Monash Spanish Transition Project
The “Monash Spanish Transition Project” (MSTP) is a research project that examines the role of artistic expression in shaping new Spanish identities following the demise of the Franco regime (1939-1975) and the reestablishment of democracy.
The MSTP webpage is a space in which the chief investigators and other participants will present aspects of their research. It will also provide a detailed database of – primarily English-language – materials related to the Spanish Transition to Democracy for interested students, researchers and members of the general public.
Chief investigators: Dr Stewart King and Dr Ramón López Castellano
Funding
Initial funding for this project has been generously provided by the:
- 2010 Spanish Cultural Cooperation Program between the Australian National University and Spanish Ministry of Culture ($5350)
- School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics.
Further funding has been sought in 2011 from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Project involving Dr Stewart King (Monash University), Dr Ramón López Castellano (Monash University), Prof. José Colmeiro (University of Auckland), Prof. Alfredo Martínez Expósito (University of Melbourne) and Prof. Paul Julian Smith (Graduate Studies Centre, City University of New York).
Why study the Spanish Transition to Democracy?
Since the 1970s numerous societies have experienced political transformation from dictatorial or semi-dictatorial regimes to democracy. This is the case in Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, Greece, Portugal, Spain, the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, South Africa, and, more recently, Tunisia and Egypt, to name just a few salient examples. The Spanish Transition paradigm serves as a particularly valuable case study because studies on the transition of authoritarian regimes to fully functioning democratic societies recognise, albeit with some reservations, the Spanish example as a successful model to be emulated.
For those interested in Spanish culture and society, the Transition is an exciting area of study, as it is associated with radical social, political, sexual and cultural change, the likes of which were unprecedented in Spain’s history. The Francoist notion of a hierarchical centralist state with a single, unified national identity was almost immediately dismantled as Spaniards began to embrace a broader understanding of national identity, one that recognised Spain’s multicultural and multilingual diversity and celebrated individual freedoms. Furthermore, the abolition of the strict censorship laws allowed for the expression of ideas, values and social practices that had been previously proscribed. Simultaneously, Spain saw the most powerful and irreverent (counter-) cultural revolution the country had ever experienced: la Movida, which is closely associated with the early films of Pedro Almodóvar, the punk rock of Alaska and McNamara, and the literature of Eduardo Haro Ibars, to name a few salient figures. Cultural regeneration and experimentation also took place in Basque, Catalan and Galician culture and society, making the Transition all the more remarkable.
Our approach
When analysing the processes that have contributed to or hindered the transition to democracy in different international contexts, scholarly attention has usually centred on the political, economic and institutional factors that have cemented democratic citizenship. While acknowledging the importance of these factors, the underlying premise of our proposed project is that transitions from dictatorial or semi-dictatorial regimes to democracies necessarily involve a deep shift in how national identity is conceived, and that popular artistic manifestations play a crucial role in this fundamental process. We believe that imagining a new society entails imagining a new self and a new other. Through the analysis of popular fiction, film, television and music, our project will explore the role of popular artistic expression in imagining and creating new individual and national identities during the specific process of transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain.
Mutual understanding is one of the most significant goals facing the post-September 11 world. The close study of popular fiction, music and visual culture enables us to understand the connection between practice and ideology, power structures, political, social, cultural and religious attitudes and economic structures. Ideally, our research will lead to future international collaborations to investigate possible connections and common structures underlying the mechanisms of the interaction of socioeconomic power and the arts in the construction of national identity worldwide.