Untold Stories explores the impact of Spain's civil war and dictatorship on marginal citizens in the early years of the dictatorship through personal testimonies of Spaniards who experienced it firsthand. It reveals how a turbulent past shapes mundane moments of social interaction in the present, highlighting the importance of remembering this past for democracy.

Format: Hardback
Length: 206 pages
Publication date: 07 March 2024
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Forgetting about Spain's Civil War (1936-9) and subsequent dictatorship was long seen as a necessary safeguard for the democracy that emerged after General Francisco Francos death in 1975.

However, public discussion of historical memory has awakened efforts to remember this past through the personal testimonies of Spaniards who experienced it firsthand.

Untold Stories expands accounts of twentieth-century Spain by presenting an ethnography of an ignored population: the impoverished men and women who fled Francos dictatorship in the 1960s, participating in a wave of labour migration to northern Europe.

Now in their eighties, they were born around the time of the civil war and came of age during its repressive aftermath before leaving Spain as young adults.

The book features a community of such Spaniards, who gather regularly at a senior center on the outskirts of Paris.

Drawing on concepts from linguistic anthropology, David Divita analyses conversational encounters recorded among the seniors to demonstrate how a turbulent past shapes mundane moments of social interaction in the present.

Documenting what is said as well as what is not, Divita reveals through detailed textual analysis how silence can pervade the creation of social meanings – such as belonging, authority, and legitimacy.

Untold Stories illuminates the impact of a harrowing historical period on some of Spain's most marginal citizens in the early years of the dictatorship.

Weight: 400g
Dimension: 235 x 159 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781487554279