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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF LAW, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES THE BASQUE REFUGEE CHILDREN OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN THE UK: MEMORY AND MEMORIALISATION by Susana Sabín-Fernández Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2010 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF LAW, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES Doctor of Philosophy THE BASQUE REFUGEE CHILDREN OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN THE UK: MEMORY AND MEMORIALISATION By Susana Sabín-Fernández A vast body of knowledge has been produced in the field of war remembrance, particularly concerning the Spanish Civil War. However, the representation and interpretation of that conflictual past have been increasingly contested within the wider context of ‘recuperation of historical memory’ which is taking place both in Spain and elsewhere. An academic gap has been identified with regard to the part played by the Basque Children (Niños Vascos) who were evacuated to the UK in 1937 as a result of the war. This thesis investigates the impact that forced migration has had on these children’s identity construction, particularly those who settled permanently in the host country. The thesis is a comparative examination of the process of memory construction and memorialisation, across transnational spaces and time. It analyses the nature and development of commemorative practices both in the UK and in the Basque Country, addressing some of the most fundamental issues related to agency and categorisations. My analysis of the social actors goes beyond Jelin’s ‘memory entrepreneurs’ to include those memory profiteers who benefit from a return to the past in order to fulfil their own personal agendas. I introduce the new term ‘conmemoraccionistas’ to refer to them. The central question dealt with here is how identities are constructed and reconstructed in the social and political arenas in which remembrance takes place. By using ethnography and a multimodal approach, this study provides an in- depth analysis of the discourses of the main agents engaged in memory production, and their agendas. It also identifies reasons for disengagement. Finally, it examines the interrelated narratives of those social actors and how they build on interaction with each other in a complex and continually changing social reality, where I argue, identities can no longer be approached from an essentialist polarising and dichotomising perspective. On the contrary, new approaches are needed which see identitarian development as a dynamic and accumulative process in which different actors have an input and identities are displayed according to particular contexts, settings, and audiences. i ii CONTENTS A b s t r a c t i C o n t e n t s iii List of figures vii Declaration of Authorship ix Acknowledgements xi G l o s s a r y xiii INTRODUCTION 1 0.1 CONTEXT OF THE RESEARCH 1 0.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 5 0.3 CHAPTER STRUCTURE 6 CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: MEMORY, MEMORIALISATION AND DISPLACEMENT 9 1.1 INTRODUCTION 9 1.2 MEMORY 10 1.2.1 Individual and collective memory 13 1.2.2 Time and collective memory 17 1.2.3 Memory and history 21 1.2.4 Remembering and forgetting 24 1.2.5 Memory matters 27 1.3 MEMORIALISATION 31 1.3.1 Dates and rituals 35 1.3.2 Sites of memory 36 1.4 DISPLACEMENT 37 1.4.1 Refugee 37 1.4.1.1 Framing home 40 1.4.1.2 Us and the others 41 1.4.2 Diaspora 44 CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY AND DATA: ANALYSING REMEMBRANCE 49 2.1 INTRODUCTION 49 iii 2.2 FIELDWORK 50 2.2.1 Scope of an oral approach 50 2.2.2 Scope of ethnography 52 2.2.3 Data collection 55 2.2.4 Participant observation 57 2.2.5 Ethnographic interviews/conversations 59 2.3 OTHER SOURCES 64 2.4 DATA ANALYSIS 65 2.5 METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES OF AN ORAL APPROACH 70 2.5.1 Access to information and representativeness 70 2.5.2 Professional interviewee-ness 72 2.5.3 Subjectivity 74 2.5.4 