Legacies of Violence in Contemporary Spain : Exhuming the Past, Understanding the Present

This book explores social, political, legal, and cultural facets of the movement for the recovery of historical memory and the growing demands for accountability for past state-sanctioned violence in Spain, both of which have been fueled by the exhumations of mass graves that began in 2000. The volume contributes to three crucial tasks: the on-going process of documenting Francoist repression in post-war Spain; the acknowledgment and analysis of the legacies of such violence in contemporary Spanish society; and the discussion of the legal and political viability of alternative forms of transitional justice that might provide a long-delayed public response to past violence in Spain.

This book provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of the multiple legacies of Francoist violence in contemporary Spain, with a special focus on the exhumations of mass graves from the Civil War and post-war era. The various contributions frame their study within a broader reflection on the nature, function and legacies of state-sanctioned violence in its many forms. Offering perspectives from fields as varied as history, political science, literary and cultural studies, forensic and cultural anthropology, international human rights law, sociology, and art, this volume explores the multifaceted nature of a society’s reckoning with past violence. It speaks not only to those interested in contemporary Spain and Western Europe, but also to those studying issues of transitional and post-transitional justice in other national and regional contexts.