I took the opportunity to spend the weekend in Zaragoza on my way from Barcelona to Madrid, because I hadn't been there before. It was going to be a weekend off my research but...I couldn't help myself!
Franco's exhumation in 2019 got me thinking about how I couldn't recall touring any specific sites about the Spanish Civil War when I've visited Spain before, except viewing Picasso's Guernica. So I started googling and discovered Belchite, which happens to be near Zaragoza. It forms part of the broader Huellas de la Guerra Civil (Footprints of the Civil War) trail established in 2017. Today I undertook a moving tour of the Pueblo Viejo (old village), which has been preserved in its ruined state since the Civil War.
A new education program for the site has recently been implemented and tonight I met with Dr MariCarmen Gascón Baquero, a consultant to Educa Belchite. Carmen is a polymath and we discussed many things, but for this blog it is suffice to say the primary focus of the education program is to promote peace. There's an exciting pilot project underway to develop several short computer games, taking advantage of engaging young people with history through a medium many of them enjoy. It is a carefully engineered effort to use gamification to cultivate empathy.
During the Christmas holidays I visited the new memorial for the Waterloo Bay Massacre at Elliston in South Australia (a Guardian photo essay documents the course of that landmark reconciliation project). Rather than thinking about such sites through a dark tourism lens, I am interested in the process behind how communities memorialise complex histories and, in turn, how students can engage with this through place-based education. It is worth noting that at both Elliston and Belchite local government and citizens are the drivers, even though their impact extends beyond their immediate communities.
While I was at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, we discussed the importance of giving young people opportunities to explore the complicated pasts that impact on our present and futures, such as the Spanish Civil War, Spanish and British colonisation, and the Anzac Legend. Visiting Belchite has been more food for thought regarding this integral theme of my research, en route to Madrid for the week ahead.
THANK YOU to:
A new education program for the site has recently been implemented and tonight I met with Dr MariCarmen Gascón Baquero, a consultant to Educa Belchite. Carmen is a polymath and we discussed many things, but for this blog it is suffice to say the primary focus of the education program is to promote peace. There's an exciting pilot project underway to develop several short computer games, taking advantage of engaging young people with history through a medium many of them enjoy. It is a carefully engineered effort to use gamification to cultivate empathy.
During the Christmas holidays I visited the new memorial for the Waterloo Bay Massacre at Elliston in South Australia (a Guardian photo essay documents the course of that landmark reconciliation project). Rather than thinking about such sites through a dark tourism lens, I am interested in the process behind how communities memorialise complex histories and, in turn, how students can engage with this through place-based education. It is worth noting that at both Elliston and Belchite local government and citizens are the drivers, even though their impact extends beyond their immediate communities.
While I was at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, we discussed the importance of giving young people opportunities to explore the complicated pasts that impact on our present and futures, such as the Spanish Civil War, Spanish and British colonisation, and the Anzac Legend. Visiting Belchite has been more food for thought regarding this integral theme of my research, en route to Madrid for the week ahead.
THANK YOU to:
- Carmen for welcoming me to your fascinating city and home - I'm so glad that we managed to make contact at the last minute!
- Isabel from the Oficina de Belchite Turismo, for looking after me as an English speaker on our guided tour, and your indispensible responses to all my emails from Australia
- Juan Ignacio Pérez Lomas for our debrief after I visited El Pueblo Viejo and the bilingual book to remember my visit