{"title":"True selves, suspicious lives: Public deceits, hopes of restoration, and existential troubles in misdocumented pasts","authors":"Sébastien Roux, Paul Macalli","doi":"10.1177/0308275x241228727","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"How do individuals, after having discovered they were lied to about the conditions of their births and their childhoods, seek out their own identities and re/establish the “truths” about themselves? Based on two ethnographic studies conducted in sites where lives and kinships were disrupted by political violence, this article aims to examine the urge for narrative coherence in contexts defined by public deceit and betrayal. In Argentina, [Author 1] lived with the nietos who, decades after the dictatorship, discovered they had been stolen and educated by those responsible for their parents’ death. In Ethiopia, [Author 2] met with adopted children who were searching for their life “of before”. In these two contexts, the interviewees explained how their lives had been shattered when they discovered the lies they had been told. Their testimony equally revealed how they felt an existential and urgent need to re-establish the “truth”. Drawing on their experiences and their feelings, this article examines the link between two truths, truth regarding the past and truth about oneself, and explores the need to be certain of facts in the making of identities.","PeriodicalId":46784,"journal":{"name":"Critique of Anthropology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critique of Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275x241228727","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
How do individuals, after having discovered they were lied to about the conditions of their births and their childhoods, seek out their own identities and re/establish the “truths” about themselves? Based on two ethnographic studies conducted in sites where lives and kinships were disrupted by political violence, this article aims to examine the urge for narrative coherence in contexts defined by public deceit and betrayal. In Argentina, [Author 1] lived with the nietos who, decades after the dictatorship, discovered they had been stolen and educated by those responsible for their parents’ death. In Ethiopia, [Author 2] met with adopted children who were searching for their life “of before”. In these two contexts, the interviewees explained how their lives had been shattered when they discovered the lies they had been told. Their testimony equally revealed how they felt an existential and urgent need to re-establish the “truth”. Drawing on their experiences and their feelings, this article examines the link between two truths, truth regarding the past and truth about oneself, and explores the need to be certain of facts in the making of identities.
期刊介绍:
Critique of Anthropology is dedicated to the development of anthropology as a discipline that subjects social reality to critical analysis. It publishes academic articles and other materials which contribute to an understanding of the determinants of the human condition, structures of social power, and the construction of ideologies in both contemporary and past human societies from a cross-cultural and socially critical standpoint. Non-sectarian, and embracing a diversity of theoretical and political viewpoints, COA is also committed to the principle that anthropologists cannot and should not seek to avoid taking positions on political and social questions.