THE FETISHISM OF COMMEMORATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OFFICIAL STATEMENTS ON HURRICANE MITCH ON THE TENTH AND TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARIES OF ITS PASSAGE THROUGH CENTRAL AMERICA
Salvato in:
| Autori: | , |
|---|---|
| Natura: | artículo original |
| Status: | Versión publicada |
| Data di pubblicazione: | 2026 |
| Descrizione: | Hurricane Mitch marked a watershed in Central American history, both for the scale of its impact and for the attention it drew in the public agenda and international cooperation. The commemorations that followed have held a prominent place in the public sphere, materializing in numerous ceremonies and official events. This article examines the official declarations issued on the tenth and twenty-fifth anniversaries, understood as devices that produce and administer memory. It explores how these declarations became formalized rituals, legitimized through national and regional institutions, that deliver a manageable and compliant memory. While the texts acknowledge the structural causes of vulnerability that turned the hurricane into a large-scale disaster, the commemorations operate as fetishized objects: it legitimizes official narratives, reproduces hierarchies, and offers an episodic memory that, rather than enabling sustained political learning, reinforces a structural amnesia that neutralizes the possibility of transforming the conditions that produced the catastrophe. |
| Stato: | Portal de Revistas UCR |
| Istituzione: | Universidad de Costa Rica |
| Repositorio: | Portal de Revistas UCR |
| Lingua: | Español |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:portal.revistas.ucr.ac.cr:article/8342 |
| Accesso online: | https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/rdialogos/article/view/8342 |
| Keyword: | hurricane Mitch Central America declarations fetishization structural amnesia huracán Mitch Centroamérica declaraciones fetichización amnesia estructural |