Moving Towards the Future, Returning to the past: Catalan Collective Memories in Times of Unstable Hegemony

Besides becoming the peak of the conflict between the Spanish and the Catalan governments, the 1-O referendum represents a moment of hegemonic instability in the sense that counter-voices provoke the re-negotiation of power relations and their historic causes. The polarisation between two blocs (unionist and pro-independence) entails a struggle for the politics of memory since memories and narratives of the past are (re)constructed and become essential within current political positions against and in favour of independence. This chapter addresses the ‘clash of memories’, derived from the Catalan independence conflict, and identifies three different types of collective memories in times of unstable hegemony: the articulation of (counter-hegemonic) collective memory as history of oppression and resistance; the re-articulation of the hegemonic collective memory grounded in the ‘Spanish consent’ and the end of the Catalan silent majority; and minority polyphonic counter-memories in which an emergent third space opposes the bipolar reductionism.