MC>VING FEELINGS:NATIONALISM,

FEMINISM AND THEEMOTIONS OF POLITICS

by Carrie Hamilton

This articlelexplores how, in interviews with women involved in nationalist andfeminist politics in the Basque county, di#erent political movements are asso-ciated with di#erent emotions. .In so doing, it draws on recent cultural theoriesof emotions as well as the history of emotions. The article looks at how certainemotions become attach.ed to a specific political movement while other feel-ings move between them, becoming associated with a given political cause oridea at a particular moment in the narrator's life stow. It argues that theseemotional attachments and movingfeeling; are expressive of nantaton ' :percep-tions of changes in wider social values associated with nationalism and femi-nism throughout the period studied, as well as of the dif:Rculties expressed bynarrators in combining and sustaining multiple political commitments. As such,they are an important aspect of the history of political activism.

KEY WORDS:feminism.nationalism,actMsm,emotions,politics, history

Tbe kind of activism of people in the nation-alist left was an activism more from theheart. More of filings. 'lhey began with fil-ings, and the rationalising went from there.'

What does it mean to identify some movementsas 'emotional ' and others as more 'rational '?Why are some political groups seemingly asso-ciated with certain feelings while others evokedifferent sets of emotions? And what can histo-rians, and oral historians in particular, add tothe expanding literature on the emotions of poli-

These are some of the questions that havearisen in the course of my analysis of oral historyinterviews lconducted in the mid 1990s withwomen active in the radical Basque nationalistmovement from the mid 1960s to the early1980s.+ These interviewees had either beendirectly involved in or supported ETA(Euskadita Askatasuna, 'land and Freedom '), the armedBasque independence organisation founded in1959 during the Franco dictatorship. 'lyle inter-view excerpts lanalyse in this article are taken

tics?

It's much more difficult to explain women'soppression, because it goes to your gut,while the national and the social are morerational ...z

Anyone who has been committed to a politicalcause, or has studied the history of a politicalmovement, will be familiar with the intense andoften mixed emotions that can arise from polit-ical activism.] Indeed, scholars of social move-ments are increasingly interested in the rolesplayed by emotion in generating and under-standing political activism.' But are some polit-ical organizations more 'emotional ' than others?

Autumn 2010 oRAl HIST'ORY 85

Mm a number of interviews in which narratorsreflect upon the relationship between national-ist and feminist politics, and in particular whatthey perceive as the compatibilities and dashesbetween these two political movements. My aimhere is not to identify the 'real feelings' of the

:l UE£lU!her to investigate

others. lam especially interested in looking athow certain emotions become attached to aspeciHc polite(nl movement while other feelingsmove between them, becoming associated witha given political cause or idea at a particularmoment in the narrator's life story. It is mycontention that these emotional attachmentsand moving feelings are expressive of narrators'perceptions of changes in wider social valuesassociated with nationalism and feminismthroughout the period studied, as well as of thedifficulties expressed by nanators in combiningand sustaining multiple political commitments.

scripts to indicate non-verbal expressions andincorporating them into their analyses. To datehowever, there has been relatively'little discus.dion of methodological, theoretical and ethicalissues involved in analysing emotions in oralhistory interviews. In this article, therefore. Iborrow from a number of existing Studies ofemotion in history and cultural theory in order

to frame one possioty.approach to Studying

EMOTIONAL COMMUNITIES ANDSYSTEMS OF FEELINGS

If an individual oral history interview mayprovide valuable evidence about the emotionsof a particular narrator in relation to her past,comparing and contrasting a wider set of inter-views can be revealing of emotions sharedwithin a particular collective, as well as theconflicting feelings within that same socialgroup. I have found particularly useful BarbaraRosenwein's idea of 'emotional communities'which she defines as units akin to socialcommunities(eg neighbourhoods, parliaments,guilds, etc). The study of the history ofemotional communities differs from that ofsocial history in that:

ORAL HISTORY AND EMOTIONSIn proposing to look at the emotions associatedwith nationalism and feminism I am aware ofthe multiple challenges in writing a history ofemotions. Most obvious ig the dual problem ofevidence and authenticiU As oral historians weare well aware of the suspicions expressed bydocumentary historians regarding the 'subjec-tive' nature of oralhistow. 'Berg is no need hereto rehearse the familiar debates over the natureand legitimacy of oral history evidence. Yet evenas some scholars remain skeptical or dismissiveof our methodologies and sources, over the pastfew decades oral historians have both ref nedour methodologies and created a rich evidence-based and theoretical literature around what forothers may constitute the central weakness ofour sources: the complexity of human memoryand.its relationship to history. "'' '

