Memory, Subjectivities, and Representation

Rina Benmayor is Professor Emerita at California State University Monterey Bay, USA and former President of the International Oral History Association (2004-06), and the Oral History Association (2010-11). She writes on community oral history, testimonio, and digital storytelling. María Eugenia Cardenal de la Nuez is Assistant Professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Her main area of research is youth transitions, foregrounding the Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method, and interpretive analysis to biography in Sociology.Pilar Domínguez Prats is Assistant Professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; and former President of the International Oral History Association (2008-10). She has written oral history essays on the Spanish Civil War and the transition to democracy.

• Introduction. Rina Benmayor, María Eugenia Cardenal de la Nuez, and Pilar Domínguez Prats1. 'I Was Just One More Among Many:" A Mosaic of Ex-combatant Voices from the Portuguese Colonial War ; Ângela Campos2. Voices of Spanish Socialist Trade Unionism During the End of the Franco Regime and the Transition to Democracy; Pilar Domínguez Prats3. 'Gendered' Memories: Women's Narratives from the Southern Cone; Cristina Scheibe Wolff, Joana Maria Pedro, and Janine Gomes da Silva 4. The Healing Effect of Discourses: Body, Emotions and Gender Subjectivity in Basque Nationalism; Miren Llona 5. Lola's Story: The Struggle to Build a Professional Identity with No Good Jobs in Sight; María Eugenia Cardenal de la Nuez6. 'Getting Ahead:' The American Dream in the California Agricultural Fields; Magdalena Villarreal 7. Migration, Sex Work, and Stigma: An Analysis in Biographical Code; Ángeles Arjona Garrido, Juan Carlos Checa Olmos, Estefanía Acién González, and FranciscoMajuelos Martínez8. Oral Accounts and Visual Inscriptions: Narratives Under Heavily Tattooed Skin; Vitor Sérgio Ferreira9. The Black Movement and Race Relations in Brazil: Building New Knowledge Through Online Oral History Materials; Verena Alberti and Amilcar Araujo Pereira10. Images and Words: Photography and the 1968 Student Movement in Mexico; Alberto del Castillo Troncoso11."A Living Museum of Small, Forgotten and Unwanted Memories:' Performing Oral Histories of the Portuguese Dictatorship and Revolution; Joana Craveiro

REVIEWER: Antonio Montenegro, Universidad Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil On my point of view, I would say I support this project, because it reveals a very rich and diverse research using the technical and methodology of oral history. With your permission, I would make a general point for all authors: they must think that are writing for people who doesn't have the necessary information, to understand many aspects of the articles. Then they must make notes or write in the own text the necessary informations about aspects, events, dates or name of people which are particular of the history from the country or region they narrate. I wish success to this important project that you coordinate. COMMENTS Chapter 01 'WE ARE STILL ASHAMED OF OUR OWN HISTORY' Interviewing ex-combatants of the Portuguese colonial war (1961-1974) The article of Angela Campos has strong and weak points. In general she brings the experience of interviewing soldiers which fought in the Portuguese colonization war in Africa. She shows how this social experience has been a great difficult for the Portuguese society operate with their memory. How traumatic was for the social memory, but also for the individual memories of the soldiers. Angela did a good review of the books that reports about the theme of memory war. Also she presents how this theme of war hasn't been studied and researched by the historians. But some writers and analysts wrote in Portugal about this theme. My evaluation, or my recommendation is basically two points: First, as she writes for english readers which in general doesn't know very much about Portugal's history in the period of that war, she must explain better the historical context. Also, explain better the war against the three colonies (Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau) and the differences between them. Also, I think she must explain better who was Oliveira Salazar and even with his death in 1969, the dictatorship remained in Portugal until 1974. Also, I think could be important she explains how the war in the African colonies and their failure had influence to the democratization of the society in 1974. The second point, I suggest that she must write more about the combatants and their remembrances.The information that she wrote in pag. 14: 'My sample of about seventy ex-combatants comprises veterans of different age and class groups, location, educational backgrounds, military rank, different areas of fighting and periods of conflict, and other situations.' I think it would be important for the readers to know a little about the story of life of each combatant. My suggestion is: published as it stands or with minor revisions. COMMENTS Chapter 02 "Voices of Spanish Socialist Trade Unionism during the end of the Franco Regime and the Transition to Democracy." Pilar Dominguez Prats The text from Pilar Dominguez Prats brings to the readers three stories of life of workers leaders which have strong participation in the period of the end of the Franco dictatorship. From my point of view the most important part of this text is their reports about their memories and experiences in the Social Relief school (Emilio Fermandez remembrances); in the metal companies (Miguel Guillen remembrances) and the remembrance of Juan Ramon Troncoso and the silent and fear in his house and his uncle condemned to death... I make the same recommendation for Pilar Dominguez