Politics of memory and slavery in Spain: Barcelona in comparative perspective.

Authors

Keywords:

Slavery, Europe, Memory, Museums, Monuments

Abstract

In this article we analyze the actions carried out, both from civil society and above all from public institutions, in the field of memory of slavery and the slave trade in Barcelona. We have adopted a comparative approach to contextualise these initiatives in relation to the actions recently carried out in different British and French cities, thus highlighting the scope and, even more so, the limitations of the memory of slavery in the Catalan capital, and insisting that these shortcomings are not exclusive to Barcelona but extend to other Spanish cities as well.

Author Biographies

Martín Rodrigo Alharilla , Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Professor of Contemporary History in the Department of Humanities at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and member of the Research Group on Empires, Metropolis and Extra-European Societies (GRIMSE) at the same university. He is also part of the Associate Unit of the Asia-Pacific Studies Group, UPF-CSIC and is a foreign corresponding member of the Academy of History of Cuba. He directs and coordinates a collective research project dedicated to the memory and places of memory of slavery and the slave trade in Spain today.

Ulrike Schmieder , Leibniz Universität Hannover

Researcher and lecturer in Latin American and Caribbean history at the Department of History of the Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany). She has worked as a lecturer at the Universities of Leipzig, Cologne, zacatecas, Heidelberg and Bremen. Her second doctoral dissertation (habilitation thesis) compares Mexico, Brazil and Cuba with respect to gender history (1780-1880). Her latest book, published in 2017, deals with Martinican and Cuban societies in the post-slavery period in comparison to other Caribbean societies after emancipation. She is currently coordinator of the Center for Atlantic and Global Studies to research memories of African trafficking and slavery in the Caribbean and former colonial powers.

Historia Social 105

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Published

2024-02-09

Issue

No. 105 (2023)

Section

Estudios