Spain, Made in Catalonia: Mechanics of Spanish Nation-Building in the Television Series 50 años de

Abstract

abstract:In 2009, Spanish public broadcaster RTVE released 50 años de, a series of documentaries on Spanish cultural icons, trends, and audiovisual memories of the last fifty years. Within that framework, its episodes seem to work towards the felicitous continuation of the Renanian vote for the Spanish nation. The series, which draws its raw materials from the vast archive of RTVE, attempts to achieve that purpose by persistently putting to work different structural and formal devices in the filmic treatment of the selected footage. There is nothing intrinsically extraordinary in this, except for the cultural perplexity that it produced in one of the most contentious peripheries of that Spanish nation, Catalonia, and on the very cusp of divisive times. Through my analysis, I show some peculiarities of nation formation in postdictatorial Spain. I also posit that this peculiar peripheral construction of the nation is not that extraordinary throughout the history of Spain.