Producir memoria

Abstract

This article examines key features of the language through which the memory of Colombia’s armed conflict has been articulated, focusing on a set of narrative and discursive dispositifs referred to as commission technologies. It argues that this language has developed within a social field composed of both state and non-state actors, whose interactions have made specific concepts, methods, and narratives about the conflict’s memory. Methodologically, the study adopts a critical materialist approach to discourse analysis. The article is organized into three sections. The first outlines the methodological framework, which brings together field theory and discourse analysis within a shared analytical perspective. The second reconstructs the discursive conditions that enabled the emergence of a dominant language of memory concerning violence in Colombia, identifying epistemological operators traceable in contemporary commission technologies. The final section analyzes the current configuration of this language, advancing the hypothesis that it operates through “hinge” mechanisms that accumulate and mobilize forms of capital and effects drawn from diverse social and academic domains. The conclusion reflects on its broader implications for other sites of memory production and its relationship with the State.