The Entangled Sites of Memory: The Significance of Photography for the Contentious Movements of May 1968 and June 1936

Abstract

This thesis explores the photography of two major strike movements in French history, both of which have attained ‘iconic’ status and both of which produced substantial and diverse photographic records. The central aim of the thesis is to analyse these images, drawn from archives, exhibitions, digitised and printed collections, and examine their relationship to the collective memories and historiographical narratives of the strike movements. It analyses the entanglements and commonalities between the photographic representations of the two movements, and argues that the photographic record of these strike waves needs to be analysed in relation to the social context it was produced in. Drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin and John Berger, it proposes an approach that links the production of a photographic record to the social contestation it displays, as well as analysing what the photographic afterlives of the movements tells us about how they have been subsequently understood. This thesis approaches this photographic record on three different levels: through particular photographers or exhibitions, through discrete themes and framings and as individual photographs. It provides an analysis of diverse body of sources, some of which have been extensively used and re-used, and others that are less well known. A key area of enquiry is how the preservation and presentation of the photographic record links to the historiography of the events they depict. This thesis places the photographic record of two important strike movements within contemporary historiographical debates and highlights the value of a comparative approach informed by methodical innovations, such as entangled and transnational history.