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Book: What to Remember, What to Teach

Chapter: Official History Textbooks, Social Memory and Historizing the Memory of Recent Chilean Past

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.37655

Blurb:

Chapter 3 is related specifically to the analysis of official History textbooks that have been published by the state for the last 30 years (1990-2020). This chapter pays special attention to the processes of building a social memory and of the historicization of memories of recent Chilean past. In order to present these processes, I focus first on the production, circulation and reception of official history textbooks and then I offer a critical discourse analysis that takes into account the symbolic construction of time and space through resources of graduation of attitudes and the valuing the historical experience with different levels of inscribed and evoked evaluations. This critical and social discourse analysis contributes with our understanding of the evaluative prosodies of power, conflict and fear that are privileged in History textbooks.

Chapter Contributors

  • Teresa OteĆ­za (moteizas@uc.cl - toteiza) 'Pontifical Catholic University of Chile'