El movimiento estudiantil en Centroamérica: historia, historiografías, y memorias

Abstract

In recent years, the actions leading by university youth in many parts of the world during 1968 have been presented as a propitious context to evaluate the trajectory of some widely known student movements in Latin America, and to highlight their political conquests in processes of democratization of public universities and societies in the region during the second half of the 20th century. A consolidated and prolific tradition of research on the history of the Latin American student movement exposes this event as the founding myth of student organizations in specific areas of the region and presents it as a critical juncture for understanding student identities at a transnational level. Despite the undeniable value of this context, characterized by the actions and ideas of the student movement in the region and elsewhere in the world, and despite the valuable contribution of the analyses dedicated to this topic, the truth is that, traditionally, this approach has paid limited attention to the study of the Central American case: before this current of research, the history and memories of the region appear on the margins of the historiographies with the longest tradition in Latin America. To reflect on the contributions and possibilities for studying the student movement in Central America, this article explores the most outstanding historiographic visions of this field of study and reflects on its most significant memories at the Latin American level. The article exposes the historiographical productions on the Central American case and explains the place of memory occupied by the Central American student movements for Latin American historiography. Finally, this text outlines some trends and possibilities of analysis, which allow us to understand the memories, history and historiographies of a student movement that played a leading role in contexts of change during the second half of the 20thcentury.