Between the past and the present

social representations of Latin American history for students from three Latin American countries

Abstract

In this study, the aim was to analyse social representations of the history of Latin America among Latin Americans. Data were collected through an online questionnaire, containing free-recall questions about important events and historical figures in Latin American history. A total of 213 Brazilian, Chilean and Mexican students, aged 18 to 35 years old, participated in the study. Following the theoretical-methodological orientation of the structural approach of Social Representations Theory, data were processed with the EVOC software. The results indicated that, for the participants, the most central events to the social memory of Latin America are colonization and independence, while the main historical figures mentioned were Christopher Columbus and Simón Bolívar, in line with the nuclear dynamics conquest/discovery, colonization and independence. The articulation between memory, identity and social representations is discussed in order to understand the way groups deal with their past, in the present.