as I did for Angela Campos. She is writing for foreign people which necessarily doesn't know who was Franco, what was his dictatorship (1939 - 1975) and what was the Spanish Civil War. I think there are many words which probably is very common and usual in Spain, but not for foreign people. Then, if she writes notes in the end of the page, explaining what it means, it would be very helpful. Another point is the text has several parts must be correct, as I signal below: Pag. 01. She wrote: Union General of Trabajadores. And below she wrote also the General Union of Workers. I think the question mark at the end of the phrase below is an equivoque. Pag. 01. Thus emerged the need to interview key players in trade union opposition, specifically leaders and members of the UGT (the General Union of Workers). Socialist Union? Pag. 02. In this paper I focus on the the personal and political trajectories of three working class trade union leaders from Andalucia. I think could be important an attach note explain why Andalucia is important for the workers organization, and what were other important regions for the workers struggle in Spain? Also, what are the cities in the Andalucia region? Pag. 03. What was 'as the offspring of the 'reds'. Pag 04. Must explain what is: During that time, the only legal means of organizing was under the auspices of the Spanish Syndical Organization, the so called Vertical Union. Pag. 05. What was: Second Republic. Pag. 05. In this page the second part of the interview wasn't translated: La opcion a favor de la central socialista era logica, si tenemos en cuenta el anticomunismo fomentado por el franquismo, pero tambien latente en un sector de la izquierda espanola desde la II Republica. Pag. 07. Something very strange in the first and second paragraph of this page. I think she made a confusion about the names, Miguel and Manuel are the same interview. And both paragraphs tells the same history. Subsequently, Miguel briefly held a number of jobs in the metalurgy sector. As soon as his employers found his name on the blacklist of trouble makers, he would be fired. Within the UGT, he became the Secretary General of the Metalworkers' Federation of Seville and in 1977, he became a Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) candidate to the Seville Congress of Deputies, although he was not elected. So, in the context of the dictatorship, the workers' economic demands became political ones. Subsequently, Manuel G. went from job to job in the metalurgy sector, as he was fired as soon as the company heads realized his name was on the blacklist as one of the biggest "upstarts." In 1973 he becomes Secretary General of the of the Metalurgical Federation of Sevilla and then becomes a candidate for the PSOE in the congressional elections for Sevilla in 1977, although he is not elected. Pag. 09. The truth is that I learned alot, but... Pag. 10. What is: I think that signing the ABI is an important moment. Pag. 10. That is, there was, I believe, a moment en which we came to My suggestion is: published as it stands or with minor revisions. COMMENTS Chapter 05 Migration, prostitution and stigma. An analysis in biographic code. Angeles Arjona Garrido Juan Carlos Checa Olmos Estefania Acien Gonzalez Francisco Majuelos Martinez I think the authors must refer to the women as 'professional of sex', because the term prostitutes carries a lot of prejudice. Pag. 03. The authors wrote: women of different nationalities (Moroccan, Latin American and Eastern European). Morroccan is a nationality, but Latin American and Eastern European aren't. Pag. 05. This fragment of the paragraph looks confused in my point of view: First, the main axis on which representativeness is based is our argument, so as Bertaux (1997) or Solana and Riopedre (2012) note, our fieldwork acquired information to the saturation point, and second, the difficulty of approaching some groups because of their lower demand for the intercultural mediation services in which this research is framed. Pag 06. Manifestation of the Stigm. I think the best translation is: Express the Stigm. On this topic all the women interview tell something all know. How guilt and explored most of them feel and live. I don't find after their words any analyses that contributes for the debate of this theme. Pag. 08 - Another case that illustrates this occurred when through our mediation... I think in English there isn't the word 'mediation'. May be, it could be by 'intervene' or 'negotiation'. Pag. 11. The authors defend the idea of reconceptualization but they don't do that, as they write: In the first place, we find strategies that attempt to change the position of prostitutes in the hierarchy of values, in which society assigns the stigma to them as women. This leads to what might be called a reconceptualization of their work. Prostitutes displace moral discredit toward other activities or reasons that are intentionally absent from their lives. In particular, we are talking about displacing the stigmatic load of whore onto other sexual behaviors that have nothing to do with prostitution. Pag. 14. I think that article reflect a certain prejudice of the authors. First when they call the women prostitutes and not "professional of sex'. Also, when they write: Therefore, this interest in getting papers has to do with the possibility of writing in their personal biography an event of immense importance for their expectations, among which is changing from sex work to something more normal. Because the women said that they want another job, may be not so hard and carrying this signal of discrimination and exclusion. But the women never said on the interviews transcribed that they look of a work more normal. Because the work as sexy professional is also normal. No normal is the prejudice