Local Versions and the Global Impacts of Euro-African Memories: A Revision through Spanish Colonial Imprints. Introduction

Abstract

This dossier aims to analyse Spanish imprints in Euro-African identities and memories in both oral and written sources from a postcolonial perspective. “Memories” are understood as individual and collective narratives able to shape national, ethnic and cultural identities. Our objective is to reverse the constant subsuming of the Spanish experience into other European colonialisms in Africa. This subsidiary position has complicated the understanding of the identity hybridisation processes, both local and global, in the African countries colonised by Spain. Being subsumed by, for example, French or Portuguese colonialism has led to certain specificities becoming irrelevant and a number of mistaken equivalences. This lack of interest has clouded the study of certain highly interesting aspects of the Afro-Spanish interrelation, such as its similarities and differences with other Euro-African postcolonial legacies.