As with the study of memory, oral historywould seem to have a privileged relationship tothe history of emotions. As a methodologydefined by the inter-subjective and personal(!hough also necessarily l;rofusional) relation-ship between interviewer and narrator, one thatrequires the establishment of a mutual rapport,oral history has always, on some level at least.been about feelings. Moreover, because inter-news.contain not only a narrator's words butalso changes in the pace and tone of her voice.facial expressions, gestures, non verbal soundssuch.as laughter and crying, as welles silences.oral history sources offer a potentially widerrange of emotional evidence than most wHttensources. Indeed, many oral historians have paidattention to these differing expressions in theinterview. making notes in their vbuitten tran-

che researcher looking at them seeksabove all to uncover systems of ruling: whatthese communities (and the individualswithin them) demme and assess as valuableor harmful to. them; the evaluations they

;%n=an=M:y:'Ejjj5recognise; and the modes of emotionalexpression that they expect, encourage,tolerate, and deplore.s ' '''

While a certain 'system of feeling ' may havedefined or dominated a particular period, insd.tution or geographical area in the past, Rosen-wein propose! that historically people havemoved in and out of different emotionalcommunities,.'adjusting their emotionaldisplaysand their judgments of wed and woe (withgreater and lesser degrees of success to thesedifferent environmentsy.' Rosenwein's model of

such as radical Basque nationalism, whichhistorically has existed in tension and indeedconflict with other social and political commu-nities. Moreover the idea of competing systemsof filings allows one to examine the conflictingemotional values inside communities. Again, asRosenwein notes:

not only does every society call forth.shape, constrain, and ' express emotions

86 oRAl HISTORY Autumn 2010

differently, but even wif/zf/z fhe same societycontradictory values and models, not tomention deviant individuals, find theirplace.7

the opportunity for the expression of diverseemotions: anger at the state and security forces;sadness at the absence of dead or imprisonedcommunity members; affection for Basquesymbols and traditions.io

Oral history interviews provide further exam-ples of the collective emotions associated withcertain nationalist symbols and rituals. In onestriking example from my own interviewsseveral narrators told similar stories about thefirst time they had caught a glimpse of theoutlawed Basque flag, the fkurHfia, as childrenor teenagers during the Franco dictatorship( 1 939-75).' ' The awe and excitement evoked bythe memories - indicated by animated voicetones, expressions of pleasure and rapid physicalgestures - were still apparent at the time of theinterviews in the 1990s, thirty years or moreafter the events recounted. It is as if the ikurH#aitself - what shave called elsewhere, followingAnne McClintock, a 'national fetish object": -had been endowed with certain collective feel-ings, so that the memory of the object itselfconjured sentiments experienced decadesbefore.-;

If interviews can. highlight emotions associ-ated with particular aspects of activism, they arealso valuable in outlining the wider 'system offeelings' within radical nationalism - that is. theemotional values of that community and howthese changed over time. Interviews can afblrmor add detail to these wider emotional values.But equally importantly, they can indicatetensions between different sets of emotions. aswell as conflicts between the standards of thecommunity and individual emotional experi-ences and expressions. Again, let me give someexamples from my own research. Interviewswith women formerly active in ETA and otherradical nationalist organizations suggest that aseries of emotional standards applied to differ-ent aspects of nationalist activism. One majortheme was the importance of loyalty to family,friendship and communiW. This issue came uptime and again in reference to parents, children,family neighbours, friends and, or course. ETAmembers, whether personally known or not.Almost all the narrators emphasised the attach-ment to and affection they and others felt forimprisoned ETA members and the importanceof this sentiment in sustaining their commitmentto ETA and to the use of political violence. Asecond, related, topic was a strong sense ofjustice and solidarity with 'the weak '. Thus. forexample, a few narrators made a link betweentheir Catholic upbringings and their enduringcommitment to social justice, long after they hadabandoned the Church. A third theme was theimportance of emotional restraint, especially inrelation to participation in and support for polit-

In the following section lwill look brieny atthe idea of radical Basque nationalism as an'emotional community ', drawing on my oralhistory interviews in addition to written docu-ments and secondary sources, identifying certaindominant modes of feeling within that commu-nity and how some of these changed betweenthe 1960s and 1980s. What I propose is a verybasic outline of the feelings valued andpromoted within radical nationalism; a morecomplete and nuanced history of radical nation-alist emotions would require a much more thor-ough investigation. Nonetheless, by highlightingsome key aspects of the radical nationalistsystem of feelings' I hope to provide a back-ground for the ensuing discussion about thedifferent emotions associated in narratorsminds with nationalism and feminism.

