Wayward children. Forms of agency and everyday resistance of minors during Franco’s post-war years (1939-1950)

Abstract

This article analyses the practices of nonconformity and disobedience carried out by minors in Franco’s post-war period in the spaces in which they spent their everyday lives. The research underlines that, beyond their condition as victims of hunger and violence, the children of the 1940s were social actors who were resilient and obstinate in the adverse context in which they spent their childhood. The first part explores the not necessarily political Eigensinn practices of post-war children. In the second part, those actions of resistance with political connotations behind which there were boys and girls who had not yet come of age are analysed. Based on judicial sources and from the perspective of social history and history of everyday life, the article argues that these unruly behaviours were made possible by the socialisation experiences of minors during the civil war and even during the Republic, and that they contributed to the material and emotional survival of both themselves and their families