Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausencias

On May 1st, 2014 members of the historical memory team from the Aranzadi Sciences Society arrived in Oropesa de Toledo. The objective: to locate two mass graves containing the remains of Republicans killed in the weeks after Franco’s troops entered the town in 1936. Despite evidence regarding the ma...

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Main Author: Lee Douglas
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centre de Recherches sur les Mondes Américains 2021-03-01
Series:Nuevo mundo - Mundos Nuevos
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/84053
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author Lee Douglas
author_facet Lee Douglas
author_sort Lee Douglas
collection DOAJ
description On May 1st, 2014 members of the historical memory team from the Aranzadi Sciences Society arrived in Oropesa de Toledo. The objective: to locate two mass graves containing the remains of Republicans killed in the weeks after Franco’s troops entered the town in 1936. Despite evidence regarding the mass graves’ existence, they were never found. Drawing on empirical, ethnographic data collected in the town of Oropesa in the months following this «unsuccessful» exhumation, this paper narrates this curious story of two graves that have «gone missing». It considers the intellectual labor exerted to produce historical knowledge in a context where municipal archives remain inaccessible and family histories are marked by silence and dis-information. The author suggests that the absence of information – the dearth of historical, narrative evidence – regarding the lives of the defeated makes the production of historical and forensic knowledge a complicated affair. It tracks how kin-based knowledge and scarce archival documents are gathered and animated in order to make exhumations possible. Considering the forms of knowledge that are needed in order to engage techno-scientific expertise in meaningful ways, the paper attends to the important role that kin-based knowledge and seemingly «unimportant» documents play in processes of historical enunciation.
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spelling doaj.art-8be977e2ab5e4cb9b96059d4096714aa2024-02-14T16:53:34ZengCentre de Recherches sur les Mondes AméricainsNuevo mundo - Mundos Nuevos1626-02522021-03-0110.4000/nuevomundo.84053Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausenciasLee DouglasOn May 1st, 2014 members of the historical memory team from the Aranzadi Sciences Society arrived in Oropesa de Toledo. The objective: to locate two mass graves containing the remains of Republicans killed in the weeks after Franco’s troops entered the town in 1936. Despite evidence regarding the mass graves’ existence, they were never found. Drawing on empirical, ethnographic data collected in the town of Oropesa in the months following this «unsuccessful» exhumation, this paper narrates this curious story of two graves that have «gone missing». It considers the intellectual labor exerted to produce historical knowledge in a context where municipal archives remain inaccessible and family histories are marked by silence and dis-information. The author suggests that the absence of information – the dearth of historical, narrative evidence – regarding the lives of the defeated makes the production of historical and forensic knowledge a complicated affair. It tracks how kin-based knowledge and scarce archival documents are gathered and animated in order to make exhumations possible. Considering the forms of knowledge that are needed in order to engage techno-scientific expertise in meaningful ways, the paper attends to the important role that kin-based knowledge and seemingly «unimportant» documents play in processes of historical enunciation.https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/84053Techno-scientific expertisearchival recordsforensic sciencesocial memoryfailed exhumations
spellingShingle Lee Douglas
Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausencias
Nuevo mundo - Mundos Nuevos
Techno-scientific expertise
archival records
forensic science
social memory
failed exhumations
title Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausencias
title_full Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausencias
title_fullStr Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausencias
title_full_unstemmed Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausencias
title_short Buscar, pero no encontrar: la producción del conocimiento histórico en un mundo de ausencias
title_sort buscar pero no encontrar la produccion del conocimiento historico en un mundo de ausencias
topic Techno-scientific expertise
archival records
forensic science
social memory
failed exhumations
url https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/84053
work_keys_str_mv AT leedouglas buscarperonoencontrarlaproducciondelconocimientohistoricoenunmundodeausencias