How do individuals, after having discovered they were lied to about the conditions of their births and their childhoods, seek out their own identities and re/establish the “truths” about themselves? Based on two ethnographic studies conducted in sites where lives and kinships were disrupted by political violence, this article aims to examine the urge for narrative coherence in contexts defined by public deceit and betrayal. In Argentina, [Author 1] lived with the nietos who, decades after the dictatorship, discovered they had been stolen and educated by those responsible for their parents’ death. In Ethiopia, [Author 2] met with adopted children who were searching for their life “of before”. In these two contexts, the interviewees explained how their lives had been shattered when they discovered the lies they had been told. Their testimony equally revealed how they felt an existential and urgent need to re-establish the “truth”. Drawing on their experiences and their feelings, this article examines the link between two truths, truth regarding the past and truth about oneself, and explores the need to be certain of facts in the making of identities.

中文翻译：

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真实的自我，可疑的生活：公共欺骗，复兴的希望，以及错误记录的过去中的生存困境

当人们发现自己的出生条件和童年被欺骗后，如何寻找自己的身份并重新/建立关于自己的“真相”？基于在生活和亲属关系被政治暴力扰乱的地点进行的两项民族志研究，本文旨在探讨在公共欺骗和背叛所定义的背景下对叙事连贯性的渴望。在阿根廷，[作者 1] 与涅托一家住在一起，独裁统治几十年后，他们发现自己被那些对父母之死负有责任的人偷走了并接受了教育。在埃塞俄比亚，[作者 2] 遇到了正在寻找“以前”生活的被收养儿童。在这两种情况下，受访者解释了当他们发现自己被告知的谎言时，他们的生活是如何被粉碎的。他们的证词同样揭示了他们如何感受到重新确立“真相”的存在和迫切需要。本文根据他们的经历和感受，探讨了两种真理（关于过去的真理和关于自己的真理）之间的联系，并探讨了在形成身份时确定事实的必要性。