Doctoral researchers from the Una Europa alliance meet at the Complutense to reflect on memory, conflict and heritage

Throughout this week, from 9 to 13 March, Universidad Complutense is hosting at the Faculty of Geography and History the international seminar Thinking and rethinking dissonant heritage. Reflections from emblematic and contested sites linked to the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship in Spain. The event is organised within the framework of the Una Europa Doctoral Programme in Cultural Heritage (Una-Her-Doc).

This initiative, jointly coordinated by Professor María García Hernández, from the Department of Geography, and Professor Carolina Rodríguez López, from the Department of Modern and Contemporary History, brings together on our campus 22 doctoral researchers in person — with a further 11 participating online — as well as lecturers from several European universities. Together they will critically reflect on the concept of dissonant heritage, using as case studies some of the most emblematic and controversial sites linked to the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, while also examining notable examples from other European countries.

The seminar began on Monday with a welcome session presided over by the Dean of the Faculty of Geography and History, María Cruz Cardete del Olmo, and the Vice-Rector for International Relations, Cooperation and Volunteering, María del Rosario Cristóbal Roncero. The event was also attended by Delphine Morana Burlot, professor at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and current chair of the Cultural Heritage Self Steering Committee of Una Europa.

Carolina Rodríguez López and María García Hernández

Rethinking dissonant heritage through fieldwork

The concept of dissonant heritage refers to cultural assets, spaces or expressions associated with conflictual pasts -wars, dictatorships, political violence or social exclusion- that generate competing interpretations within society. These are places shaped by conflicting memories, ideological tensions and ongoing processes of reinterpretation. Analysing them means asking how these difficult pasts are narrated, who decides on their interpretation, how they are managed institutionally, and what role they may play in contemporary debates on memory, justice and public space.

“Dissonant heritage is a constantly relevant issue, and it often involves a painful dimension in many countries. For this reason, it is one of the recurring topics analysed each year within the Una-Her-Doc programme. As hosts in Madrid this year, we will examine our own historical and heritage context, which is obviously linked to the legacy of the Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship,” explains Professor María García, academic coordinator of the Una-Her-Doc programme at the Complutense.

The programme includes a significant component of fieldwork. “With the guidance of leading experts, we will visit several highly representative sites. For instance, Francisco Ferrándiz, anthropologist and researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) specialising in history and memory, will guide us through the Valley of Cuelgamuros. Its renaming in 2022 -replacing the former name Valley of the Fallen- is a clear example of the kinds of issues we will be discussing,” adds Professor García.

Participants will also visit the remains of the former Carabanchel prison, which will be interpreted with the support of Complutense doctoral researcher Javier García Ferragud. In addition, Professor Carolina Rodríguez will guide the group through different areas of the Moncloa Complutense campus, which are closely connected to the seminar’s central theme, as the campus was a critical site and an active front during the Spanish Civil War.

“We divided the visit into two days,” explains Professor Rodríguez López. “On Monday we visited the Faculties of Philology and Philosophy, where the International Brigades established their headquarters in Madrid, and then walked through what were key points along the war front along Avenida Complutense and the Faculty of Medicine, where the marks of projectile and shrapnel impacts are still visible. There we studied two scale models of the university city: one showing how the campus looked at the end of the war, and the other illustrating how the Franco regime planned its reconstruction.” On Tuesday, the tour took the group to the Arch of Victory, a paradigmatic example of dissonant heritage. “It is the only triumphal arch that celebrates the victory in something as traumatic as a civil war, yet very few people are aware of this. Likewise, hardly anyone knows that a straight line drawn from the centre of the arch points exactly towards the cross in the Valley of Cuelgamuros,” she notes.

Difficult heritage across Europe

Of course, Spain is not the only country within the Una Europa alliance whose past has left complex or difficult legacies in the form of monuments, architecture or even entire neighbourhoods. Across Europe there are many remnants of past eras and regimes that raise similar questions, and whose social perception and consequences are subject to ongoing debate.

The concentration camps of the Second World War are an obvious example, but there are many others. Countries adopt different approaches to these often controversial sites, ranging from demolition to their transformation into museums.

At the seminar, four guest speakers will examine specific case studies. Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel (University of Halle-Wittenberg and visiting professor at the Complutense) will discuss how Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have addressed the legacy of the former Soviet Union in their territories. Patrick Leech, from the Università di Bologna, will analyse the Italian case. Complutense professor Ana Galán, from the UCM Faculty of Fine Arts, will address the issue of memorial museums and dissonant collections from a conservation perspective. Finally, Professor Marek Kucia (Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie) will explore questions related to researchers’ access to — or public visitation of — the most sensitive sites, such as the aforementioned Nazi concentration camps.

This training week therefore combines theoretical and methodological seminars with fieldwork at particularly significant sites in the city of Madrid. Through these on-site visits, doctoral researchers have been able to observe and analyse how dissonance is produced, negotiated, institutionalised or, at times, silenced in processes of heritage-making.

The programme thus strengthens key competences in field research, critical analysis of spaces and narratives, and the application of theoretical frameworks to concrete case studies. As part of the collaborative work, students will also present their own critical analysis of an emblematic and dissonant cultural heritage site.

A European joint doctoral programme in cultural heritage

Una-Her-Doc is the first joint doctoral programme created within the Una Europa alliance. It allows doctoral researchers to enrol at two universities and complete a single thesis under a cotutelle arrangement, obtaining a doctoral degree from both institutions.

Its added value lies in a comprehensive international and multidisciplinary training pathway, in which early-career researchers from different countries and disciplines work together — both in face-to-face meetings and through online activities — with experts from the universities that form part of the alliance. Participants also receive a certificate signed by the eight universities involved in the programme.

At Universidad Complutense, the application period to join the programme remains open each year until 9 December. It is aimed at students enrolled in any doctoral programme at the university whose thesis addresses some dimension of cultural heritage — from art history or archaeology to geography, tourism, fine arts or heritage economics, among other disciplines.

To learn more about Una Europa, visit the alliance’s official page (https://www.una-europa.eu). To receive updates directly in your inbox, you can also subscribe to its monthly newsletter.