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RADICAL BASQUE NArlONALisM ASAN EMOTIONAL COMMUNITYA common criticism of Basque nationalism - byacademics, joumalists and politicians alike - isthat it privileges emotional appeal above ratio-nal political analysis. Although based on anoverly simple distinction between 'emotional 'nationalism and 'rational ' political movementssuch as liberalism and socialism, condemnationsuch as this actually underscores the po/[ffca/character of emotion and the importance of feel-ings to our understandings of political move-ments. In fact, in most studies of ETA thedevelopment of the organisation and especiallyits commitment to political violence areexplained in part with reference to emotionalfactors, even if these are often implicit orpresented in 'common sense ' terms. Forexample, one of the standard historical expla-nations for the resurgence of Basque national-ism in the 1950s and 1960s is the alienation ofyoung (implicitly male) Basque workers in theface of renewed industrialisation and proletari-anisation, a process that has sometimes beenlabelled 'traumatic '.' Additionally, academicanalyses of interviews with former members ofETA stress both the 'negative ' emotions(espe-cially hatred of all things 'Spanish ') and thepositive'(eg attachments to family, communityand fiends) feelings that have motivated gener-ations of armed activists.9 Finally, studies ofradical nationalist rituals stress the ways inwhich activities such as funerals. demonstra-tions and tributes to ETA 'martyrs' work toconsolidate affective ties within the community.Public political demonstrations in particular are

Autumn 2010 oRAl HISTORY 87

ical violence. One nanator. for example, claimedto be dismayed by people who expressed joy orsatisfaction at the news of an ETA action.describing such manifestations as 'vulgarAnother noted that in the 1960s male ETAleaders had warned fellow activists againstmixed-sex relationships because women toucheda male activist's 'weak points'.'s

I want to stress that these examples do notnecessai'ily reveal the emotional experiences ofthe nanators or other ETA members or support-ers. Instead they indicate some elements ofwhat, following William E. Reddy, we could callthe 'emotional regime ''' under which radicalnationalism operated in its first two or threedecades. As such, these examples can be used togauge both the wider cultul-al influences onradical nationalism and the historical changes inElle community's emotional standards. The stresson social justice, like the emphasis on sexualpurity for early ETA members, reflects in partthe middle-class Catholic nationalism ETAinllerited from the older, mainstream BasqueNationa[ist Parte founded in the late nineteenthcentury, as well as the central tote of priests,seminaries and lay Catholic groups in shapingthe iesuigent nationalist movement in the 1960sand 1 970s. In the memories of narrators, by the1 970s and ] 980s there was little talk of chastityand more of activist couples and even casualsexual liaisons between male and female lnili-lants. The ideal of the emotionally controlledaimed activist persisted, however. and as moreand more women entered the organisation thisemotional burden was increasingly shifted ontothem. Several narrators noted that since womenweld a small minority in ETA they had to 'provethemselves' not only through their actions butalso through a show of fortitude and emotional

calm in the face of danger and committing actsof murder and injury.

tended to chose other roles instead of, or inaddition to, motherhood.

But written sources, especially newspaperreports, reveal some telling cases of the conse-quences for women who did not foHow commu-nity standards with regard to matemal feelingsand expressions. As I have argued elsewhere.although radical nationalist rhetoric presentedmaternity as natural, in practice nationalistmotherhood was an ideological role thatdemanded not only specific political allegiances,but also proscribed emotionalexpression. Thus.foi ' example, mothers were expected to remainstoic in the face of the 'sacrifice ' of their maleactivist children but to express righteous angeragainst 'enemy ' politicians and police. Motherswho questioned the politicaldecisions of radicalnationalist leaders, or supported children whowere considered to be 'traitors', could them-selves become the objects of harsh criticism orostracism. Among the nanators who had left theradical nationalist movement by the time of theinterviews, typically motivated by an ethicaldecision to stop supporting ETA violence, somehad experienced similar treatment from formerfellow activists, friends, neighbours and evenfamily. These are examples of the kind ofpunishments' that, according to Reddy, are

sometimes meted out to those who do not makethe required 'normative utterances' required bycertain 'emotional regimes'.'' The fact that indi-vidual actors did not necessarily subscribe to allaspects of a given 'emotional regime ' beats outRosenwein's observation above that 'even wif/zflzfhe same socfefy contradictory values andmodels, not to mention deviant individuals. Hindtheir place'.-9 it also reminds us that the exis-tence of a dominant 'emotional regime ' does notprescribe agency on the part of diKerent actors.2aFemale activists' remembered feelings towardsnationalism and feminism are further evidenceof the complex relationship between systems offeelings and particular emotions, between theemotional regime of radical nationalism and theagency of individual activists.

THE GENDER POLITICS OF EMOTIONALCOMMUNI'IYIf the radical nationalist 'emotional communitywas shaped by class and religion, therefore, itwas also fundamentally gendered. In practice.the emotional labour of holding together familyand community, especially in the face of exile.police persecution, imprisonment and death, felllargely to women and especially to the mothersand partners of ETA activists and prisoner's. Theinterviews as a whole give a positive assessmentof these 'traditional ' female i-ales, even if thereis a marked genes'ational difference betweenwomen bom between the mid 1940s and mid] 950s, who tended to identify closely with theideal of the emotionally strong Basque motherfigure, and younger women both after thatperiod, who came of age during the 1960s and

