Memory, Mourning, and the Chilean Constitution
An Account of Grief in Response to the 2022 Constitutional Election
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22370/rhv2024iss26pp159-177Keywords:
grief, memory, trauma, practical identity, political emotions, ChileAbstract
The present paper investigates and provides an account of the feeling of grief evidenced in certain sectors of the Chilean population after the electoral defeat following the constitutional plebiscite of September 2022 in Chile. How can one experience grief at the rejection of a political referendum? We suggest that the experience of grief is importantly related to a loss of life possibilities and disruptions in one’s practical identity. The outpouring of grief experienced by many Chileans at this political loss can be traced to the importance of the constitutional plebiscite for their identities. The grieving process involves a renegotiation, through memory and future oriented imagination, of past, present, and future aspects of one’s practical identity.
References
Abrutyn, S. (2023). The Roots of Social Trauma: Collective, Cultural Pain and Its Consequences. Society and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1177/21568693231213088
Archer, J., & Winchester, G. (1994). Bereavement following death of a pet. British Journal of Psychology, 85(2), 259–271. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1994.tb02522.x
Attig, T. (2011). How we grieve: Relearning the world (Rev. ed). Oxford University Press.
Averill, J. R. (1968). Grief: Its nature and significance. Psychological Bulletin, 70(6, Pt.1), 721–748. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0026824
Berwart, I. M. (2022, December 9). No estamos para duelos eternos. La Neta. https://laneta.cl/no-estamos-para-duelos-eternos/. Accessed 17 June 2023.
Blehm, A. (2022). Disharmony of the Soul: A Philosophical Analysis of Psychological Trauma and Flourishing [Doctoral dissertation, University of Arkansas]. ScholarWorks@UARK. https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/4778
Brown, A. D., Kouri, N., & Hirst, W. (2012). Memory’s Malleability: Its Role in Shaping Collective Memory and Social Identity. Frontiers in Psychology, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00257
Carel, H. (2007). The return of the erased: Memory and forgetfulness in Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (2004). The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 88(4), 1071–1082. https://doi.org/10.1516/P7W4-0203-4337-9767
Cholbi, M. (2021). Grief: A Philosophical Guide. Princeton University Press.
Cholbi, M. (2023). Empathy and Psychopaths’ Inability to Grieve. Philosophy, 98(4), 413–431. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819123000232
Cole, J., & Ratcliffe, M. (2022). Illness, Injury, and the Phenomenology of Loss: A Dialogue. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 29(9–10), 150–174. https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.29.9.150
Debus, D., & Richardson, L. (2022). ‘Rather than Succour, My Memories Bring Eloquent Stabs of Pain’: On the Ambiguous Role of Memory in Grief. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 29(9–10), 36–62. https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.29.9.036
De Sousa, R. (1987). The rationality of emotion. MIT Press.
Degerman, D. (2023). Silence, depression, and bodily doubt. Toward a phenomenology of silence in psychopathology. Conference on Silence and Psychopathology. Philosophical perspectives 2023. Bristol: University of Bristol sponsored by Leverhulme Trust.
Dorfman, A. (2022, September 6). Chileans rejected the new constitution, but they still want progressive reforms. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/chile-new-constitution-reject-pinochet
Ferraro, R., Escalas, J. E., & Bettman, J. R. (2011). Our possessions, our selves: Domains of self‐worth and the possession–self link. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21(2), 169–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2010.08.007
Freud, S. (1953). Mourning and Melancholia. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14). Hogarth Press.
Goldie, P. (2012). The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, and the Mind. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230730.001.0001
Gómez-Barris, M. (2010). Witness Citizenship: The Place of Villa Grimaldi in Chilean Memory. Sociological Forum, 25(1), 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01155.x
Harris, D. (2022). Political Grief. Illness, Crisis & Loss, 30(3), 572–589. https://doi.org/10.1177/1054137321999793
Hirschberger, G. (2018). Collective Trauma and the Social Construction of Meaning. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1441. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01441
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. Free Press.
Jara Ibarra, C. (2019). (Des) movilización de la sociedad civil chilena: post-trauma, gobernabilidad y neoliberalismo (1990-2010). Ariadna Ediciones.
