The victims of state terrorism and managing the recent past in Argentina

This article analyzes the process of formalization and objectivation of the category "Victim of State Terrorism" in Argentina as well as its transformation along the time. It starting point is that "every act of naming and classification is a political act" (Agier). Accordingly, human rights and memory's studies should be relocated inside the political field and the battles that develop around the field of State power. To consider human rights as a political artifact makes possible the request about the effects of the process of consecration of social categories -victim of State terrorism, in this case- in the reconfiguration of the relationship between activism, State and memory. To accomplish this task, &#205 ;ll describe some key scenarios along with this category is formalized, transformed and argued: legal affairs, parliamentary debates and the integration of an official list of victims.