Diverse transnational backgrounds, same master narrative? Constructions of a national past among middle-school students

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to explore the various ways in which the past is constructed, using or tinkering with a national master narrative, by students surrounded by and immersed in contemporary transnational plurality. Specifically, we studied the permanence of or variations on the Spanish ‘reconquest’ narrative among 14 to 15-year-old students of a public school in Madrid. Semi-structured individual interviews were carried out with 30 students whose families came from Madrid, other regions in Spain and other countries around the world. We carried out a detailed narrative analysis of their constructions of the medieval past on the Iberian Peninsula and found that the ‘reconquest’ narrative still predominates. Few variations in their narratives were found that hint at counternarratives, the ‘travelling’ of narrative schema across national borders, or the transnational trajectories in their families feeding into their constructions. Given these findings, we discuss the role of alternative narrative schema and dynamic concepts of nation and national identity in challenging national master narratives.