11.3. Remembering Resistance: From Civil War Memory to Digital Activism

Amidst heated discussions of consent and harassment, intersectionality, gender-identity or the politics of right-wing feminism, feminists active late in the twentieth century have been turned to as sources of inspiration and as cautionary tales or counterexamples. Focusing on tensions, contradictions and conflicts between generations of feminists, I consider the ‘afterlives’ (Rigney, 2012) of Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) as paradigmatic of the remembrance of radical feminism since the #metoo movement of 2017. (In)famous during her lifetime for her strident campaigning in opposition to violence against women, pornography and sex work, Dworkin was long dismissed as an un-serious thinker and hysteric, but in recent years there has been a revaluation of her life and work across both traditional media forms and online activist spaces. This presentation analyses biographical writing on, and paratextual material that accompanies writing by, Dworkin published in the last 10 years. I look at these works alongside references to her by feminists online - often accompanied by the hashtags #radfem or #andreadworkinwasright. The version of Dworkin who is recalled through these mediations is both icon and intellectual: her twenty-first century remembrance contradicts an earlier framing of Dworkin as, primarily, a larger than life ‘public character’ (Jasper et al, 2020). Building on accounts of post-#metoo feminist media ecologies and cultures of testimony (Loney-Howes et al., 2022; Gilmore, 2023) alongside work on memory and feminist activism (Chidgey, 2018; Altınay et al., 2019; Jolly, 2019; Forchieri 2024), I argue that this more holistic view is not only a result of renewed interest in the topics Dworkin explored but is also facilitated by a media landscape where the pluriversal giving of testimony and the power of celebrity are central aspects of mainstream feminism.

When we rethink past conflicts, we tend to emphasize memory, remembering so that history does not repeat itself, but who builds that memory and what does it consist of? In several countries ravaged by war and armed conflict, collective memory, alive and constantly evolving, is nourished by the experiences of all the groups that comprise it. From Peru (1980 2000) to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (1992 1995), associations of victims' families have been making history for years and contributing to the existence of a collective memory that strengthens their struggles for truth, justice, and reparation, as well as contributing to the non repetition of events. This paper raises the question: how is collective memory constructed and transmitted based on the work and experiences of associations of relatives of victims of armed conflicts to prevent the repetition of such events? Qualitative research was chosen, focusing on the study of two specific cases: the National Association of Families of Kidnapped, Detained, and Disappeared People of Peru (ANFASEP) and the “Mothers of Srebrenica” Association (MoS) of BiH. To collect the information, open ended interviews were conducted, the work of these associations was reviewed, and their narratives to young people were analyzed, accompanied by a documentary review. Guarantees of non repetition, a pillar of transitional justice, seek to empower minority groups excluded from legal protection. In this regard, it is expected to be determined that ANFASEP and MoS contribute to non repetition through initiatives like the Museum of Memory “Para que no se repita” and the exhibition “Srebrenica: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” This is how they promote the development and transmission of collective memory in their communities. Examining the relationship between these associations' work and non repetition is essential for the development of more resilient and participative communities, particularly in times of denial and revisionism.

