Saga, secrets and whispers: Memories of political violence in Oaxaca

Abstract

Various memories of a series of murders in a village in the northern Sierra of
Oaxaca in 1945 are the subject of this article. The experiences and stories of three indigenous grandmothers from this region are used to analyze the way they express themselves about political violence when they evoke the history of their people. Although their memories are presented in a fragmented way, a detailed analysis shows that their accounts, depending on the context in which they are given, highlight a particular aspect of the political violence that has affected their people.