"Spanish" but "Jewish": race and national identity in nineteenth and twentieth century Spain

Sephardim in contemporary Spain were and are thought to be a historical-cultural “mix” of "Jewish" and "Spanish". This ambivalent conceptualization was formed at the intersection between Spanish late colonialism in North Africa and Spanish nationalism and the (re)...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Ojeda Mata, Maite
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/46303
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46303
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1462169X.2015.1032013
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Sephardim
Modern Spain
Nationalism
Colonialism
Ambivalent identities
Descripción
Sumario:Sephardim in contemporary Spain were and are thought to be a historical-cultural “mix” of "Jewish" and "Spanish". This ambivalent conceptualization was formed at the intersection between Spanish late colonialism in North Africa and Spanish nationalism and the (re)thinking of Spain’s Jewish and Muslim past. The ambivalent conceptualization that emerged had also an impact on Spanish policies towards the Sephardim. In this article, I approach these questions from an anthropological perspective and through historical ethnography and archival research. I conclude that the mixed notion of Sephardic Jews in contemporary Spain was an ideological construct that allowed both the socio-political inclusion as well as the exclusion of Sephardim in the Spanish national state.