Excavating Memory, Burying History. Lessons from the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

This chapter deals with a case in which work that aimed at rekindling a critical memory of a conflictual past ends up producing a certain form of oblivion instead. The work in question is the archaeological research we conducted at two battlefields of the Spanish Civil War. During our work, we found the traumatic history of the war neutralized through memory practices sponsored, in one case, by government institutions and in another by grassroots associations. In both cases, the involuntary memories materialized in things insisted in disrupting the comfortable narrative that people tried to impose on them. I will argue that archaeologists should work to channel this material memory so as to construct critical accounts of the past that are helpful to foster a more reflexive citizenry.