The Material Culture of Chilean Exile: A Transnational Dialogue

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 1973 coup d’état, Chileans managed to find refuge in more than forty of the world’s countries. They left with the expectation that they would only need temporary asylum, but instead found themselves in a state of prolonged exile. In order to speed the day of return and as antidote to the trauma of exile, Chileans created communities in opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship. Through resistance strategies enacted in a constructed site of struggle, Chilean exile communities facilitated remembrance through commemorative practices, cultural forms, testimony, and the preservation of endangered material culture that became decisive for legal cases against impunity and as a basis for historical inquiry.