MOVING FEELINGSThe principalaim of my research was toexamine the different roles of women in thehistory of radical nationalism from the found-ing of ETA in 1959 to the early 1980s, with afocus on those who had been directly active inETA or had participated in the radial national-ist feminist movement which arose alongside alarger women's movement in the Basquecountry and Spain foHowing the death of Francoin 1975. I therefore asked my narrators anumber of questions about the history of femi-nism inside ETA and other radical nationalistorganizations, including trade unions, political

88 oRAl. HISTORY Autumn 2010

parties and prisoners' rights groups. A commontheme soon emerged, one that confirmedreports I had read in written sources such ascommunity newspapers and magazines:although from the late 1 960s onwards radicalnationalist rhetoric increasingly combined tradi-tionalist praise for women's roles as motherswith a celebration of women's equality or liber-ation, in practice feminism was regarded as asecondary political aim and even a distractionfrom nationalism. This dilemma and its politi-cal and emotional fallout for nanators were stillperceptible at the time of the interviews in themid 1990s. One of the explanations for theperceived conflict of interest between national-ism and feminism was the problem of combin-ing 'intellectual ' or 'rational ' politics with anactivism motivated by emotions. The interviewexcerpts presented below provide an interestingvariation on Rosenwein's theme of competingfeelings within 'emotional communities': in thenarrators' words particular emotions, some-times associated metaphorically with differentparts of the body, are used to depict competingallegiances to nationalism and feminism.

In several of the interviews feminism is inter-preted primarily as an intellectualconcept. Onenarrator, for instance, recalled that the first timeshe heard talk of feminism was during a discus-sion organized by young activists in the late1960s; she describes the views presented asvery interesting ', 'new ' and 'quite theoretical'.'iA different narrator, when asked why shethought feminism had had a mixed responseamong ETA members and supporters a decadelater, in the late 1970s, recalled her visits toexiled friends and comrades in the FrenchBasque country during that period:

uncle had been aii'ested (...) but theyweren't interested in finding out, lookinginto things, leal'nang.:'

As Inoted above, it is commonplace instudies of radical nationalism to claim that ETAmembers had little concem for sophisticatedpolitical debate and that the organisation's polit-ical analysis was impoverished in contrast tothat of other political movements, most notablysocialist organizations. But what interests mehere is less a critique of radical nationalism'spresumed intellectual deficiency than a consid-eration of how the conception of nationalism asa movement associated with the everyday. theemotional and the intimate made it seem incom-patible with supposedly more 'theoretical ' move-ments, including feminism. In the inteldews thisapparent contrast is expressed tht'ough therecurs:ing metaphor ' of the heart:

'Be kind of activism of people in the nation-alist left was an activism more from theheart. More of feelings. They began with feel-ings, and the rationalizing went from there."

Why is the a(Svism in the radica! nationalist!e$ so di$ererlt?

The people who start to get involved, getinvolved not from the head, but from theheart.:'

/

In everyday speech, to act oi ' speak 'from theheart ' denotes sincerity and authenticity, eveninnocence and simplicity(the above excerpts aretranslated from Castilian Spanish, but the samedistinction holds in the original). In psychoana-lytic trims, Jacqueline Rose has written(withreference to a different zone of conflict. SouthAfrica) that 'we use the heart a$ metaphorwhenever we want to indicate that part of thepsyche where the mind's sovereignty is insuffi-cient, where something other than the ego holdssway '." As far as the language of politico goes.Rose suggests, the heart, along with blood,represents that site of ownership that is true, ienon-metaphoric."

In terms of identity politics, therefore, 'theheart ' represents a supposedly true or incon-testable identity. Nationalists - and the Basquecase is hardly unique here - frequently claimthat national or ethnic identity" constitutes thebasic individual and collective identity, the onethat perforce comes bernie a]] others (includingclass, gender and sexuality). This claim is oftenmade through the association of the nation withthe family.:o But claims to authenticity via thefamily and the heart can be found in other polit-ical movements. Thus, in her study of Italian

In the ETA lknew in 78 and 79 there werepeople who had taken up amis and hadn'thad any kind of ideological awakening. Verylittle. They wanted a free Basque country,independence. But to go from there toconsidering the equality between womenand men, even socialism . .."

,1A third woman likewise remembered

encountering relatively few men in and aroundETA in the 1 970s who had developed a politicalconsciousness through reading and studying, orwho were interested in debating politics.Explaining why she believed it was dif6lcult toteach most men in ETA about feminism sherecalled:

Many of the others were there because theywere there. Because there had been a Burrostrial," because there was injustice, becausea friend was there, a relative, because an

L Autumn 2010 oRAl HISTORY 89

working-class memories of fascism, LuisaPasserini identifies the 'theme of almost biolog-ical predestination in being Socialist '." Shewrites:

lions which in tum connect metaphorically toideas of 'love ' and 'the heart '. Such associationshave proven useful not only in the constructionof a hierarchy of identity which places national-ity at the top, but also in justifying the margin-aiity of identities and political causes deemedtoo 'intellectual ', including socialism and femi-nism.

