Unit 2

Unit 2: Memoria, Historia, Aprendizaje y Olvido

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"Recordar implica estar vinculando a un marco colectivo y compartir puntos de referencia sociales que permiten coordinar las memorias en el tiempo y en el espacio"-P. Aguilar (p38, 1996)
   

Lesson 1: Understanding the Idea of a Collective Memory 

What are your thoughts when you hear about historical memory? According to scholars, the idea of historical memory (which is also referred to as social or collective memory)  is a recent field of study (J.R Resina, 2000). This complex idea of a collective memory; comes from the fact that even though memories are constructed by individuals through lived and transmitted experiences and events,  they are also part of and share a community in common which in turn, as do all communities, possesses a history that builds itself as the individuals keep sharing their experiences and as historians continue documenting those shared experience. It is precisely the memories and/or events from that history that make possible for an individual to be part of and feel identified with a social group within that community. Therefore, as P. Aguilar (p.33, 1996) refering to the work of the sociologist David Durkheim says: "[...] la memoria colectiva no es sino la suma de las memorias individuales" (The collective memories aren't but the the sum of the individual memories). 

Thinking Ahead Questions

  • What happens when the process of recollection of memories is altered or controlled? 
  • What is the risk if historians, for any reason, cannot or do not establish a common past to be shared by a social group? 
  • What could happen if my memories, as an individual, are not the same as those of other members of the society that I am part of?

Click on lesson 1 to participate of the lesson's activities.




Lesson 2:  The Outcome of the "Never Again Pact"

As we learned in the previous lesson, the correct use of history and memory facilitates the synery between them to establish what we know as collective memory. The memories of a social group help individuals to make new decisions towards a desired future. Those decisions are made taking into account the learning outcomes of the previous experiences to avoid the same mistakes from the past. Nevertheless, the debate about the historical memory has not allowed Spaniards to reach an agreement about their past in order to secure from it a common learning outcome that would help them move forward as a society. In this lesson, you will learn about the "pact of oblivion" and how such a decision has created distrust and discord between different groups.

Thinking Ahead Questions 

  • How important is it to have a common learning outcome from our past?
  • How one can forget the unforgettable?
  • If there are uncommon memories, then, by how much do the learning outcome of the civil war and Francoism learning vary?


Click on Lesson 2 to participate in the lesson's activities.

Lesson 3: An Irrelevant Past

In this lesson we will learn about the importance of generations within the topic of collective memory. Generations play a crucial role in the preservation and memorization of the past. They transmit memories and outcomes from the lived experiences. However, these memories, as is the case with Spain,  are transmitted along with fears and traumas. In addition, generations interpret the past filtering it through situations of the present. This becomes even more problematic when you have a society that wants to dissociate itself from its past. As the fears from the Civil War and Francoism resurrected during the transition period and the government decided to keep silence, the new generations began to see an unrecognizable past . Even though modernization helped Spain to be seen as a new and re-established country, it also contributed to the erasure of the collective memory by keeping the new generations busy planning a future and forgetting a past that seemed no longer relevant.    

Thinking Ahead Questions

  • How can fears and traumas affect the decisions of  new generations?
  • Could other factors interfere with the transmission of memories?
  • Do you think modernity is a contributing factor to oblivion? Why? How?


Click on Lesson 3 to participate in the lesson's activities.

Lesson 4: A Memory that Can't Stand Alone

In the absence of an official and hegemonic collective memory, it is the multiples, individual ones that have the responsibility of transmitting and preserving the common past. The existence of these multiple memories is the evidence that confirms the failure of  efforts to keep the political memory, created through the transition, valid and prevailing over the other ones. The fact that both memories, the individual and the collective ones, have to coexist (by having common memories to establish and maintain a social stability); explains the current contradiction within the current status of Spain's historical memory. The conflict between memories breaks any re-conciliating attempt, to defend the ideologies, aspirations and the honor of those who fought in the Civil War. Moreover, the fear of a new confrontation has prompted some historians for manipulate the information published to the members of the society; thereby, contributing to the conflict by undermining an objective presentation of the past.


Thinking Ahead Questions

  • What would be the effects of having divided memories of a common past?
  • Why do think the coexistence of the social memories is indispensable?
  • Would you say that sometimes it is necessary to "conceal" a past? 



Click on lesson 4 to participate in the lesson's activities.




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Unit 2