This paper introduces the analytical framework “Acts of Counter-Attrition” to move beyond descriptive typologies of Holocaust resistance and theorize its function as a direct, rights-restoring response to systemic genocide. Building on Helen Fein’s underutilized taxonomy of Violations of Life Integrity Rights, this research posits that every act of resistance—from armed revolt to smuggling food to creating clandestine art, was a conscious attempt to reclaim a specific right systemically demolished by the perpetrators. The framework is tested against diverse, highly contextualized case studies that challenge conventional definitions of victim and rescuer agency: the Rosenstrasse Protest in Berlin (countering arbitrary seizure and family destruction); the Oneg Shabbos Archive in the Warsaw Ghetto (countering the attrition of historical memory); the Ravensbrück Resistance Network (countering psychological degradation); the organized rescue efforts of Varian Fry and Mary Jayne Gold in Marseille (countering the denial of life and free movement in the ostensibly “neutral” Vichy zone); and the actions of Jewish Organized Crime figures in the US (preemptively countering fascism). By classifying resistance based on the right it sought to restore, this model creates a tangible functional memory of resilience. This memory directly addresses the challenge of resisting exclusionary narratives today. It demonstrates that resistance is not just an armed anomaly but a continuous, systemic process of protecting fundamental human rights. This functional approach provides contemporary societies with a crucial blueprint: that resilience against undemocratic movements is built daily through acts both large and small, that explicitly reinforce pluralistic rights and challenge the slow, incremental erosion of civic integrity. The framework thus provides a theoretical language for transforming the historical memory of survival into a modern mechanism for democratic defense. Keywords: Holocaust Resistance, Genocide Studies, Helen Fein, Memory, Resilience, Counter-Attrition, Rights, Pluralism.

In this paper I want to share the progress of the research for my PhD, that I expect to complete in a few months. It’s an historical anthropology research based on an ethnography in a catalan region, including in depth interviews and historical research (archives, bibliography). Focusing on a deindustrialized region in the 1980s 1990s, where an anarchist movement re emerged at the end of that decade, I wonder how the memory of anarchism is reconstructed and what continuities and discontinuities have been experienced since the end of the civil war. It highlights the links between deindustrialization (within the framework of global neoliberalism) and this revival of anarchism, which reclaims and reconstructs its own memory, confronting local authorities who seek to impose oblivion. It is a struggle for memory that relates to the present and the hegemony of certain elites since (at least) the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. In this reconstruction of the past, we see the social and cultural changes over 40 years of dictatorship, the breakdown of anarchist (and republican) cultural transmission, the mechanisms of cultural reproduction and hegemony of the elites during the dictatorship (and afterwards), the dialectic of public discourses and hidden discourses, as well as the resistance strategies of the subaltern classes. Special attention deserves the anarchist maquis guerrilla, which had a significant presence in that region during the 1940s. The guerrilla's presence had a strong cultural and symbolic influence during that terrible decade and later, in the memories and anecdotes surrounding that guerrilla movement. Demonized by many, a symbol of hope and dignity for others, today's anarchists seek to pay homage to the maquis movement (by naming streets, putting up plaques, painting murals, publishing books, giving lectures, etc.).

The history of Spanish Republican refugees often seems like one defined by diplomatic isolation and forms of resistance against fascism limited to armed guerrillas or maquis. However, the little-known story of the French-Mexican treaty of 1940 and the efforts of Mexican diplomats to liberate refugees from camps to allow for their reimmigration to the Americas offers a concrete case study of resistance in the realms of culture and everyday life. Refugee residences under the jurisdiction of the Mexican diplomatic mission existed independently from the Vichy government until the German occupation of the Southern Zone in November 1942. In these spaces, refugees could await their relocation to Mexico with stronger protections from French authorities while also developing cultural activities that preserved and celebrated the memory of the Spanish Second Republic and of democratic values. The reports of José Sabat, the second director of the residence in the castle of La Reynarde, in the outskirts of Marseille, offer valuable insights into the organization and functioning of cultural programs for refugees. By analyzing these reports, addressed to Mexican consul Gilberto Bosques, and now preserved in the archives of the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores in Mexico City, this paper interprets the objectives of refugee elites and their diplomatic allies in promoting alphabetization, language courses, history lessons, libraries, art and sports among refugees. By contrasting the official perspective in these reports with testimonies from residents of La Reynarde and from Vichy police, I reconstruct the cultural life of this group of refugees and assess the significance of education and artistic expression as forms of resistance. Finally, I reinterpret the memory of the Spanish Civil War from a transnational lens by considering how refugees periodically paid homage to Gilberto Bosques and the Mexican diplomatic mission during the following two decades.