Variations on a Fugitive’s Song: The Performance of Disappearance and Forced Migration in Chile

This text could be read as if it were a four-part fugue, beginning with the exposition of a subject or motif that will be elaborated and developed in due course. The word fugue derives from the Latin fuga, which means the act of fl eeing or chasing; in the musical sense, voices may be said to chase one another in the course of a contrapuntal composition such as a fugue. The Latin term is also linked etymologically to words such as ‘refuge’ or ‘fugitive,’ all terms indicative of an act of fl ight. The conceptual fugue I am embarking on here uses the basic structure of this musical technique and the metaphor of the musical chase to take the reader through an analysis of the acts of disappearance that took place during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1988). I will argue that state-sponsored terror and disappearance during the Pinochet years did not efface the voice of the opposition, but on the contrary, it elicited a powerfully orchestrated political vocalization that was deployed performatively in the way of protest song and street chanting.