The Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship caused widespread human, social, and economic disruption, compelling many Spaniards to seek permanent resettlement abroad. Untold stories provides a comprehensive and well-researched exploration of the lives of Spaniards who migrated to France in the 1960s. Divita conducted an ethnographic study at a Parisian senior centre, which serves as a space for socialising and cultural activities.
Divita explores how practices of remembering enable older Spanish migrants to create social meaning in the present and understand their place in the world. In other words, remembering is fundamental to how they interpret their experiences and situate themselves within shifting social and historical contexts. This issue is examined through three interconnected notions: historicity, chronotope, and silence.
Firstly, historicity refers to how the past is perceived and represented, acknowledging that history emerges through the stories people tell or leave untold. Social and political conditions shape these narrative possibilities, influencing what is considered acceptable to speak about within a community. For these older Spaniards in France, expressions of historicity operate as a form of self-preservation, particularly given that their memories have often been marginalised.
Secondly, chronotope emphasises the role of time and place in the interpretation of one’s life. By invoking pre-migratory villages or earlier political contexts, seniors position themselves within broader historical trajectories and global processes. Temporal and spatial references are of particular importance for labour migrants, whose experiences are largely absent from official historiography. Consequently, these references are used to legitimise life paths and to insert perspectives into wider narrative frameworks.
Thirdly, the notion of silence remains central to understanding the long-lasting effects of authoritarianism. Spain’s post-war political culture, characterised by a prolonged period of wilful forgetting, has impeded consensus on the past and rendered certain recollections contentious or socially untenable. Within this framework, emotionally charged or politically sensitive accounts are frequently withheld, constrained by entrenched norms of reticence and by the residual effects of authoritarian discourse
Overall, the book succeeds in providing an ethnography of remembering among a historically forgotten population. Although the author’s foreign background might initially have appeared to hinder his relationship with seniors, it ultimately proved to be advantageous, as certain participants were remarkably candid about matters that had long been condemned to silence. Another of the book’s merits lies in the diversity of its analytical components, which are grounded in participant observation, life-story interviews, poems, theatrical sketches, and songs. Consequently, this work will be of significant value in facilitating a reflective dialogue between official discourses and the narratives of those who endured the consequences of Franco’s dictatorship. In the present context of heightened tensions and the reframing of the past by Spain’s far-right parties, the voices of migrants are more necessary than ever.
