Women’s Memories of the Day of the Chilean Coup in the City of Valparaíso

Abstract

This article reconstructs and analyzes the memories of women who were in the city of Valparaíso on September 11, 1973, the day of the coup d’état in Chile. Research participants were six women from the Valparaíso region, militants of leftist parties, and survivors of political imprisonment and torture during the Chilean civil-military dictatorship. We conducted a focus group and two semi-structured individual interviews. Data analysis was carried out in two stages: the first one phenomenological-hermeneutic and the second one based on Grounded Theory. The research results show that the day of the coup d’état in Valparaíso is remembered by women as a mighty and irrevocable milestone, functioning as a biographical event. The coup d’état means a before and after in civic experiences in social, political, and historical aspects and in the dwelling manners of the city.