Abstract

GARANO, Santiago. Between heroes and traitors: Military and militant meanings regarding conscripts' role in the 70s. Cuad. antropol. soc. [online]. 2011, n.33, pp.93-110. ISSN 1850-275X.

In this article we analyze the different ways in which, during the 70s, the Argentinean military authorities conceived the role that soldiers should play in the "struggle against subversion" in a context of political violence before the military coup on March 24 th 1976. To begin with, we expose that the conscripts serving the Compulsory Military Service were subject to interpellation by both the army and the PRT-ERP. In addition, they both evoke moral values such as 'heroism' and 'self-sacrifice'. Secondly, we sustain that the military personnel instituted a binary logic hero - traitor as a parameter to morally judge the conscripts' behavior. The article proposes that this moral code was settled based on ideas of purity, contamination and danger.

Keywords : Military draft; Militancy; Political repression; Moral values; Dictatorship.

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