In her book the Cu/furl/ PollHcs ofEmodo/z,Sara Ahmed argues that emotions work in partthrough the act of repetition, by 'sticking ' tocertain bodies, objects or ideas." Nations, forexample, are imagined as 'held together ' throughthe work of different emotions (love, hate,shame, disgust) that 'stick ' to different bodies.For Ahmed. emotions reside neither inside noroutside the subject; nor are they propertiesowned by certain individuals or groups that canthen be passed on to or caught by others.:s inher analysis, emotions are words and signs, butthey are also material: it is through their circu-lation, moving between objects but also bring-ing them together, that emotions createboundaries, surfaces and bodies.

Ahmed's understanding of emotion is helpfulto my work here because it disengaged emotionfrom the question of an individual's or group's'real ' feelings and focuses instead on the politi-cal meanings and work of emotions. lagree withAhmed that emotions do not reside inside indi-viduals, waiting to be tapped or released; nor dothey belong innately to particular objects orconcepts. Like Ahmed, lam interested in howemotions relate to bodies, though my emphasisis different from hers. Whereas she reads theways certain texts shape the surfaces of andinteractions between bodies, through thelanguage of fear, hate, love, and so on, I aminterested in how certain emotions - or asupposed lack of emotion - are expressed in myoral interviews through their association withparticular body parts, how these associationsthemselves move, and what these movementsmean.

As an example of this movement lwant tocite an excel)t from a narrator who joined ETAin the mid 1960s, became one of the organisa-tion's first female armed activists and leaders,spent several years in prison under Franco, andwas later involved for many years in the radicalnationalist feminist movement. When lackedher why over the decades there had been fewconcrete changes with regard to women's issuesin the radical nationalist movement, she replied:

In these instances the metaphor, par exec/-/ence is that of the heart because it expressesthe inner self and an unchanging naturewhich endures with the full force of physicallife even when silence is imposed.':

In the examples provided by Rose andPasserini, the heart is that part of the body asso-ciated most strongly with life and resistance,with something that outside forces cannotquash. 'lbe heart represents the privileged siteof resistance, of commitment both to oneselfand to the collective as a whole.

The heart is also, of course, a commonmetaphor forjee/f/zg. People often speak of diffi-cult personal choices as a struggle betweenhead and heart '. It was in these terms that one

narrator, who had become a peace activist by thetime of the interview, described her decision todistance herself from radical nationalist politics,and particularly from ETA violence:

that's where my heart is, that's where thepeople Imost love are, they're exhaordinarypoople. And well, that's a bit where my heartis, but my head is telling me that maybe thisisn't what leant . . . lbelieve in this project,but the strategy being carried out, well Ican't take it on, rake it on less and less."

To 'have one's heart in something ' or tospeak from the heart ' implies emotional

honesty. In particular, the heart is associatedwith affection and love - emotions particularlychampioned by nationalists(love of the land isagain often likened to love of family). In theabove examples, nationalism as a political causeis presented as dominant because it has a partic-ular hold on people's hearts, because it speaksto their most basic feelings. In these accountsthe 'emotional ' nature of nationalism helps tolegitimate it as a political movement; in contrast,in many academic analyses nationalism's appealto feelings is deemed as a shortcoming. But Iwould argue that nationalism is no more:emotional ' than any other political movement.The work of Rose and Passerini on South AfHcaand Italy, respectively, remind us that thelanguage of emotion is found in diverse politicalmovements, historical periods and culturalcontexts. But nationalists, including supportersof ETA, have been particularly ' successful inlegitimizing and regenerating their cause withintheir own community through rhetorical associ-ations with the home, family and land, associa-

Me too. I'm a woman. it's much more diffi-cult to explain women's oppression, becauseit goes to your gut, while the national andthe social are more rational ... You talkabout culture, that you can't be how you

90 oRAl HISTORY Autumn 2010

are. You can't love the way you want to. Youcan't sing, you don't have a language, peopleunderstand. And you're a worker and youhave a low salary that leaves you just enoughto live or you're unemployed, they alsounderstand that. But talk about what Infl-mafely - that's the deep pa# o/ /ztzma/iffy.And to get men to recognise that they'remachisfa implies something so flzfemaZ, it'ssomething to deep. That it's difficult for usto describe what that involves. And for themto accept it. You can be a brute at home andbe an abedza/e(nationalist) worker. And bean environmentalist at demos. You have away of life that represents a revolution. Butput yourself in the terrain of feminism. Thatmeans making a much more p/u#ound rwo-/ufforz. It's even about how you screw Lots ofthings start there. And it's difficult. That'swhy it hasn't been resolved almost anywherein the World.n

have had to contend: 'feminism as hostile andemotional(. . .) an extension of the already pathchlogical "emotionality" of femininity '. As SaraAhmed argues, the challenge is not to overtumthis cliche with the claim that feminism is ratio-nal, but to challenge the supposed contrastbetween emotions and rational thought."

