UCLA

In my dissertation I reflect on the ritualistic aspects of mourning practices that accompany the current disinterment and reburial of Francoist victims from mass graves on the Iberian Peninsula. I use critical theories of performance—among them the contributions of Diana Taylor, Richard Schechner, and Paul Connerton—to argue the necessity to actualize funeral rites before a community of witnesses in order to disseminate memory and enact closure. My overarching argument is that the disinterment and reburial rituals act as essential catalysts for the rebuilding of suppressed or unexplored sentiments silenced by a dictatorial regime and, later, through the transition to a democratic government. I include an analysis of novels ["Las trece rosas" (“The Thirteen Roses”) (2003) by Jesús Ferrero, "El vano ayer" (“Yesterday’s False Hope”) by Isaac Rosa (2003), and "Ayer no más" (“Only Yesterday”) (2012) by Andrés Trapiello] and documentary films ["Las fosas del olvido" (“The Graves of Oblivion”) (2004) by filmmakers Alfonso Domingo and Itiziar Bernaola, "Les fosses del silenci" (“The Graves of Silence”) (2003) by Montse Armengou and Ricard Belis, "Death in El Valle" (2009) by C.M. Hardt, "Olvidados" (“The Forgotten”) (2004) by Jesús Zamora and Gustavo Castrillejo, and "Santa Cruz, por ejemplo" (“Santa Cruz, for example”) (2005) by Günter Schwaiger], but also consider a variety of digital media, such as weblogs, YouTube short films, and social media content from Facebook and Twitter groups. Studying the intersection of novels and documentaries with digital cultural materials demonstrates how the rituals of reburial assist in the healing of collective trauma. The analysis of documentaries, novels, and digital media shows how multigenerational communities undergo the rituals of reburial together to form a collective historiography.

The digital companion to my dissertation is a digital “thick” map of mass grave locations on the Peninsula. I have built a digital map called “Virtual Cartographies” that combines data acquired from the Spanish Ministry of Justice—which identifies over 2,600 mass graves located throughout Spain, northern Africa, and the Balearic and Canary Islands—with a collection of digital materials directly linked to specific gravesites. “Virtual Cartographies” is a thick map that combines a variety of digital cultural materials, such as testimonies, novels, videos including feature length documentaries and YouTube short films, narratives from weblogs, archeological reports, newspaper articles, radio programs, and social network sites, to give depth to spaces of mourning and share the various ritualistic practices. By embedding materials that show the exhumation, inhumation, and commemoration processes, “Virtual Cartographies” highlights the ritualistic practices occurring around the Peninsula and ties those directly to the location of specific mass graves sites.