Social Movements, Memory And Media: Narrative In Action In The Italian And Spanish Student Movements (palgrave Studies In European Political Sociology)

Cultural factors shape the symbolic environment in which contentious politics take place. Among these factors, collective memories are particularly relevant: they can help collective action by providing symbolic material from the past, but at the same time they can constrain people's ability to mobilise by imposing proscriptions and prescriptions. This book analyses the relationship between social movements and collective memories: how do social movements participate in the building of public memory? And how does public memory, and in particular the media's representation of a contentious past, influence strategic choices in contemporary movements? To answer these questions the book draws its focus on the evolution of the representation of specific events in the Italian and Spanish student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, through qualitative interviews to contemporary student activists in both countries, it investigates the role of past waves of contention in shaping the present through the publicly discussed image of the past.-- Provided by Publisher Acknowledgements 7 Contents 9 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 12 Part I: Introduction, Background and Methods 13 1: Introduction 14 References 22 Bibliography 22 2: Memory and Movements: A Long Research Path 23 1 Conceptualising Memory in Social Science 23 2 Memory and Legacies in Social Movement Studies 28 3 The Media as the Arena of Public Memory 33 4 Memory and Movements: A Research Agenda 35 Memory in Discourse 35 Memory in Action 37 References 38 Bibliography 38 3: The Student Movements in Italy and Spain and How to Study Their Memories 46 1 Research Design and Case Studies 46 Contentious Past 49 Present 50 2 Media Content Analysis 52 3 Interviews with Contemporary Activists 54 Memory in Located Memory Texts 55 4 An Experience of Engaged Research 58 References 61 Bibliography 61 Part II: Memory in Discourse: Representations of the 1960s and 1970s in the Media Forum 65 4: Contentious Memories of the Italian Student Movement: The ‘Long 1968’ in the Field of Public Memory 66 1 The Student Movement, 1968, 1977 66 2 Historiography 67 3 Public Memory 69 Cinema, TV, and the Press 69 Memoirs and Narrative 72 4 Tracing the Paths of Two Events in 40 Years of Public Memory 75 Sources 75 Events 76 Some Peculiar Cultural Artefacts as Memory Carriers 78 5 The ‘Battle of Valle Giulia’ 85 6 The ‘Chase of Lama’ 95 7 Concluding Remarks 103 Possessive Memory and Contentious Politics 103 The Decreasing Malleability of Mnemonic Material 104 The Two 1968s: 1968-Counterculture Versus the 1968-Struggle 105 Valle Giulia as the Canon of Social Conflict (the Role of Cultural Artefacts) 106 Repositories of Memory 107 References 122 Bibliography 122 5: Contentious Memories of the Spanish Student Movement: Representations of the Spanish 1968 in the Public Memory of the Transition 126 1 The Spanish 1968 Between Student Mobilisation and Anti-Francoism 127 2 The Debate on Memory and the Spanish Transition 128 3 Sources: The Spanish Press and the Transition to Democracy 129 4 La Capuchinada: 1968 Before 1968 130 5 ‘En extrañas circunstancias’: The Memory and Oblivion of Enrique Ruano’s Death 151 6 Concluding Remarks 169 Political Context, Social Mobilisation, and Different Narratives 169 Actors: Appropriation and Possessive Memory 170 Democratisation, Controversial Victims, and the Sixty-­Eight-­isation of Spanish Memory 170 References 180 Bibliography 180 Part III: Memory in Action: Mnemonic Practices, Collective Identities and Strategic Choices in Contemporary Student Movements 183 6: Syntax: The Forms of Memory 184 1 Memories, Legacies, Continuities, and Rituals: Keeping Together Macro, Meso, and Micro Levels 184 2 Syntax: The Forms of Memory 186 Origin Stories and Foundation Myths 187 Organisational or Material Structures Remaining from the Past 190 Protest Traditions and Political Connotations of the Local Field of Action 194 Comparisons Between Waves of Mobilisation 197 ‘Classical’ Repertoires and the Textbook of Student Mobilisation 198 3 Concluding Remarks 201 References 203 Bibliography 203 Interviews 204 7: Semantics: The Competing Narratives of Student Movement Memories 205 1 Introduction 205 Competing Memories 208 Resisting Memories 211 2 What Past Do Activist Refer To? 213 Italy 214 Spain 222 3 Analogies and Differences 227 4 ‘We Start from Scratch Every Time’: The Eternal Turnover of the Student Movement 230 5 ‘What Came Before Us, We Lived It, as an Organisation’: Movement Areas as Mnemonic Communities 234 6 ‘I Learned It from the Newspapers’: A Complex Repertoire, Plural Repositories, and Movement Culture Permeability 241 7 Concluding Remarks 243 References 245 Bibliography 245 Interviews 247 8: Pragmatics: Memory, Identity, and Strategy 249 1 The Return of the ‘Already Seen’: Comparisons from Outside and Movement Reactions 253 2 Imagined Continuities: Comparisons from Inside and Movement Appropriation of Memory 259 3 Cultural Traumas 263 4 Knowing the Textbook and Learning from It 266 5 No Trespassing: Historical Taboos, Inherited Proscriptions, and Metonymies 267 6 Born This Way: The Groups’ Given Identities and the Curse of History 269 7 Memory Work and Memory at Work: Dealing with Inherited Identities in the Context of Mobilisation 273 8 Limited Apostasy: Downplaying Identity 274 9 Unity and Innovation in the Emergence of Mobilisation 278 10 Sweet Weight: The Limits of Apostasy and the Choice of Compliance 281 11 The Lighter the Better: The Strategic Exploitation of the Others’ Inherited Constraints 284 12 ‘There and Back Again’: Mobilisation as the Context of Change 287 13 Concluding Remarks 290 References 292 Bibliography 292 Interviews 293 9: Conclusions 295 1 Collective Memory and Social Movements 295 2 Memory: A Complex Repertoire and Plural Repositories 296 3 Movements: An Embedded History in Identity, Strategy, and Continuity 300 4 Proposals for a Contextual Analysis of Mnemonic Processes 306 5 Open Questions 318 References 319 Bibliography 319 Bibliography 323 Interviews 337 Index 339 Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Introduction (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 3-11 Memory and Movements: A Long Research Path (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 13-35 The Student Movements in Italy and Spain and How to Study Their Memories (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 37-55 Front Matter ....Pages 57-57 Contentious Memories of the Italian Student Movement: The ‘Long 1968’ in the Field of Public Memory (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 59-118 Contentious Memories of the Spanish Student Movement: Representations of the Spanish 1968 in the Public Memory of the Transition (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 119-175 Front Matter ....Pages 177-177 Syntax: The Forms of Memory (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 179-199 Semantics: The Competing Narratives of Student Movement Memories (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 201-244 Pragmatics: Memory, Identity, and Strategy (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 245-290 Conclusions (Lorenzo Zamponi)....Pages 291-318 Back Matter ....Pages 319-339 Annotation Cultural factors shape the symbolic environment in which contentious politics take place. Among these factors, collective memories are particularly relevant: they can help collective action by providing symbolic material from the past, but at the same time they can constrain people's ability to mobilise by imposing proscriptions and prescriptions. This book analyses the relationship between social movements and collective memories: how do social movements participate in the building of public memory? And how does public memory, and in particular the media's representation of a contentious past, influence strategic choices in contemporary movements? To answer these questions the book draws its focus on the evolution of the representation of specific events in the Italian and Spanish student movements of the 1960s and 1970s