Emotions move nat only between politicalcauses and body parts, but also through time andthrough the interviews themselves." 'lbe firstfour excerpts above are reflections upon the past,historical assessments of the problems feministsfaced in incorporating their political aims intothe radical nationalist movement in the earlydays of feminism (ie the 1960s and 1970s). Incontrast, the last excerpt above is a reflection onthe moment of the interview in 1997, on thereasons for and legacy of past failures and howthey continued to impact upon the life of thenarrator and others(including, implicitly, thefemale and feminist interviewer). Moreover,whereas in the aust four excerpts the narratorsare speaking of the challenges faced by others('they ') the last narrator uses more personalpronouns: 1, we, you. She addresses the listener(interviewer/reader) directly moving beyond theboundaries of the national 'we ' to a transnationalaudience, 'humanity '. Although the statementthat feminism goes to the 'gut ', to 'the deepestpart of humanity ' may seem to contradict myclaim that emotions do not reside inside people,I do not interpret these passages as claims thatpeople 'own ' their deepest feelings, but ratherthat emotions move into, through and betweenindividuals and collectives. The comment thatfeminism requires a 'more profound revolution 'both denotes a collective struggle and implies anunspoken comparison. If the passage stresses thechallenges of feminism for all of us(I, we, you,humanity) it also marks out the borders andlimits of nationalism.

The body language in this excerpt is explic-itly visceral- feminism goes to the entrails orguts, to the 'deep part of humanity '; it is some-thing that requires total liberation, a 'profoundrevolution '. Like the heart, the gut and otherinternal organs are associated with emotion, butthey imply something messier, perhaps less pure,certainly less romantic. If in common parlancenationalism is associated with love, here femi-nism is 'about how you screw '. Thinking aboutfeminism means(re)thinking sex.

In this and the above interview passages,emotions move and attach themselves to differ-ent political ideas, and the meanings of differentemotions change. These movements and changesare made through reference to different bodyparts. In contrast to the earlier excerpts, in whichnationalism was related to the heart and opposedto a more intellectual or theoretical feminism(which in tum was associated implicitly with thehead), in this last passage feminism is contrastedto 'the national and the social ' as forces that aremore rational '. Even love (implicitly of thenation or the 'people ', although this ambiguityopens up other possible comparisons), quintes-sentially linked to the heart and deemed in oppo-sition to the head, is here presented as somethngreasonable, something anyone can explain orunderstand. Socialism or the question ofworkers' rights, which in one of the previousexcerpts was aligned with feminism as a moreintellectual movement that required greaterstudy than the more basic politics of nationalism,here Serves to reverse the equation: like nation-alism, socialism is easy to comprehend, unlikefeminism, which cannot be explained in rationalterms. 'Ibis is a familiar stereotype, one withwhich feminists in different times and places

REMEMBERED FEELINGSIt is not only that nationalism and feminism aredifferentiated in some of the interviews throughreference to rationality and emotion and differ-ent feelings; memories of the two movementsare also expressed emotively in very differentways. In spite of their claims that nationalismwas an 'emotional ' movement, narrators typi-cally recounted memories of nationalist activismrather matter-of-factly, even when recalling diffi-cult or painful events - including experiences ofarrest and torture or the death of loved ones.This may be because such stories correspondclosely to a collective radical nationalist rhetoricof struggle, suffering and sacrifice and are there-fore unlikely to be spontaneous. I am notsuggesting that such memories are not painfulfor the speakers; rather, following Reddy, largue

Autumn 2010 oRAl HIST'ORY 91

that they are examples of the social nature ofindividual feelings and also of the dangers ofreading what he calls 'emotives' either asexpressions or denials of 'true feeling ', individ-ual or collective.n

Memories of feminism, in contrast. wereexpressed by several narrators, particularly thosewho had been active in radical'nationalist femi-nist groups in the 1 970s and 1980s. with mixedfeelings. obese ranged from joy at memories oforganizing with other women, to anger anddisappointment at the failure of'radical nation-

sm to incorporate feminism as a legitimatepolitical project. 'lhese emotions were not onlyexpressed in words, but also through laughter, arise in the voice, or a flat refusal to c(;itinuediscussing the issue. Recalling a particularaction on Intemational Women's Day when herfeminist group called on women to make a one.day stake against housework, one narrator. whohad also been a member of ETA in the early1970s, said: '

other words, feminism was simultaneously toopolitical and not political enough. '

