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Wednesday 23 April 2014 11.00 - 13.00
Q-2 ORA02 Mediating Ruptures and Silences in the Memory of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe
SR IOGF first floor
Network: Oral History Chair: Sofia Serenelli
Organizers: - Discussant: Sofia Serenelli
Rebecca Clifford : Narrating ‘1968’: Between Dominant Images and Memories of Personal Crisis
In many countries that saw mass social activism in the years around 1968, there are two particularly powerful, and oppositional, dominant narratives of the experience: one celebrates the energies and possibilities that accompanied collective activism, and the other traces a host of social ills to the ‘hedonism’ of the era. ... (Show more)
In many countries that saw mass social activism in the years around 1968, there are two particularly powerful, and oppositional, dominant narratives of the experience: one celebrates the energies and possibilities that accompanied collective activism, and the other traces a host of social ills to the ‘hedonism’ of the era. These dual cultural tropes have a significant impact upon the narratives of former activists relating their experiences in interview: because interviewees tend to support one dominant narrative and question or reject the other, the complexities of their own personal experience can be muffled between the competing pull of these two collective memories. In particular, interviewees can struggle to narrate stories of crisis and rupture. Entry into collective activism often prompted ruptures for activists: ruptures with parents, siblings, spouses, schoolmates and communities. Yet these often painful stories of rupture can break the composure of a narrative: where former activists remember the period as both liberating and constraining, embracing and isolating, or joyful and violent, what language and narrative patterns can they draw on to articulate these paradoxes? This paper will argue that moments of personal crisis and rupture can be particularly challenging for former activists to narrate in interview, and yet it is precisely these rare moments of discomposure that make oral history such a valuable tool for complexifying and enriching our understanding of ‘1968’. It will draw on interviews with former Italian activists, conducted as part of a large collaborative research project on 1968 in Europe, to explore how interviewees speak of (or fail to speak of) moments of personal crisis and rupture linked to the experience of collective activism, and to probe some of the particular methodological challenges facing oral historians who are working on the protest movements of the 1960s. (Show less)

Andrea Davis : 'I'm from nowhere really': Ruptured Narratives of Family Origins among Anti-Francoist Militants
It is common for Spanish activists who came of age during the late-1960s and 70s to frame their militancy as a story of political awakening rather than family continuity. Though many came from families with long traditions of resistance and experiences of repression, militancy is more seamlessly narrated as a ... (Show more)
It is common for Spanish activists who came of age during the late-1960s and 70s to frame their militancy as a story of political awakening rather than family continuity. Though many came from families with long traditions of resistance and experiences of repression, militancy is more seamlessly narrated as a tale of generational rebellion. Indeed, participating in the anti-Francoist movements of the 1970s offered Spanish youth the opportunity to make collective sense of the most pressing ambiguities of sociopolitical life while also demanding a change in regime. In contrast, these same activists often struggle to link the roots of their militancy to the larger narratives of their families. To this day, many of the more intimate details of daily life under the dictatorship remain ambiguous and there is no collective narrative that helps account for the deterioration of family structures and traditions under the stress of forty years of repression. Forced to move disjointedly between personal memories, incomplete family histories, and contemporary historical knowledge, the family narratives of former anti-Francoist militants are riddled with ruptures. What is more, many express frustration regarding their inability to construct a coherent account or shame when, in the process of giving testimony, they confront their previously held misconceptions regarding family dynamics- such as the significance of negative responses to their militancy during the 70s. In this presentation I analyze contrasts in the narration of individual militancy on the one hand, and family continuity on the other as a testament to the effects and legacies of the reorganization of collective life under the Francoist dictatorship. (Show less)

Andrea Hajek : Silences and Dominant Narratives of Motherhood and Abortion in the Memories of Women Activists in 1970s Italy
In Italy, women have long been stereotypically marked as either objects of sexual desire or as producers of new life. This changed radically in the 1970s, when second-wave feminism redefined gender relations and experimented with new paths of life not determined by matrimony and maternity. The legalisation of abortion, during ... (Show more)
In Italy, women have long been stereotypically marked as either objects of sexual desire or as producers of new life. This changed radically in the 1970s, when second-wave feminism redefined gender relations and experimented with new paths of life not determined by matrimony and maternity. The legalisation of abortion, during the second half of the decade, is now hailed as one of the primary achievements of the women’s movement. A theme closely connected to abortion such as motherhood, on the other hand, seems to have been excluded from the public memory of 1970s feminism. Drawing on the outcomes of an oral history project, this paper unearths the dominant discourses and individual and collective silences within the public memory of the 1970s women’s movement in Italy, focusing on Bologna, a popular university city which hosted a versatile student movement and a lively women’s movement composed of a myriad of subgroups. It explores processes of ‘composure’ among women as they remember their experiences of motherhood and abortion, and of ‘discomposure’, that is the personal ‘disequilibrium’ and discomfort that accompanied some of the women’s attempts at composing a story about their selves to the background of a public memory of feminism that left little space for memories of motherhood. (Show less)

Katharina Karcher : Sisters in Arms? Female Participation in Leftist Political Violence in the Federal Republic of Germany Since 1970
This paper presents key findings of a three-year research project on female participation in leftist political violence in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1970. It focuses on four militant leftist groups: the ‘Red Army Faction’ (RAF), the ‘Movement of June 2’ (MJ2), the ‘Revolutionary Cells’ (RC), and the ‘Red ... (Show more)
This paper presents key findings of a three-year research project on female participation in leftist political violence in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1970. It focuses on four militant leftist groups: the ‘Red Army Faction’ (RAF), the ‘Movement of June 2’ (MJ2), the ‘Revolutionary Cells’ (RC), and the ‘Red Zora’ (RZ). Unlike the RAF, the MJ2 has attracted little attention by scholars and journalists; and there is virtually no literature on the RC and the RZ. To offer a nuanced analysis of the history, ideologies and activities of the four groups, the paper draws on semi-structured interviews with former group members and contemporary witnesses, autobiographical accounts, scholarly literature, newspaper articles, and a range of archival sources. The guiding questions for the discussion are: what roles have women played in the four organisations and in concrete manifestations of political violence? And, to what extent could female participation in political violence be understood as a form of feminist militancy? The data examined suggests that whilst opposing the existing gender regime, women in the RAF and MJ2 effectively used femininity as camouflage to carry out violent attacks. Neither of both groups had a feminist agenda. The RZ and some of the women in the RC, by contrast, took up central themes in the women’s movement. Their activities could well be understood as a form of feminist militancy. (Show less)



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