Between Silences and Rewritings

Two Approaches to Memory Construction by Spanish Refugees and Economic Immigrants in France

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20086984
AutoresEvelyne Ribert (0000-0002-8129-421X, Institut Interdisciplinaire d’Anthropologie du Contemporain, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Páginas63-80
Fecha de publicación2015-01-01
Open AccessSí
TipoCHAPTER
RevistaDiasporas, Cultures of Mobilities, ‘Race’ 2 (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialPresses universitaires de la Méditerranée (PUBLISHER • FR)
DOI10.4000/books.pulm.9203
OpenAlexW3209337716
ISBN9782367813875
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas9

This essay compares the varied historical and cultural legacies received and narrated by descendants regarding migratory experience of two groups: Spanish refugees who arrived in France following the Civil War and Spanish immigrants who came during the 1950s and 1960s. The narratives analysed in this essay are from interviews conducted with 46 persons which recount their memories, transmitted to descendants of migrants. The author’s fieldwork shows that refugees generally share little with their descendants about their lived experiences of the Civil War and the Retirada, whereas they do transmit a memory of their opposition to Francoism. Of the experiential reality of various events, what is told is only that which can be integrated with the French collective memory, such as the Resistance. The rest, in particular what was lived in Spain, remains unspoken. On the other hand, economic migrants, who return very regularly to Spain, rewrite their history from the vantage of the present, mixing memories of their past in Spain with memories of their present life in France. Consequently, the context of and reasons for their migration are transformed. What was at the time often a family decision connected with the opportunity of acquiring a house is now presented by the migrants simply as having to do with economic necessities and the future of the children. The memory associated with the life spent in Spain, supported by frequent stays there, is maintained and transmitted to the descendants

Art · Collective memory · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Immigration · Literature · Narrative · Oral history · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Anthropology · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Gender Studies · History · Law

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