Past Human Rights Violations and the Question of Indifference: The Case of Chile

This book contributes to the fields of memory and human rights. It offers a novel and interdisciplinary theory on social indifference, and in particular on the indifference of people to human rights violations committed against certain sectors of society in turbulent times. These theoretical frameworks are explored empirically with respect to the Chilean case. Through a blend of mixed methods, the book explains the causes, characteristics and social consequences of the current indifference of Chileans with respect to the human rights violations committed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-90). The different findings are an invitation to rethink new challenges of transitional justice processes in fragmented societies and to strengthen public policies on human rights.
Hugo Rojas is Professor of Sociology of Law and Human Rights at Alberto Hurtado University and researcher at the Millenium Institute on Violence and Democracy. He holds degreesfrom Oxford, LSE and the Catholic University of Chile.