THE EMOTIONS OF POLITICS AND THEPOLITICS OF EMOTIONSIn the interviews explored above, formerachvists associate certain feelings with nation-alism and feminism. Their language rejects thechallenges of combining dillerent forms of polit-ical activism and suggests that politics itself canbe experienced or 8;pressed as an emotionalconflict. Feminism and nationalism evoked fornarrators a variety of often conflicting feelings,including love, aHection, hope, anger and disap-pointment. 'obese competing feelings not onlyvaried.among individuals, depending on factorsincluding class: gender, age and individual expe-riences; they also changed historicaHy throughthe course of a lifetime and in the context ofwider historical circumstances. While theradical nationalist movement continued as anactive political force at the time of the inter-views. in the mid 1 990s, the feminist organiza-tions in which several narrators had been activehad largely disintegrated, as had the energy andmobilization of Basque and Spanish second-wave feminism, which was at its peak betweenthe mid 1970s and the mid 1980s. If I were toconduct further interviews today, in 2010, nodoubt nationalism and even feminism wouldevoke different emotional responses amongnarrators than they did a decade ago. '

Exploring the emotions associated withparticular politi(}al movements, and how thesechange and move across a range of history inter-views, we can use one of the strengths of oralhistory, its subjectivity, without claiming torepresent the narmtors' 'true feelings'. As Reddyargues, emotional sincerity is itself a historicalconcept: 'Because of emotives' powerful effmtsand the likelihood that individual will developa set of "skins" in exploiting these effects. singer,ity must be considered a specialized skill in itsown right, that develops only in certain histori-cal and political setting'.4] if we accept that fil-ings, like memory, are not best measured interms of accuracy or sincerity the way is openfor oral historians to explore the historicallychanging meanings of different emotions andtheir relationships to political movements andother social and cultural phenomena.

An approach to emotions as historical andcultural and therefore fundamentally social andcollective, underscores the emotional element ofa// forms of politics. As Rosenwein notes. thestudy of the history of emotions has beenhindered in the past by its association withviolent political movements (most notablyfascism). When emotions are interpreted as adangerous force in politics, historians and other

We had a really good time. Iremember thatin dle feminist struggle lenjoyed myself, aswell as being active, and in ' the politicalstruggle Irarely enjoyed myself ...'i

But this narrator, like several others. alsoexpressed exasperation at what she saw as theinability of some male - and female - national-ists to understand the importance of women'sseparate organizing. lbat the emotions associ-ated with such flustradons were not yet forgot-ten years later is expressed by an older narratorwho described the moment in which the radicalnationalist women's organisation was disbandedunder pressure from other groups in the early1 980s as 'lamentable '. 'It upsets me,' she added.;l

'the range of emotions expressed in memo-ries of feminism - intense happiness, on one

and anger and pain, on the other - mayreflect a more fundamental tension within fm.nism itself, one that can be detected in thesecond-wave feminist slogan 'the personal ispolitical'.'2 On one hand, feminism waspresented as an explicitly public political projectwith a wide-ranging critique of 'social relationsand institutions, fmm work and the economy toeducation and govemment; on the other. thesecond-wave emphasis on sexuality, reproduc-tion, bodies and personal relationships tookpolitics into the most intimate spheres ofwomen's and men's lives. 'Ibis tension is clear innarrators: recollections of the ways feminismwas misunderstood by other women and men inMe radical nationalist movement. In some casesfeminists were accused of being too serious. ofnot knowing how to takea joke; in others, femi-

nism was dismissed as being just about sex. Ip

92 oRAl. HISTORY Autumn 2010

scholars are more likely to place value on a'rational ' approach to politics.H But followingRosenwein's own model, we can move awayfrom the ahistorical idea that certain fouls ofpolitics are 'more emotional ' than others. or thatcertain movemQBts inevitably give rise to certainemotions, towards the study of political move-ments as historically changing 'emotionalcommunities'. As Ahmed insists, 'emotions are

not the centre of everything ', and politics areabout more than feelings." The study ofemotions, in other words, cannot explain every-thing about a political movement. But an histor-ically-informed study of the 'system of feelingsthat circulate in a particular politicalmovementscan, in important ways, enhance our under-standings of that movement, including its rela-tionship to other forms of politics.

1. Interview with Narrator #4 lb T 9491.

Interview canduded by abhor, Bilbao, March1996.2. Intewiew with Narrator #7 lb 1 946).Interview conducted for authoc[)onosticrSanSebastian. February 1997.3. See for example. Jeff Gaxlwin, James A.Jasper and francesca PolleHa jedsl RosfonobPcgitics: Emotions arid S)dal/-/kwemenb.

Chicago and london: University of ChicagoPres. 2001;Jeff Gaxlwin andJames M. Jasperjedsl Re/hinting &x:/a/A4owmenb: SMchre.A4eanfng, ard Emolfm. Odors: Rowman andliHlefield Publishers. 2004.

