The Basque and Catalan questions since 1980

Abstract

Our contemporary age is one where national identity retains important salience which can partly facilitate explanation. Teaching the Basque and Catalan questions since 1980 to British university students poses a number of challenges to educators. Themes that emerge in teaching about these political conflicts in Spain include state violence, terrorism, nationalism and social movements, minority languages and immigration. Some issues are more complex than others to consider particularly those around political violence and terrorism. However potentially sensitive material does not mean it cannot be tackled. This was a course that sought to demonstrate that questions of identity are contingent and continually subject to re-creation and re-interpretation. The goal of university education should be to explain why these disputes and their causation are contested and inseparable from historically inflected political framing.