Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This paper is the result of research whose objective was to investigate the genesis of Library Parks as an expression of political and architectural discourse in Colombia. For this purpose, a methodology based on a comparative historiography of the phenomenon of libraries and educational buildings built in public parks as a government policy at the beginning of the 20th century, and later, in the interstice between the 20th and 21st centuries, is proposed. The conclusions show that, contrary to the general perception, the library park model is not an ex novo phenomenon of the contemporary world. In this sense, the results evidence not only the identification of a set of antecedent projects of this phenomenon, built between 1932 and 1940, but also a set of existing correlations between political and architectural discourses, as a predetermining reflection of a system of thought that gave rise to the library park model.

Anthropology is a consolidated discipline in Spain. However, although Spanish production of Anthropology handbooks has reached high levels of excellence, most handbooks traditionally used in Spain have been produced from abroad. The main aim of this descriptive article is to classify and monitor, in a minimally contextualized way (i.e. by decade, authors and universities), the Anthropology handbooks that have been written by Spanish anthropologists and to fundamentally analyze the motivations behind their production. Incorporating an internal perspective is challenging. Some authors have not risen to this challenge and, instead, faithfully reproduce the themes and structure of traditional handbooks. Others, on the other hand, have endeavored not to leave local ethnography in the shade by including it in their agendas (without omitting the vicissitudes its introduction has had in our country) in order to exemplify their chosen topics or to complete the historical journey of the discipline.

Molts museus de memòria integren en les seves exposicions biografies personals per reforçar les seves explicacions i continguts. L’article reflexiona sobre les tècniques i estratègies utilitzades per recollir i mostrar aquests relats, tot assenyalant-ne les possibilitats però també els límits. S’analitzen diversos exemples de museus d’arreu del món per veure com es presenten i utilitzen els testimonis biogràfics i la seva interrelació amb els objectes exposats, i s’indiquen també els debats sobre els problemes ètics d’aquestes presentacions, en especial els dubtes sobre el grau de literalitat de les narracions que han de fer-se sobre el sofriment de les víctimes. La utilitat social i expogràfica dels relats personals en aquest tipus de museu és molt important, ja que permeten una aproximació més pròxima i vivencial dels fets viscuts. S’assenyala que, malgrat el paper central de les entrevistes i els relats en l’antropologia, la nostra disciplina ha contribuït poc a la configuració d’aquests museus, tot i que un major enfocament antropològic podria contribuir a remarcar el paper dels relats biogràfics en les exposicions i permetria superar alguns dels problemes conceptuals i expogràfics que es plantegen.

The text takes as its reference Walter Benjamin’s understanding of how memory works and its relationship with the notions of experience, the unconscious updating of the past in the present, to analyse, first, the relationship between memory and history, and then the scope and limits of José María Arguedas as an ethnographer, writer and poet, anchored in the Andes. The most important thing in this case is the close relationship of Arguedas’s work with memory and with forms of experience closely linked to the life of the communities, as well as with the ruins, the Apus and non-humans. Likewise, I am interested in understanding the relationship of these two thinkers with the ideas of progress and catastrophe.

The basic premise of this article is that social anthropology can intervene in the dialogue that has been initiated in recent years in what has come to be known as “memory studies”. It is paradoxical that anthropology remains on the periphery of this dialogue even though, as I will try to show with some examples, it is a discipline that has historically paid – and continues to pay today – very close attention to social groups and their relations with the past and time, as well as to memory processes. Although it may often not do so with the theoretical keys and anchors currently used in the field of memory studies.

Els textos recollits en aquest número temàtic d’Arxiu d’Etnografia de Catalunya ofereixen una suggestiva mirada coral al voltant de les memòries socials, un àmbit que ens segueix interpel·lant com a societat.

