The Shifting Meanings of Childhood and “N.N.”

Abstract

The history of the Dirty War in Argentina relates as much to intolerance of adolescents and young people as to ideological conflict. The fact that the disappeared in Argentina were disproportionately young and buried in plots that identified them as nameless (“ningún nombre,” or “N.N.”) links this war to the long history of state efforts to control the actions of parents and delinquent children. Argentine society, of which the military formed a part, had long refused to accept the idea of adolescence and rejected all inappropriate behavior of young people from 1919 on. The combination of extralegal efforts of families to rid themselves of unwanted children and the state's desire to control families eventually became part of a military policy of getting rid of perceived unacceptable youths by having them disappeared and buried in anonymous graves.