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Time Is Not a Military Rank”: the Production of History and the Liberalization of the Spanish Railways by Natalia Buier

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Time Is Not a Military Rank”: the Production of History and the Liberalization of the Spanish Railways by Natalia Buier “Time is not a military rank”: The production of history and the liberalization of the Spanish railways By Natalia Buier Submitted to Central European University Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisors: Professor Don Kalb Professor Violetta Zentai CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2016 Contents Introduction: In defense of a materialist anthropology of memory .................................................................... 5 i. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 5 ii. Towards a materialist anthropology of memory ....................................................................................... 10 The production of history ......................................................................................................................................... 13 The production of history and historical memory ......................................................................................... 19 The production of history and hegemony .......................................................................................................... 25 The production of history and the anthropology of class ............................................................................ 29 A case in context ........................................................................................................................................................... 32 And finally, a broader influence ............................................................................................................................. 35 iii. The railway journey ............................................................................................................................................... 37 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................................................................ 39 PART I: The Represented Past .......................................................................................................................................... 44 1. Shadows on the Walls ................................................................................................................................................. 49 1.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 49 1.2. Renfe in context .............................................................................................................................................. 52 1.3. Explaining the past ........................................................................................................................................ 58 2. AVE María, or the second coming of rail ............................................................................................................. 74 2.1. The second coming of rail ........................................................................................................................... 75 2.2. Vía Libre - ¨We only talk about the railways and we talk well” (“Solo hablamos de ferrocarril y hablamos bien”) .................................................................................................................................. 78 2.3. The metaphysics of new management .................................................................................................. 84 2.4. Back to the future ......................................................................................................................................... 100 PART II: The Remembered Past ..................................................................................................................................... 102 3. From coal to silk, from pilots to Easyjet pilots: The Spanish engine drivers' union and the memory of progress and decline ................................................................................................................................... 107 3.1. The reported sightings of optimism ..................................................................................................... 110 3.2. Origins .............................................................................................................................................................. 114 3.3. Consolidation ................................................................................................................................................. 115 CEU eTD Collection 3.4. Double-edged combativeness ................................................................................................................. 122 3.5. To feel like a railway worker, to remember as a generation ..................................................... 125 3.6. Absent sites of memory? ........................................................................................................................... 128 4. Anarcho-syndicalism: “No one is indispensable” .......................................................................................... 131 4.1. CGT ..................................................................................................................................................................... 131 4.2. Self-management from above ................................................................................................................. 144 4.3. SF -Confederación Intersindical ............................................................................................................. 148 4.4. CNT..................................................................................................................................................................... 150 PART III The proven past .................................................................................................................................................. 156 5. A Revolution without Alternatives ...................................................................................................................... 160 5.1. No railway quite like this .......................................................................................................................... 160 5.2. A Story of Origins ......................................................................................................................................... 163 5.3. Back to the future (II) ................................................................................................................................. 173 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................... 179 6. The Alchemy of Numbers ........................................................................................................................................ 181 6.1. Revealing the truth to the citizens ........................................................................................................ 183 6.2. The economic criticism .............................................................................................................................. 185 6.3. HSR and the limits of markets ................................................................................................................ 191 6.4. Competing calculative devices................................................................................................................ 194 6.5. Just how European is the AVE? .............................................................................................................. 197 6.6. The return of incommensurability ....................................................................................................... 199 Epilogue ................................................................................................................................................................................... 202 References ............................................................................................................................................................................... 204 CEU eTD Collection Abstract The argument that traverses this thesis is that the conflict between different forms of connecting the past to the present is central to understanding the recent transformations affecting the Spanish railways. I substantiate this argument across three sections that analyze dominant representations of the recent past, opposing syndical models and the development of high-speed rail. The liberalization process, as a distinct moment in the shift to the commercial railway, is not favoured equally by all historical readings, and the control over the means of historical production is essential to securing the legitimacy of future development plans. The field of possibilities in the present is built upon a specific interplay of silences and mentions, and understanding the constitution of these is essential to understanding the horizon of transformation of the Spanish railways. The argument is anchored by the proposition that the “production of history” focus, a distinct analytical lens at the crossroads of anthropology and history, is a useful instrument for advancing a materialist
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