In the heart of the city centre of Tarragona there are two memorials to Juan Gabriel Rodrigo Knafo, who died during the demonstration held in protest against the events of 3 March 1976, in which five workers who were taking part in a workers’ assembly in Vitoria were killed. One is in the Rambla Nova; the other is in one of its central streets. However, they come from different origins: the first was erected by a public institution, City Council; the second, by relatives. However, they are not the most visited monuments, the events are not remembered as one of the town’s local anniversaries, and no special mention is made of the deceased’s status as a worker. In this regard, our aim is to describe the place that the memory of the labour movement occupies in our modern societies and what we have lost by its concealment and generalised indifference. This situation, which is more common than might be thought, and which has been noted in other European populations, prompts us to reflect on the difference between memory and history, as well as on the current role of workers’ memory, and to discuss its role and place among our professional traditions. The hypothesis advanced aims to explain a fact that is more common than one might imagine: namely, the existence of a clear separation between working-class memory, in collective terms according to Halbwachs (1997), and the use made of history by public institutions. This lack of memory has acquired greater importance in societies that have suffered dictatorships in the 20th century, as is the case in Spain, although sadly it has not been the only one in our immediate geographical environment.

Les memòries espanyoles han acaparat la història colonial del Protectorat espanyol del Marroc. Només en temps recents, marroquins i rifenys han alçat la seves veus per reconstruir el passat colonial des de la seva història i experiències. La ciutat d’Al-Hoceima va ser eminentment espanyola i la seva aclaparadora majoria il·lustra la desídia espanyola per conviure amb les poblacions autòctones. Encara que alguns dels civils assentats consideraren que els militars els havien colonitzat igual que als marroquins, oblidaven que sense la seva presència el territori hauria quedat novament a mans rifenyes. L’article s’apropa a la ciutat d’Al-Hoceima en els temps colonials des de veus civils espanyoles i rifenyes per comprendre la pressió que les estructures militars exerciren a la ciutat i el tracte que donaven a espanyols i rifenys. Aquests aspectes ens permetran desemmascarar el menysteniment vers la població civil espanyola i la racialització dels marroquins imprescindible per garantir la subalternització de les poblacions ocupades i la retòrica colonial «d’obra civilitzadora». L’objectiu final és, d’una banda, reflexionar sobre l’ús de la memòria, ja que records i oblits formen part d’un joc de miralls en els quals es reflecteix un passat ben viu, i, de l’altra, revisar la presència militar a Al-Hoceima, el tractament que rebien les poblacions autòctones i els llegats colonials que han romàs en el temps.

Patriarchal schemes and models still prevail throughout our society, from the elites to the working sectors. Our unit of analysis includes men and women from the working sectors, many of them of immigrant origin, who settled in the metropolitan suburbs of Tarragona during the Franco regime. Although the sample is made up of people with a strong progressive ideology, the signs of that social heritage are evident. On the basis of the oral testimony of men and women, residents of the western districts of the city of Tarragona and in neighbouring municipalities, we have been able to observe that, regardless of the degree of direct participation in neighbourhood mobilizations that demanded citizen rights and improvement in the living conditions, the memory of women and men are constructed in contrasting ways. While for women there is a constant appeal to domestic, family, and reproductive referents, for men there tends to be references to the public sphere: neighbourhood organization, career paths, trade union struggles and political mobilizations. As well as discussing this gendered memory, we want to take the opportunity to present the main milestones of the role of these subordinate immigrant sectors in the construction of today’s democratic city. It is by no means free of holes and scars, which are evidence of the segregated urbanism on which the «welcome» to the new citizenship in the middle of the 20th century was based.

All deaths caused by an extraordinary cause (if it makes sense to speak of natural deaths) generate an impact on society, the magnitude of which can be explained by the events or by the high number of deaths. Drawing on the idea of collective death, a concept developed by Gaëlle Clavandier (and which takes into account not only the shock caused by these extraordinary situations but also those phases that are then entered into by societies to pay tribute to their deceased, as a way of initiating the transition towards overcoming what has happened), I will analyse some of the commemoration ceremonies that were organized in various Spanish localities, as a tribute to those who died as a result of Covid-19, following the declaration of official mourning by the Spanish government on 26 May 2020. The analysis of these commemorative acts must highlight their performative dimension, as Paul Connerton suggested, but at the same time, I suggest that this process of institutional appropriation of the memory of what happened can be interpreted as an exercise to overcome these social mourning events and begin the process of progressively overcoming and forgetting the social tragedy experienced. Maurice Halbwachs’ classic reflection that society tends to eliminate from its memory everything that can separate individuals seems very relevant to understanding the organization of these ceremonies.