The Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI) participates in the two-year European project Women in Resistance (WIRE): Reshaping the Narratives on Female Resistance in Europe.WIRE is implemented by a partnership of institutions from Italy (Scuola di Pace di Monte Sole), Spain (Memorial Democràtic), Poland (Villa Decius) and Greece (ASKI), led by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). The main objective of the project is to place the role of women at the heart of historical narratives around resistance and anti-regime movements in 20th century Europe, actively contributing to the reconfiguration of collective memory and the values associated with it. Was the Resistance ultimately a 'male affair', as it is often presented, and if not, how does the emergence of female participation change the way we think about the phenomenon as a whole?
WIRE is a project based on non-conventional actions and methods of negotiating and promoting historical knowledge, with a Memory Route of 40 undergraduate students from the universities of Athens, Bologna, Krakow and Barcelona in the four participating countries (Greece, Poland, Italy and Spain). In Athens, in February 2024, Memory Route students recorded a series of podcasts with women's stories and came into contact with rare archival documents. In Krakow, in March, they designed board games and videogames. In Bologna, they participated in experiential education workshops and discussed the connection between the past and the present. The last stop of the trip, which will take place in Barcelona in October, includes historical walks, a theatre performance, a historical exhibition at the Museum of Catalan History, and the final academic conference of the project, where the students will also present their work.
In the framework of WIRE, ASKI coordinated the creation of a digital repository, which includes more than 50 biographies of women whose lives were marked by their participation in resistance and anti-regime movements in different places and times: in Greece and Italy during World War II, in Spain after the Civil War and in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. The stories are accompanied by a brief historical context and illustrated by photographs and archival documents.
WIRE is funded by the European Union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) and, in particular, the European Remembrance action.
Browse the digital repository: https://latempesta.eu/wire-repository/
Listen to the podcasts: https://soundcloud.com/wire-podcasts
Follow the project page and find out about its activities: https://webs.uab.cat/wire/
