[iDC] Grupo Etcetera

[Grant Kester]

Dear List,

To follow up to my last post, and honor my own call for actual examples of
projects and practices, I wanted to mention the work of Grupo Etcetera in
Argentina (thanks to Mariola Alvarez, one of my current students). They've
been working with H.I.J.O.S (an activist group made up of the now-grown
children of the 'disappeared'). Grupo Etcetera developed a form of protest
they called "excraches" (to scratch or reveal something) based on public
events to call attention to the homes of former torturers (who were in
official positions during the 'dirty war' and who now live in anonymity).
These involved a range of very inventive performative strategies that
continued to evolve as the police began to anticipate them. Before long the
Escrache events were known throughout Argentina, and began to be replicated
in other cities. Not "global," perhaps, but certainly an example of the
ability of strategies to proliferate from the local to the national level.

Best,
Grant