against it, even when they are practiced between poor women emigrants. Unhappy I can't find any contribution from this research. First of all If they had real been affect by this research experience as they write 'also affects the social researcher' they will not call those women as a prostitute. Would call by her names all by professional term, 'sex workers' as they write two or three times in the all text. I didn't find any contribution in the discussion of the problem of stigma, nothing new. I didn't find any discussion critical about how to work with sex get a better wage than work as a domestic, other face of exploitation, or worse exploitation. But if this article will be publish my suggestion is they maintain a coherence and use the expression 'sex workers' and not prostitute. My suggestion is: resubmitted after reworking; COMMENTS Chapter 09. The Black Movement and Race Relations in Brazil: Building Knowledge through Educational Materials on the Internet ALBERTI, Verena & PEREIRA, Amilcar Araujo The authors of this text discuss the interviews with the black people in Brasil. With the reports of some of this people, in reality two women they discuss the racism in Brasil cross with other documents. Even this country has a long tradition inspired in some writers (Gilberto Freyre between others), that there are strong miscegenation between the races which built the nation. Although, the authors discuss the strong racism that remains in the Brazilian society. The text shows how important is to discuss the history of the black people, and also their struggles against the racism. Thru different documents, they show how present the racism is. Using interviews and other documents and texts they also make a pedagogical analysis in how the discussion of this theme could be develop in the Brazilian schools. The authors of this text have a strong interest in pedagogical questions. Not only give the students the opportunity to learn about the history of black people and their struggles but historically how the racism is created. The examples of the history of humanity, but also the Brazilian history in 1940 and nowadays are very important to develop and build the historical comprehension of the students. The weak point of the text in my evaluation is to refer only to Hannah Arendt as a theoretical of the racism. First, because the book 'The Origen of the Totalitarism' discusses the racism basically against the Jewish people. Second, because the racism in Brasil, was constructed by the Portuguese colonization. They develop a strong enterprise of African people transformed in slavers. And brings them to work as slaver in the monoculture of sugar and coffee plantation in the XVI century. The slavery system remains in Brazil until the final decade of XIX century. Also, the racism against the native people, the different indigenous nation, even though they had some protection from the Catholic Church. They also were made prisoners and became slavers in many states of Brasil. Then I suggest that they make some relations of the racism against the black people and indigenous relating them in the history colonization of Brasil. My suggestion is: published as it stands or with minor revisions. COMMENTS Chapter 13. The Healing Effect of Discourses: Body, Emotions and Subjectivity in Basque Nationalism Dr. Miren Llona The text of Dr. Miren Llona, The Healing Effect of Discourses: Body, Emotions and Subjectivity in Basque Nationalism is a very interesting historical reflection about the construction of the tradition of nationalism of the Basque people. But she writes for academic people who knows this historical conflict. Then, I suggest she writes a brief introduction in the history of 'Basque Country' for foreign readers. The author dialogues with different historians which research the thematic of nationalism. Also, she presents some theoretical points when analyses the influence of the subjectivity and the memory to build the identity and the conception of nationalism. The unique point I would like to make some appointments is the fact when she did some generalizations using as reference only one interview. The interview with Polixene could indicate some experience common of a certain group, form some social class, some specific education. But from my point of view it doesn't authorize her to make generalizations, as she wrote below: These associations of meanings that were engraved in Polixene's memory appear to confirm the importance of the relationship between the body and external signs of social status, a relationship that in itself generates undeniable feelings and meanings.25 In this case, a connection is made between the bodies of young middle class women and wellbeing, wealth, and superiority. Not only that, directly related to the use of modern women's accoutrements was the idea of women's emancipation. The markers of female social distinction with the idea of material prosperity and progress, along with achieving greater measures of independence as women, were very seductive and converted the middle class senorita into an inevitable horizon of expectations for Polixene. Pag. 16 Other comment that I make is about her style. It is very categorical and determinist, which becomes contradicted, as she declares at the begin of the text, that her 'argument is constructivist' (Pag. 05) I understand that she has a theoretical reference to the constructivist perspective, but she must not write 'appear to confirm the importance of the relationship between the body and external signs of social ' or 'an inevitable horizon of expectations for Polixene', which means the idea of external reference, or another way of perspective of knowledge as discover and not as construction. My suggestion is: published as it stands or with minor revisions.