MATERIAL CULTURE AND INTERPRETATIONS ON THE MALVINAS WAR: DID THE ARGENTINE SOLDIERS FIGHT IN SNEAKERS?

From the end of the Malvinas War (1982) to nowadays, different interpretations on this conflict have given battle in each sentence written on the matter. If in the first post-war period the main weapon for the discussion were the testimonies of the soldiers, with the expansion of social networks, small and occasional combats regarding the war's materiality take place. In this article we seek to analyze the existing discussion on one particular object: the Flecha sneakers. Remains of this footwear still lie today on the hills surrounding the Argentine Port. Tourists, curious onlookers and specialists tend to take pictures and usually share them on the social media network. Due to their public exhibition, the simple base of a sneaker causes disputes where -yet again- different interpretations of the war take their sides. This time intertwined with the threads of a collective memory that seems to beat behind this object and that comprises experiences so much wider than those of the war itself. In this paper, we shall focus on analyzing why this type of material culture serves as an input for the historical discussion and for the battle among different collective memories. To do so, we shall analyze the history of this object, its specific condition as a "memory place" for several generations and the signification and usage given by the veterans in the context of the war.