Digital Humanities in Latin America ed. by Fernández L'Hoeste, Héctor, and Juan Carlos Rodríguez (review)

Abstract

review of some of the publications of the period, like magazines and photobooks. The establishment of the Asociación de Fotógrafos Independientes (AFI) in 1981 is particularly relevant to the consolidation of the field. In the fourth and last chapter, Donoso explores the tense relation between independent magazines and the regime; the author also describes how images were crucial for the regime in its attempts to censor and control any act of dissent. In 1984, authorities banned the independent press from publishing any image, in what is known as the Edict number 19. In response to this violent form of suppression, the independent press creatively reacted in an effort to mock and resist censorship. The book ends with an epilogue in which Donoso presents a timely reflection on the importance of visual culture in the complex process of remembering the violence of the past, and how photographic practices not only served as a record of what happened during the dictatorship but also determines the narratives that we can articulate from the present. As Donoso states, “I have approached the civicmilitary dictatorship period through the expanding photographic field that materialized during those years in order to emphasize the–paradoxically overlooked–political import of photography in the efforts of the opposition. . . . [photographic practices] played a vital role in the construction of the historical memory of that period” (198). I have personally witnessed the development of this project in conferences and workshops in the last few years, and it is a pleasure to read the result of this long-lasting investigative effort. This book will definitely have an impact on the scholars of the dictatorships in the Southern Cone, and the aftermaths of political violence in post-dictatorial societies. For a number of reasons, Donoso Macaya’s critical intervention will most certainly resonate and open new lines of inquiry about the role of photographic images in our violent past and turbulent present.