Resistance in Southern Europe

Essay # 56233

Anthropology > Europe
History > European - 20th Century

An analysis of the concept of "resistance" as a cultural and political means of expression, with a focus on southern Europe.

1,158 words () | 3 sources | MLA | 2002 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the general concept of resistance and resistance to dictatorial regimes in southern Europe, with an emphasis on Spain under Franco and Greece in the 1960s and 1970s. It does this by examining three works: Mikis Theodorakis's "Journals of Resistance"; Sharon Roseman's "How We Built the Road: The Politics of Memory in Rural Galicia"; and Karen Van Dyck's "Power, Language and the Discourses of Dictatorship."

From the Paper:

"Understanding resistance also means asking what constitutes an act of resistance in such regimes. Roseman in particular examines this issue. In "How We Built the Road...", she considers the ways in which Spanish Galicians reconstruct history on a local level (through folklore, etc.) in response to state attempts to bring the citizenry under control. In doing so, she invokes Reed-Danahay's concept of d'brouillardise. "Acts of d'brouillardise", she states, "often involve both partial accomodations and resistance to externally imposed material conditions and cultural meanings." (Roseman 1996, 837) It is questionable whether those who employ this "technique", which can be loosely translated as "muddling through", ought to be seen as active resistors. Alternately, we can understand their "resistance" as passive, or, as Roseman argues, acts may be reconstructed later as acts of resistance though they may not have been conceived of in this way at the time."