Transcriptions 75 2.5.5 Self-reflexivity 77 2.5.5.1 Ethnographer’s position in the research 78 2.5.5.2 Translations 81 2.5.5.3 Ethical concerns 84 CHAPTER 3 THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT AND THE BASQUE REFUGEE CHILDREN 89 3.1 INTRODUCTION 89 3.2 THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR 90 3.2.1 Historiography of the war 90 3.2.2 Republic and war 92 3.2.3 Particular circumstances in the Basque Country 94 3.3 INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT 96 3.3.1 Early foreign intervention and policies of appeasement 97 3.3.2 Non-intervention Agreement 99 3.3.3 International brigades and volunteer movement 101 3.4 THE BASQUE REFUGEE CHILDREN 104 3.4.1 Gernika 104 3.4.2 Evacuations 109 3.4.3 Arrival and life in the UK 116 3.4.3.1 Arrival, refugee camp and dispersal to the colonias 116 3.4.3.2 End of communal life: repatriations and adult life 122 iv CHAPTER 4 THE MEANING OF THE COMMEMORATIVE PRACTICES: ‘CONMEMORACCIONES’ 131 4.1 INTRODUCTION 131 4.2 PRIVATE MEMORY 132 4.2.1 Place 133 4.2.2 Date 135 4.2.3 Social orders 136 4.2.3.1 What they say – negotiating group boundaries 137 4.2.3.2 What they do – building social relations 142 4.3 PUBLIC REPRESENTATIONS 145 4.3.1 Southampton 149 4.3.1.1 The Niños Vascos 152 4.3.1.2 The politicians 153 4.3.1.3 The media 158 4.3.1.4 Social order 161 4.3.2 Eastleigh 164 4.3.2.1 Rationale 166 4.3.2.1.1 ‘To engage local community through arts’ 167 4.3.2.1.2 ‘To inform and educate so that we don’t forget’ 168 4.3.2.2 Acciones and agendas 170 4.3.2.2.1 Film 170 4.3.2.2.2 Theatre/dance 172 4.3.2.2.3 Audience with the broadcaster 174 CHAPTER 5 THE MEANING OF BEING THE BASQUE REFUGEE CHILDREN OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN THE UK 177 5.1 INTRODUCTION 177 5.2 THE BASQUE REFUGEE CHILDREN 178 5.2.1 Categorisation 180 5.2.2 Niños de la guerra 182 5.2.3 Niños vascos 188 5.2.4 Los olvidados 197 5.3 SENSE OF BELONGING 211 5.3.1 Imagined home: ‘Home is where one starts from’: Stable and Safe? Place to 212 return to? 5.3.2 Constructed home 214 5.3.2.1 Parameters: Space? Time? Feelings? 214 5.3.2.2 Dichotomy: Spanish? English? 218 5.3.2.3 Other approaches 223 v 5.3.2.3.1 Art - creating a world of their own 223 5.3.2.3.2 Making one’s home 225 5.4 TRANSFORMATION AND ACCUMULATION OF IDENTITIES VERSUS ACCULTURATION AND ASSIMILATION 227 5.4.1 Family transformation 228 5.4.2 Language transformation 230 5.4.3 Contribution towards the host society and impact on ‘the others’ 233 5.4.4 From identitarian dichotomy and trichotomy to a cumulative multiplicity 235 of identities CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS 241 6.1 INTRODUCTION 241 6.2 THE ‘BUSINESS’ OF MEMORY 243 6.2.1 Who, how, where, when 243 6.2.2 What, why 247 6.3 IDENTITY MATTERS 249 6.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY 252 N o t e s 255 Appendix A: Nomenclature 289 Appendix B: The Basque Children of ’37 Association UK 291 Appendix C: The historian 295 S o u r c e s 297 vi LIST OF FIGURES All the photographs presented in the thesis are my own. Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 5.3 are photographs taken of archival material which belongs to the Basque Children of ’37 Association UK. Figure 4.3 is a photograph of a programme of events. Figure 5.1 is a photograph of a poster. Introduction Figure 0.1 p 1 A niña vasca standing by a commemorative plaque of the 70th anniversary of the evacuation of the Niños Vascos. Southampton Civic Centre, 27.05.2008. Chapter 2 Figure 2.1 p 67 A niño vasco at an event which paid tribute to the ‘Niños y niñas de la guerra vascos’. Santurtzi, 14.06.2008. Figure 2.2 p 73 A niña vasca at an event which paid tribute to the ‘Niños y niñas de la guerra vascos’. Santurtzi, 14.06.2008 Chapter 3 Figure 3.1 p 93 Photocopy of the front page of the newspaper La Gaceta del Norte. A Sunday in December 1937 (date not visible). Figure 3.2 p 118 Photograph of an original aerial photograph of the refugee camp site at Eastleigh. Chapter 4 Figure 4.1 p 155 Seating arrangement of guest speakers at the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Niños Vascos in the UK.