The domestication of memory: between the intimate and the historical in a family archive of Francoism

Abstract

This article examines how family photographs mediate between historical memory and intimate memory through the photographic archive of my great-grandfather Celestino, a general of the Francoist regime. The starting point is the discovery of two family albums previously unknown to most of my relatives, which triggered a collective process of interpretation and remembrance. From my dual position as descendant and researcher, I conduct a visual autoethnography and photo-elicitation sessions with family members to explore how the images activate affective memories, narratives, and anecdotes that reframe the archive’s connection to the Francoist past. I propose the concept of the domestication of historical memory to describe the visual and relational operations through which families prioritize the affective over the political, producing tacit silences, omissions, and re-significations. The analysis of the albums shows how the public figure of the military officer coexists with that of the affectionate grandfather, and how this ambivalence is managed within a domestic framework. I argue that intimate memory does not necessarily deny the historical, but reorganizes it affectively and displaces it into biographical registers. The work contributes to the anthropology of kinship and memory studies by situating the family archive as a relational device of intergenerational transmission.