Memories and narratives of the student movement of 1968 in Mexico: after 50 years

Abstract

50 years ago, in Mexico, there was a student movement developed which ended in tragedy: the massacre on October 2, 1968, in the Square of the Three Cultures (Mexico City). This paper presents an approach to the event 50 years later, arguing the following elements: i) some incidents in the development of the 1968 movement; ii) the perspectives of collec-tive memory and narrative as approaches to social life are exposed; iii) also, the narrative is argued as a way of working of social movements, where the meaning of the human is key point; iv) taking up interviews with participants of the movement and young people attending an event of remembrance, the meaning of the 1968 movement is reconstructed narratively, which is done through three axes or categories: a) moments of 1968; b) after 50 years of 1968: changes and echoes; and c): what is the significance of the 1968 move-ment?