Introduction Embodying Memory in Spain

Menezes, Alison Ribeiro de

doi:10.1057/9781137379948_1

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The dual threads of suffering and survival, holding the two in tension and giving both their due weight is arguably characteristic of the timescales involved in the Spanish exhumations, and the fact that so much of the testimony is necessarily located in memories of childhood. Ribeiro de Menezes (2014) notes this dual quality, in both oral history and cultural expressions, that draw on post-war childhood in Spain. She describes these childhoods as ‘haunted by fear, repression and loss’, and yet ‘childhood suffering is accompanied by a forward looking emphasis on resistance and resilience’ (p. 88).…”

Section: Survivance Postmemory and The Materiality Of Lost Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unrecovered objects: Narratives of dispossession, slow violence and survival in the investigation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War

Renshaw

2020

Journal of Material Culture

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The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was triggered by a military uprising against the democratically elected Popular Front government. Away from the battlefield, this war was characterized by the politically-motivated murder of thousands of civilians, many of whom were buried in clandestine graves throughout Spain. Following Franco’s victory and subsequent dictatorship, there were strong prohibitions on commemorating the Republican dead. A radical rupture in Spain’s memory politics occurred from 2000 onwards with the founding of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory and other similar pressure groups that have organized the exhumation and reburial of the Republican dead. This article is based on fieldwork conducted in communities in Castile and León, and Extremadura as they underwent mass grave investigations. It examines the experience of theft and dispossession that occurred as part of the Francoist repression of Republicans. Accounts of these episodes focus on stolen and looted objects robbed from the dead during the killings, from the graves’ post-mortem, or from surviving relatives as part of the systematic dispossession of Republican households that occurred during the war and immediate post-war period. These narratives surface with frequency during the investigation and exhumation of mass graves. Despite the fact that many are lost forever, these stolen possessions can function as powerful mnemonic objects with a strong affective and imaginative hold. The narratives of dispossession explore themes of survival, the experiences of women and children, and the impact of slow violence. By invoking theft and stolen objects, these stories highlight forms of trauma and forms of memory that may not be represented fully by the dominant investigative paradigm of the mass grave exhumation with its inherent focus on death, cataclysmic violence and the tangible, physical traces of the past.

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Section: Survivance Postmemory and The Materiality Of Lost Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unrecovered objects: Narratives of dispossession, slow violence and survival in the investigation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War

Renshaw

2020

Journal of Material Culture

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“…The time-scale of memory of repression in Spain has been interpreted, as Alison Ribeiro de Menezes points out, as falling into at least three distinct periods: according to Regime dictates during the Francoist period, then reinterpreted in accordance with the new memory horizon of the Transition to democracy, while since roughly the turn of the millennium, it has been undergoing a further revision that has aroused heated disputes in the political, civic, and academic arenas. (Ribeiro de Menezes, 2014: 11)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 1. La Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (ARMH) and Foro por la Memoria are the two main associations involved in the debates and confrontations about historical memory in Spain. These associations hold different goals and ambitions (Aguilar Fernández, 2007; Baer and Sznaider, 2015; Ferrándiz, 2014; Renshaw, 2011; Ribeiro de Menezes, 2014): ARMH have been accused by the Foro of remembering the victims of Francoism only to dignify those who were ignored by history, when the aim should be, according to the Foro , the restoration of the memory and dignity of those who were repressed, politicizing the exhumation and the clarification of the events. …”

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confidence: 99%

The resilient memory of the Spanish Civil War and Francoism

et al. 2016

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This article examines the resilient strategies of those people who were politically or ideologically repressed during Francoism. In total, 57 individuals were interviewed in depth in order to establish the strategies that they adopted to overcome adverse situations. The memories of the interviewees not only bring to light the diversity of resources used to face repression, but they also show how their individual strategies of resilience were linked to a collective resilience framework involving a large segment of the population who are still alive or who have handed on their experiences to their descendants. Past memories are consequently connected in the present with the (re)creation of a common identity and the restoration of dignity to the victims, who were classified as criminals in historical and legal archives and also suffered a process of social stigmatization. However, the aim of this article is not to resurrect the conflict in a society that has been ideologically divided for decades nor to transform history, but to cover the existing gaps in the official history. By doing this, it should be possible to strengthen the social and democratic values in a society that needs to build a future that is free from the ideological confrontations of the past.

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Introduction Embodying Memory in Spain

Cited by 2 publications

References 8 publications

Unrecovered objects: Narratives of dispossession, slow violence and survival in the investigation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War

Unrecovered objects: Narratives of dispossession, slow violence and survival in the investigation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War

The resilient memory of the Spanish Civil War and Francoism

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