Exiles, Migrants and Citizens: Narrating and documenting displacement in contemporary Spain (online)

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Apply a multidisciplinary approach to the study of migration and exile
• Undertake critical reading of primary texts that represent different aspects of migration and exile

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Synthesise material in Spanish and English in order to transmit it to fellow students in seminars
• Work effectively in a group as well as independently
• Handle primary and secondary documents and literature

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Macro- and micro-structural aspects of Spanish migration and exile
• The impact of migratory and exilic experiences at individual and collective level
• Historical constructions of Spanish migrants and exiles
• The social and political contexts of migrations in 20th and 21st c. Spain
• The impact of Spanish migration and exile on places of origin and destination

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Identify and compare the experiences of economic migrants, political refugees, and exiles
• Analyse critically the role of government policies and social networks in fostering, supporting and deterring migration
• Discuss the wider contexts and connections between Spanish recent emigration patterns and current immigration flows
• Discuss the contributions of migrants and exiles to their home and host countries
• Engage with the consequences of migration and exile upon individual and collective forms of identification

Migration has been a recurrent theme that has characterised Spain’s social, political and cultural history since its emergence as a modern nation in 1492. This module will focus on the following more recent migration movements of the 20th and 21st century:

a) Spanish Republican exile of the Spanish Civil War

b) Evacuation and exile of Spanish, Catalan and Basque refugee children

c) Labour emigration during the Franco regime

d) Spain as a country of immigration from the mid1980s

e) New Spanish migrants in 21st century

In analysing these migration movements the module will focus on key contextual issues, theoretical concepts and research methodologies used in the study of forced and voluntary migrations. The aim is to provide you with an overview of the political and socio-economic contexts that triggered and sustained these migrations as well as an understanding of the impact that the presence of exiles and migrants had on the receiving societies. More specifically, the module seeks to encourage you to reflect upon the impact that migration and exile has on individual and collective forms of identification, representation and discourses, which you will explore through analysis of a variety of primary and secondary sources, including personal testimonies, interviews, documentaries, migrant periodical publications and media representations of migrants and exiles. In doing so, a key concern will be to consider the ways in which individuals and societies experience, remember and interpret their memories of dislocation and displacement.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching activities include

 Regular recorded lectures from module leader delivered online (using Panopto - lecture capture software) (5 lectures)

 Associated online chat and Discussion Forum activities(minimum 2 submissions per student)

 Student participation and interaction through group blogging tasks( no specified number – participation will be encouraged)

 Student online presentations using MailVu videocasts or online forums(one per stduent

 Individual tutorials

Learning activities include

 Organisation of material and own ideas for oral presentation;

 Developing own interpretation of theoretical works and texts;

 Debating ideas with tutor and fellow colleagues in online forums

 Independent study.

Individual research

 Accessing online resources

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

El Exilio republicano español. Pedro Carvajal (2000) (Documentary film) El Exilio republicano español. 1939-1978

Journal Articles

Dori Laub (1992). ‘Bearing Witness or the Vicissitudes of Listening’. Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history, pp. 57-74.

Paul Ward (2005). Defining Documentary. Documentary: The margins of reality, pp. 6-13.

Edward W Said. 'Reflections on exile’. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, pp. 173-185.

Susannah Radstone (2000). ‘Introduction’,. Memory and Methodology, (1-22).

Textbooks

Patricia. W. Fagen (1973). Exiles and Citizens – Spanish Republicans in Mexico. Austin and London: Texas University Press.

Gènevieve Dreyfus-Armand (2000). El exilio de los republicanos españoles en Francia: De la guerra civil a la muerte de Franco. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica S.L.,.

Antonio Soriano (1989). Éxodos: Historial oral del exilio republicano en Francia 1939-1945. Barcelona: Crítica.

Dora Schwarzstein (2001). Entre Franco y Perón: Memoria e identidad del exilio republicano español en Argentina. Barcelona: EditorialCrítica S.L.,.

Adrian Bell (1996). Only for three months – The Basque Children in Exile. Norwich: Mousehold Press.

Louis Stein (1979). Beyond death and exile. The Spanish Republicans in France, 1939-1955. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.