How Francisco Franco governs from beyond the grave: An infrastructural approach to memory politics in contemporary Spain

Abstract

A B S T R A C TFour decades after the end of the Franco dictatorship, many Spaniards continue to question their country's claims to full democracy. Although Spain is now governed by popularly elected governments, citizens still experience the coercive effects of the dictatorship's policies in their daily interactions with the built environment, state institutions, and even their fellow citizens. These heterogeneous sites through which the dictatorship makes its presence felt constitute an infrastructure of memory that facilitates and impedes the circulation of past experience. In this context, people enact memory politics not only by contesting narratives of the past but also, first and foremost, by disand reassembling the physical, institutional, and social entanglements that undergird democratic politics. [infrastructures, cultural memory, democratic politics, forensic exhumations, archives, Spain] Cuatro décadas después del fin de la dictadura franquista, muchos españoles siguen cuestionando la calificación de su país como democracia plena. Si bien los gobiernos de España son elegidos popularmente, los ciudadanos siguen siendo afectados por las políticas de la dictadura en sus interacciones diarias con el ambiente construido, con las instituciones del estado, e incluso con otros ciudadanos. Estas ubicaciones heterogéneas, a través de las cuales la dictadura hace sentir su presencia, constituyen una infraestructura de la memoria que facilita e impide la circulación de la experiencia del pasado. En este contexto, las políticas de la memoria consisten no sólo en disputar narrativas del pasado, sino principalmente y ante todo en ensamblar y desensamblar los enredos físicos, institucionales y sociales que afianzan la política democrática. [infraestructuras, memoria cultural, política democrática, exhumaciones forenses, archivos, España]

Cultural Anthropology in 2018: Captivity and Its Unruly Failures

“…Further work considered how the toxicity of political violence—colonialism, war—shaped infrastructures and landscapes (Ahmann ; Rubin ; Zandonai and Amaro ). Rubin () emphasized what he calls “infrastructures of memory” in post‐Franco Spain, showing how the coercive effects of the dictatorship's policies seep into people's engagements with the built environment, state institutions, and other citizens.…”

“…In a necessary dialectic, much work considered seepage or failures of containment through analytics of freedom (Furani ), the unruly (Cooper ; J. Fisher ; Scherz , 108; Stoetzer , 302), zaniness (Degani ), play (Rea ), transgression (Muir and Gupta ), porousness (Bjork‐James ), madness (Nuhrat ), rupture or breaking open (Kunreuther ; Kyriakides ; Ofstehage ; Saleh ), queering (Heywood ; Shirinian ), invasion (Sherouse ), excess (Gershon ), or contagion (Kivland ; Luna ; Rubin ; Rubinstein et al. ).…”

At the Foot of the Grave: Challenging Collective Memories of Violence in Post-Franco Spain

“…Additionally, this study provides evidence of how depoliticized scientific framing can maintain more macro-movement mobilization in hostile climates. Other organizations that mobilized in Spain in the early 2000s, most notably the Forum for Memory, another activist group that engaged in scientific exhumations and at times a vocal critic of the ARMH's depoliticized approach (Bevernage and Colaert 2014;Ferrándiz 2013;Rubin 2018), aggressively put forward leftist political arguments and sentiments and worked with political parties in their exhumation work. However, they have since switched focus away from exhumations to educational and protest events.…”

“…However, the stakes created by the ARMH and the historical memory movement should not be underestimated. First, the pervasive fear created by the violence and repression of both the war and the regime as well as the continued state silencing promoted by the democratic transition have made even talking about the past very difficult (Renshaw 2011;Rubin 2018). This is especially true in rural areas and communities that suffered extreme repression under the regime, such as Galicia and Castilla Leon, where the majority of the ARMH's exhumations take place.…”

“…Many of these prisoners were injured or killed during its construction. Spanish taxpayers have paid and continue to pay for the site's upkeep (Rubin 2018). Spanish activists working alongside Argentine associates opened a universal jurisdiction case against Spain in 2010 demanding accountability against the Franco regime for crimes against humanity, including enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture, and the stealing of babies (Ryan 2017). The presiding judge, Maria Servini de Cubría, has indicted over 20 men for crimes against humanity.…”