The seminar discusses an alternative perspective on the Argentine military, addressing the everyday aspects of military life before and during the last dictatorship (1976-83). By exploring the private sphere of the family, this ethnography challenges the traditional geopolitical focus on the monolithic masculine narratives of military actors in Latin America, to embrace the experiences of both former military officers and their wives.

Based on fieldwork conducted in Buenos Aires 35 years after the end of the dictatorship, when the military are being prosecuted for the crimes of the regime, this paper presents an innovative interpretive framework in which different understandings of violence and political confrontation emerge.

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