), they should also be considered in dialogical terms. The meaning of contentious keywords cannot be crystallised beyond the social frameworks that produce a sense of identity or an âus;â hence, compañero/a/x connects with social memories, identities, and political repertoires, the ways of working and being together that shape activism.
Finally, tracing some of the historical and contextual uses of compañero/a/x allows for a more general understanding of the importance of keywords in activism. As signs, keywords enable dialogical relations with the voices of living and deceased activists. They do not necessarily have uniform, homogenous, or authoritative meanings dictated by movement leaders. Rather, as we have explained using compañero/a/x, keywords are shaped by multiple points of view, becoming a âvocabulary to use, to find our ways in, to change as we find it necessary [â¦] as we go on making our own language and historyâ (Williams 2015, XXXVâXXXVI). The examples we have analysed reflect some of those points of view and demonstrate how engaging in a dialogue with the voices that populate contentious keywords allows for the renewal of political struggles, the navigation of relationships, and the dislocation of the
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We will not translate the word compañero or compañera (compañero/a) throughout the chapter but keep it in Spanish when analysing the different material.
Some scholars, such as Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist, argue that the works signed by Valentin VoloÅ¡inov and Pavel Medvedev (whose work we are not including here) were largely written by Mikhail Bakhtin. This was first suggested in 1971 and sparked a debate in which scholars such as Tzvetan Todorov, Gary Morson, Caryl Emerson, among others, have taken part (Morris 1994). What is certain is that the three authors collaborated as part of the same intellectual circle. Although this debate will never be fully settled, we are partial to the idea that attributing their work to only one authorial voice would be contrary to the spirit of the theories they proposed: authorship is about the relation with other positions and with peopleâs voices, which is not a monological, but a dialogical and collaborative process. Finally, we believe that each text from these authors reflect on different aspects of their shared concerns about discourse, ideology, creativity, among many others. Hence, we distinguish between the authors in the works we cite, acknowledging that they were likely commenting and debating their ideas, with their authorship tracing genealogical connections that shed light to different dimensions of a shared onto-epistemological position.
Nonetheless, repression was not limited only to these groups (see Jara et al. 2018).
In the following examples, we will include the translation of the fragments in English first and the Spanish original within brackets after.
The Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile, the Workersâ Central Union of Chile.
CIDE was founded in 1965 and developed diverse materials focused on popular and participatory approaches to learning and education, with an explicitly political commitment (Neut-Aguayo 2018).
He mostly used the masculine (compañero) in his speeches, which has come under feminist critique (Hiner 2009; Tapia 2020).
This case acquired lots of media attention as 14 anarchists were accused of terrorist illicit association. However, most of the evidence, witnesses and experts were dismissed and rejected by the judge, which has led to interpreting the Caso Bombas as a strategic move to criminalise anarchist collectives (Tamayo Grez 2012). Curilem publicly appeared in court in 2012, where her case was dismissed and closed due to lack of antecedents (La Tercera 2012; for a contrasting version of this partial account of the official media, see Material Anarquista 2012).