Kant, I. (1786/2011). Immanuel Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A German–English edition (M. Gregor & J. Timmermann, Eds.; 1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511973741
Kakoamedia [@kakoamedia]. (2022, September 6). #Un poema desde el despecho constitucional [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@kakoamedia/video/7140040124061994245
Korsgaard, C. M. (1996a). The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511554476
Korsgaard, C. M. (1996b). Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174503
Maccallum, F., & Bryant, R. A. (2010). Impaired autobiographical memory in complicated grief. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48(4), 328–334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2009.12.006
Maccallum, F., & Bryant, R. A. (2011). Imagining the future in Complicated Grief. Depression and Anxiety, 28(8), 658–665. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.20866
Matamala, F. (2021, January 6). Trauma transgeneracional: Cómo la violencia del Estado en el 18/O puede reabrir las heridas de la dictadura. CIPER Chile. https://www.ciperchile.cl/2021/01/06/trauma-transgeneracional-como-la-violencia-del-estado-en-el-18-o-puede-reabrir-las-heridas-de-la-dictadura/
McCarroll, C. J., & Yan, K. (2024). Mourning a death foretold: Memory and mental time travel in anticipatory grief. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-024-09956-z
Molina, P. (2019, November 1). Protestas en Chile: El origen de la violencia subterránea que emergió en las manifestaciones. BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-50262438
Moore, S. (2016, January 13). Don’t deride those who are mourning David Bowie – this grief is serious and rational. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/13/dont-deride-those-mourning-david-bowie-this-grief-serious-and-rational
Müller, J. M. (2022). Knowing value and acknowledging value: On the significance of emotional evaluation. Inquiry, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2022.2126150
Muñoz, E. (2022, September 14). Tristeza política como duelo necesario. Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano. https://www.academia.cl/tristeza-politica-como-duelo-necesario/
Naar, H. (2021). The fittingness of emotions. Synthese, 199(5), 13601–13619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03391-2
Neria, Y., & Litz, B. T. (2004). Bereavement by Traumatic Means: The Complex Synergy of Trauma and Grief. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 9(1), 73–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/15325020490255322
O’Connor, M. F. (2022). The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How we Learn from Love and Loss. HarperOne.
Paredes, J. (2021). La “Plaza de la Dignidad” como escenario de protesta. La dimensión cultural en la comprensión del acontecimiento de Octubre chileno. Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso, 17, 27. https://doi.org/10.22370/rhv2021iss17pp27-52
Parkes, C. M. (1975). What becomes of redundant world models? A contribution to the study of adaptation to change. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 48(2), 131–137. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1975.tb02315.x
Pillemer, D. B., Steiner, K. L., Kuwabara, K. J., Thomsen, D. K., & Svob, C. (2015). Vicarious memories. Consciousness and Cognition, 36, 233–245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2015.06.010
Piscopo, J. M., & Siavelis, P. M. (2021). Chile’s Constitutional Moment. Current History, 120(823), 43–49. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2021.120.823.43
Ratcliffe, M. (2019). Emotional Intentionality. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 85, 251–269. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1358246118000784
Ratcliffe, M. (2022). Trauma, Language, and Trust. In A. Bortolan & E. Magrì (Eds.), Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and the Social World (pp. 323–342). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698787-017
Ratcliffe, M., Richardson, L., & Millar, B. (2023). On the Appropriateness of Grief to Its Object. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 9(2), 318–334. https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2021.55
Roberts, R. C. (1992). Emotions Among the Virtues of the Christian Life. Journal of Religious Ethics, 20(1), 37–68.
Roediger, H. L., & DeSoto, K. A. (2015). Reconstructive Memory, Psychology of. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., pp. 50–55). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.51016-2
Rogers, K. (2016, January 13). Was He Gay, Bisexual or Bowie? Yes. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/style/was-he-gay-bisexual-or-bowie-yes.html
Schechtman, M. (1996). The constitution of Selves. Cornell University Press.
Scheffler, S. (1992). Human Morality. Oxford University Press.
Schultz, C. L., & Harris, D. L. (2021). Giving Voice to Nonfinite Loss and Grief in Bereavement. In R. A. Neimeyer, D. L. Harris, H. R. Winokuer, & G. Thornton (Eds.), Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society (pp. 235–245). Routledge.
Solomon, R. C. (2004). In Defense of Sentimentality. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/019514550X.001.0001
Teroni, F. (2007). Emotions and Formal Objects. Dialectica, 61(3), 395–415.
Teski, M. C., & Climo, J. J. (Eds.). (1995). The Labyrinth of memory: Ethnographic journeys. Bergin & Garvey.
Tulving, E. (1985). Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology / Psychologie Canadienne, 26(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0080017
Varga, S., & Gallagher, S. (2020). Anticipatory-Vicarious Grief: The Anatomy of a Moral Emotion. The Monist, 103(2), 176–189. https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onz034
Vargas, V. B., & Silva, C. P. (Eds.). (2022). Huelgas, marchas y revueltas: Historias de la protesta popular en Chile, 1870-2019. Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Weber, E. (2015). Resentment and Morality [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1427798481
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso y Universidad de Valparaíso
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
