La figura de testigo en la elaboración del trauma y memoria colectiva en contextos de conflicto armado.

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation is to identify the witness’ role in the individual elaboration oftrauma and its implication in the establishment of a collective memory on armed conflict context. The witness’ role can be personified by the aggressor, the victim or a third person being presentin the scene, complying diverse individual and collective functions, not just on juridical matters, also anthropological, psychological, historical, among others. Regarding the production of testimonies by a witness, a testimony may work as a mediatoramong processes like the trauma elaboration and the establishment of collective memory. Now, the testimony being a linguistic elaboration that uses both word and silence, works as a resource(tool) in the process of giving, both to society and to the individual, a meaning to their existence. The act of providing a testimony by a linguistic faculty, allows the articulation of (shocking)experiences at an individual level, effect that may influence in how a “broken” social tissuemight be fixed.