For-Get: Identity, Media, and Democracy in Chile

The election of Michelle Bachelet, the first female president of Chile, brought to the public sphere topics such as gender, inequality, and the legacy of seventeen years of military rule. Former dictator Augusto Pinochet instructed Chileans to "for-get" and move on, but this is complicated because individual and collective identities are anchored in memory and articulated through discourse. What happens to a nation and its people when the obliged referent of their recent history is one that hardly anyone wants to address? This book reveals the incongruity between what current media say about Chilean identity and what most people experience, showing the tensions that prevail within a society that is also quickly changing due to globalization. The author engages with the old dichotomy between agency and structure, proposing a new model for understanding identity from an intercultural perspective.