Under the Eye of the Camera: Gitano Film and Photography in Spain (1950-1970)
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Date
2021-10-08
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Abstract
This dissertation discusses the changes and construction of the image of the Gitano population in Spain from the 1950s to the 1970s. It deals with the representations of the figure of the Gitano in a set of films and photographs produced under the dictatorial regime of Francisco Franco, encompassing the late 1940s to the mid-1970s.
The objective of this research is to show how perceptions of, on, or from Gitano culture acquired through the eye of a camera may construct and/or interrupt established narratives and social discourses. The analysis of the chosen films and photographs problematizes these representations from the point of view of biopolitical, postcolonial, and psychoanalytic reflections in the field of cultural studies.
This work consists of seven chapters including the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter is a review of the whole work within the context of Francoism. The second chapter briefly contextualize the presence and racialization of the Spanish Gitano population through laws, regulations, and literature from the XV to the XX century. The third chapter examines Gitanos’ representation and agency in folkloric musical films from the late 1940s to the end of 1950s. Chapter four discusses changes in the image of the Gitano in films geared toward the tourism industry. Chapter five discusses social photography production during the mid to late Francoism, as well as the production and articulation of Gitanos’ agency. Finally, chapter six discusses how Gitanos perceived themselves in relation to non-Gitano cultural hegemony. This dissertation concludes that Gitano ethnicity survived throughout history partly because they inhabited, in a Heideggerian sense, the marginal world and spaces they were allowed to use.
The relevance of this dissertation can be verified through the recent yet nascent studies of Gitano film and photography as a site of both power and resistance with spaces that subvert and/or contest strategies of power.
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Gitanos, Photography, Film, Francoism