'Reminiscing': a podcast about the recent past that you may not know (but should)

BarcelonaLooking back This is an ARA podcast that explores the silences, struggles, and wounds of the Franco regime to understand how this past continues to shape the present.

Through expert voices and personal stories, the series examines censorship, internal migration, humor as resistance, colonial memory, sports propaganda, and the persecution of homosexuality, aiming to give voice to marginalized voices that have not always been heard.

The podcast was produced by the ARA team with the support of the Spanish government's Ministry of Historical Memory.

Episode 1: Censorship and Self-Censorship

During the Franco regime, no book, article, play, song, or script could exist publicly without the authorization of the regime's censors. This omnipresent control also led to self-censorship: many creators anticipated the veto before writing, out of fear or for professional survival. This chapter analyzes how the system worked and the creative strategies that were invented to be able to say what could not be said.

Featuring: Maria Josepa Gallofré i Virgili, researcher and editor, specialist in Francoist censorship applied to books in Catalan.

Chapter 2 · From Villages to Industrial Estates: The Great Silenced Displacement

Between the 1950s and 1970s, millions of people left impoverished villages in rural Spain to work in industrial areas. Many arrived in neighborhoods without basic services, with unpaved streets, no sewage system, and no schools, and often under police surveillance. This chapter focuses on a little-explained internal displacement that transformed the country: it created large urban peripheries and fueled a neighborhood movement that was key in the final years of the regime.

Featuring: Ivan Bordetas Jiménez, PhD in comparative social, political, and cultural history (UAB) and specialist in internal migration, suburbanization, and the neighborhood movement during the late Franco regime.

Chapter 3 · Humor and Art in the Resistance

In a dictatorship, not everything can be said, so many creators learned to "say without saying." In satirical magazines, on stage, in songs, and in cartoons, humor became a subtle but powerful weapon. This episode explores how popular culture and irony opened spaces of resistance and reflects on how these mechanisms have evolved to this day.

Featuring: Flavita Banana, cartoonist and graphic humorist, contributor to The Country and winner of the Mingote Prize.

Chapter 4 · Memory of Invisible Bodies: Colonial Silence

Francoism was not confined to the Iberian Peninsula; it also extended to colonies like Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara. There, life was marked by racial hierarchies, political domination, and a late colonial system that Spain maintained well into the 20th century. This chapter sheds light on often-silenced memories and explores how to incorporate them into a more comprehensive narrative of the past.

Featuring: Remei Sipi Mayo, writer, editor, and activist, a leading figure in the Equatorial Guinean diaspora in Catalonia.

Chapter 5 · Football as a Smokescreen

The Franco regime discovered in football a powerful political tool: a mass spectacle to channel emotions, build "national pride," and divert attention from social unrest. International victories were celebrated as triumphs of the regime and used as propaganda. This episode analyzes how the dictatorship instrumentalized sport as a mechanism of social control.

Featuring: Carles Santacana i Mestre, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Barcelona and specialist in the social and sporting history during the Franco regime.

Chapter 6 · 'Vagrants and Delinquents': When Homosexuality Was a Crime

The reform of the law of vagrants and delinquents In 1954, and subsequently with the Law of Social Danger and Rehabilitation, homosexuality became a punishable crime. Thousands of men were arrested, imprisoned, or sent to penal colonies under the accusation of being a "moral threat." This episode addresses this repression and recovers the voices of those punished for their sexual orientation.

Featuring: Àngel Casals Martínez, Professor of Modern History at the University of Barcelona and researcher on the repression of homosexuality and mechanisms of moral control.

Also available on podcast platforms:Spotify,Apple Podcasts,YouTube andAmazon Music.