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Staff Profile

Dr Nicolás Villarroel Guerra

Postdoctoral Fellow, SML

Background

Contact: Nicolas.Villarroel-Guerra@newcastle.ac.uk


I am a Chilean researcher interested in the relationship between memory, politics and emotions. My research is driven by a general concern on how remembering the past can foster democracy and social justice. Thus, I have focused most of my research on the memories of the Chilean dictatorship led by Pinochet (1973-1990), exploring what is remembered, by whom, and how. I have worked with several Chilean research teams in different projects on this topic, and I did my PhD. at the Australian National University, where I worked with Professor Laurajane Smith exploring how emotions shape the memories of the dictatorship among Chilean exiles in Australia.

After finishing my PhD., I focused my research on groups that contest the memories of the dictatorship and the discourse of human rights. Given the rise of the far-right in Chile and in different countries, and the role that social media plays in political polarisation, I formulated my current postdoctoral project, which is funded by the Chilean agency of research and development. My project explores how the Chilean far-right uses humour to contest the discourse of human rights across online social media platforms, focusing on Instagram and Facebook, which are the most used by Chileans. I analyse memes and digital comics, among other online media, and how these are used to mock, ridicule, and contest the human rights discourse promoted throughout the years of transitional justice in Chile. Considering that we are witnessing similar phenomena in different regions across the globe, I hope that the findings of this project will resonate with other realities in which democracy and human rights’ discourses are being undermined by polarisation and contentious politics, leading to the rise of right-wing populism.

I have published my research in scientific journals (Memory Studies, Revista de Estudios Sociales, Psykhe) and in book chapters edited by Brill, Bloomsbury, and Pehuén.

Research

My research interests lie at the intersection between memory studies, affect and emotion studies, politics and discourse studies. I am also interested in research of concepts that we use in social theory more generally. I have collaborated with different Chilean researchers and teams to explore memories of Pinochet's dictatorship focusing on generations, activists, and exiles. More recently I have been part of of a research team exploring forms of resistance to police violence in the post-dictatorial years in Chile, and with teams exploring the rise of the far-right in Chile, which derived to my current postdoctoral project on online humour of the Chilean far-right.


Current Research

Memes and Laughter: Analysing the Relationship Between Humour and Human Rights in the Chilean Far-Right Online Discourse

Funder: Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile)

UK Sponsor: Dr Jorge Catalá-Carrasco (Reader in Hispanic Studies)

Institution: Newcastle University

My postdoctoral project explores how the Chilean far-right uses humour in its online discourse to frame discussions about human rights. The purpose of this work is to unveil how online media, such as memes, emojis and digital comics, are used in a humorous way by the far right to dispute the hegemonic human rights’ discourse that has been fostered after the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990), which is characterised by values and principles of justice that have shaped the Chilean political culture. Thus, humour is taken as a means to an end that can be used to cause aggression and to reinforce social bonds. Considering these ideas, this project analyses how humour is used to mock and ridicule progressive discourses and to appeal to broader audiences by masking aggressive ideological content and messages as ‘just jokes’, and by expanding the limits of what is tolerable in public discourse. I argue that the Chilean far-right aims to reverse and dispute protections and understandings of human rights by, for example, redefining victims and perpetrators of human rights violations and delegitimising social actors and institutions that defend human rights in Chile. In this context, this project asks, how does the Chilean far-right uses humour to contest the discourse of human rights across online social media platforms?


PhD Research

Memories of the Dictatorship from Chilean Exiles in Australia: Affect and Positionality in a Complex Mnemonic Field

Funder: Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile)

Supervisor: Proffessor Laurajane Smith (Director of the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies)

Institution: Australian National University

URL: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/items/9656c396-9d94-4347-92ed-314b71ee4cb0

My thesis explored the memory of the Chilean dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) through the voices of Chilean exiles in Australia, who had to migrate due to their political affiliations and activism against the dictatorship. The thesis analyses how emotions, or affective practices, shape how exiles remember the dictatorship. While previous research has shown that ideological and intergenerational dynamics are key elements that explain the disputes and contestations between different actors and groups, emotion has yet to be the research focus. In developing the analysis, I propose the concept of 'affective-mnemonic practices' to capture the complex articulations of memory, affect, ideology and intergenerational transmission. Emotions or affective practices are a crucial element of mnemonic processes, as they orient the positionality of people when remembering, thus shaping the meaning of the past in the present. I did fieldwork from 2020 to 2022,and conducted in-depth interviews with 46 participants (28 from the first generation and 18 who were children of exiles), in which I asked them to tell their histories and experiences of the dictatorship and exile. I also conducted participant observation in events with the Chilean communities in Canberra and Sydney.

The findings show that multiple emotions shape the memory of the dictatorship in complex ways. Participants remember with pain and sadness the traumatic events of the coup and the process of forced migration. These emotions are entangled with the ideological positions of participants in the context of the defeat symbolised in the coup and the post-dictatorial structural violence. However, trauma does not define the memory of exiles, as they also remember joyful moments of political activism, as well as conflicts and divisions which shape activism as an ambivalent topic. Additionally, children of exiles relate to the memory of the dictatorship through stories and objects in complex intergenerational transmission processes. The findings suggest that different forms of nostalgia shape the meaning of exile, configuring liminal senses of identity. Finally, the thesis explores the relations between the memory of the dictatorship and the imagination of the future after the social uprising of 2019 in an oscillation between fear, pessimism and hope, suggesting that complex emotions mediate between the memory of the dictatorship and the imagination of the future. Overall, the thesis reveals how the memory of the dictatorship is a living process among Chilean exiles in Australia.

Publications

  • Articles

  • Book Chapters

    • Villarroel N. Memory as a Discursive Practice: Halbwachs, Dialogicality and Multilingualism. In: Braber N; van de Putte T; van den Elzen S, ed. Language and Memory: Interactions and Mediations. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2026, pp.147–164.
    • Villarroel, N, Riveros, V. Reading ‘Compañero/a/x’ as a Contentious Keyword in Chile: A Bakhtinian Perspective. In: Van den Elzen, S; Rigney, A, ed. Memory and the Language of Contention. Brill, 2025, pp.111-133.
    • Haye, A, Villarroel, N. Poder y memoria: sobre la fuerza del pasado como potencia de futuro. In: Risor, H; Murray, M, ed. Ciudadanías: Coexistencia y diferencia en el Chile actual. Reflexiones interdisciplinares en tiempos de transformación profunda. Santiago, Chile: Pehuén, 2023, pp.237-266.

  • Online Publication

    • Villarroel, N. On social memory and the Chilean political crisis. Canberra, Australia: Demos Journal, 2020. Available at: https://www.demosjournal.com/article/on-social-memory-and-the-chilean-political-crisis.