Memorials from the perspective of experience: A comparison of Spain’s Valley of the Fallen to contemporary counter-memorials

Abstract

Memorials are cultural artifacts constructed to mediate memory for a shared past. But as such, they require people’s active engagement with them, which can generate divergent experiences and interpretations. The present study compares how different memorial forms both enable and constrain people’s relating to the sites and what they are meant to represent. The comparison hinges on the difference between traditional memorials (imposing, vertical, and focused on heroes) and counter-memorials (engaging, horizontal, and focused on victims). The Valley of the Fallen is in central focus as a prime example of a traditional memory, which is currently in the process of being re-signified. Our study compares participants’ experience of this site with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the National 9/11 Memorial (both celebrated counter-memorials), using an innovative method combining interviews and a subjective camera that captures participants’ ongoing experience from the first-person perspective. Results show a manifold of ways in which people appropriate and make sense of memorials through different associations and personal memories while moving through them.

Madrid's Arco de la Victoria: Cultural Symbols and Social Negotiations in Contemporary Spain

“…For some, it stands as a potent reminder of a turbulent past, echoing Francoist ideals and values. Yet, for others, it symbolizes a landmark of historical significance, detached from its original authoritarian connotations [27]. Such polarized views have been influenced by a variety of factors, including political ideologies, generational shifts, and evolving cultural narratives.…”

Lubyanka: Dissonant memories of violence in the heart of Moscow

“…In Spain, the post-Francisco Franco Amnesty Law of 1977 undergirded the “Pact of Forgetting” (“Pacto del Olvido”), which stymied prosecutions of people who committed human rights abuses during the Civil War and General Franco’s reign; however, in the past few decades, a “campaign to recover memory” (Davis, 2005), especially through exhumations of Civil War-era mass graves, has been spearheaded by activists and NGOs (Aguilar, 2008; Rubin, 2010). Dacia Viejo-Rose (2011) and Alfredo González-Ruibal and Carmen Ortiz (2015) have critically analyzed landscapes of remembering and forgetting Francoist violence in Spain, while the recent removal of Franco’s remains from the monumental Valley of the Fallen mortuary complex signals a marked change, though incomplete and heavily contested, in confronting the material heritage and necropolitics of the Franco regime (Brescó de Luna and Wagoner, 2022; González-Ruibal, 2022). These shifts in Spanish memory culture have not been accompanied by a project of official lustration or a truth and justice commission; in the words of Rachelle Wildeboer Schut and Zoltán Dujisin (2022), “the intense disagreement over the role of memory in Spanish society seems to both reflect and contribute to a larger crisis of regime legitimacy in Spain” (p. 19).…”

A longitudinal study of conversational remembering in WhatsApp group messages before, during, and after COVID-19 lockdown

“…In the subsequent section of the introduction, we delineate the distinctive features of conversational remembering in natural settings, distinguishing it from memory research relying on interviews and specially designed group discussions (Bietti 2012(Bietti , 2013(Bietti , 2014Brescó de Luna and Wagoner 2022;Cienki et al 2014;Cordonnier et al 2021;Reavey and Brown 2007;Tschuggnall and Welzer 2002;van der Haegen et al 2022;Woods et al 2009). We also delve into the dynamics and functions of conversational remembering (e.g., Bietti and Stone 2019) and demonstrate their presence in our dataset.…”

“…In the subsequent section of the introduction, we delineate the distinctive features of conversational remembering in natural settings, distinguishing it from memory research relying on interviews and specially designed group discussions (Bietti 2012, 2013, 2014; Brescó de Luna and Wagoner 2022; Cienki et al . 2014; Cordonnier et al .…”