The Uruguay of exile: memory and forgetfulness through the existing bibliography

Abstract

Uruguay has constructed its identity as a country of immigrants, but from the second half of the past century, a strong process of emigration has been generated, and today reaches worrisome levels, even if not considered an important phenomenon until the last years. This process of emigration, which takes place in the '70s and the '80s, produced a phenomenon of forced emigration or exile for political reasons derived from authoritarian processes and a later military dictatorship (1973-1984). The study of the attention that the subject has provoked through the existing bibliography on that period reflected as exile is a subject little treated as opposed to other consequences of such political processes. The relative relevance reflects a process of forgetfulness carried out by multiple actors which bring as consequence that exile is reserved to the individual memory, not existing neither in the social memory nor in the historical memory.