4. lconduded some gwent)rave intewiews in] 99697. The InleMews k)sled beWeen one

and two and a half hours and were conducted inhe 'lifestory ' format in which narrators recounted

heir stclies larger according to their ownmemories, in additi(in lo guiding questions. fordetails of the interview methodology see CameHamilton. Women and ED4: 7he Gen(i9r Po/f/fcs

of Radical &)sque Noiiomlism. MJn(huterlMclnchester Untwrsity Press, 2007.5. Barbara H. Rosenwein. Worrying aboutEmotions in History', American Hislorlca/ Pevfe\ACv(i107, no 3, 2002. p 842. WhileRosenweinb 'system of feelings' may soundsimilar to Raymond Williams's 'stmchre ofreeling '. she does not cite him as a reference.Instead. Rosenwein's inspiration comes fromdevelopments in the sociology and hisloly of

emotions since the 1 9COs. in particular the 'noir

hydraulic theories of emohons' ip 824), namelyhe 'cognitive view ip 8361 and 'socialconshuctionism ' ip 837)- The 'f\ydraulic model '.In contrast, posils that 'he emotions are like greatliquids wihin each person, heaving and frothing,eager to be let out. The m(del in fadjargelyderives from mediewl medical notions of the

rumors-' ip 8341. Rosenwein also draws onWilliam Redclt's idea of 'emotivu ' jsee belowl.Williams coined the term 'structure of feeling ' todescribe the 'quile distinct sense of a particular

and nathe sMe ' in a given hisloHcal period, pastor present. A concept hat could be useblVrevisited by historians of emotion. 'shucture offeeling ' newrtheless irlcorporales a muchbroader understanding of culhre and society

han that found in most contemporary cultural andsocial theories of emotion, including those citedin this study. See Williams, 'Be Analysis of

Culhre ' in #e long Revoluflm, london: Penguin.1 965 (1 961 1, pp 57 88. Quotation on p 64-6. Rosenwein, 2002. p 842.7. Rosenwein. 2002. pp 842-3. Emphasis inoriginal-

8. francisco letamendia Belunze. Hfs/or/a de/mack)na/ismo waco y (b E.IA, vail. SanSebastian: R&B Ediciones, 1 994, p 3 1 7.9. fernando Reinarw, Fofrfofas de h rnuede=quienes han milikldo en EiA yfnr qu6. }x/\odl\d:taurus. 2001

1 0. Bego6a Arekaga. los hnerales en e/naciona/isms ra(fca/ cusco, San Sebastian:Baroda. 1 988; Jesus Casquete. 'he Power ofDemonstrations,' Soda/Abvemenf Shdfa. val5, no 1. 2006. pp 4560. Oder contemporarysocial movements demonstrate the power ofpublic funerals in consolidating pditical Hes

trough he sirnulfaneous expression of angeragainst the stale. mourning for the (lead and

pride in group idenHty. See the example of the'Ashe ' action carried out by AIDS adivisfs in heUnited States in Deborah B. Goukl, 'Passionate

PoliHcal Procesws: Bringing Emotions Back intohe Shyly of Social Mcvemenfs' in Godwin and

Jasper 2004. pp 15560.11. %e fkurrifb. like diner symbols of Basque

national identiV. was forbidden during thefranco dictatorship j193P197SI. Consequent.he Hag became a particuklrly potent symbol ofresurgent nationalist identity in the 1 960s,

especially when displayed illegals in public.1 2. Hamilton. 2007. pp 67:9; Annetrain\o&, Imperial tmher: Race. Gender aMSexmiiy in Ae Ct)loninl Confess New York:

RouHedge. 1995, pp 374-5.1 3. for a comparatiw example of rituals andsymbols as 'collective means of emotionalcommunication ' in a poliHcal movement. see

Colin Barked 'fea( laughter qnd Collectiw

Power: The HIkIng of Solidarjly at he leninShipyard in Gdansk. Pdand. August 1 980' inGaxiwin, Jasper and PolleHa. 2001, p 1 75.1 4. Interview with Narrator # llb. 1 94SI.Interview conducted by auhoC Bilbao, Apri1996.1 5. Interview with Narralar #2 lb. 1 9S61.

Interview conducted by author. DonosticrSanSebastian,June 1997.1 6. William M. Reddy. He Nav©afion of

Feeling: A Framewo& for he History d Emotion.Cambridge: Cambridge Uniwrsity Press. 2001,P 1241 7. Hamilton. 2007

1 8. Redo, 2001 . p } 2519. Rosenwein, 2002, pp 842-3

20. Reddy claims that his mabel of emotions

'reslorejsl agency and historical significance lohe disaggregaled self ', IRedcb 2(X)I , p I I llhough his insistence on the historical construction

of the concept of emotional sincerity jsee belowlmay make him more ambiwlent on the issue of

agency. My hanks to Sheena Rolf for paintingout these tensions within Reddy's work

21. Interview with narrator #3 lb 1 947)Inlerview conducted by author. Bilbao, May1997

22. Inlewiew wih Narrator #4 lb 1949).Interview conducted by auhoC Bilbao, /\&lrch1996

23. This refers lo the trial of sixteen accused EIA

members, including three women. at a militarytribunal in the Spanish city of Burros in 1 970Six of the male defendants were given deathsentences llaler commuted to life impnsonmentl

and the rest lengthy jail terms. The Burros trialwas a key moment in the development of theradical Basque nationalist movement as well as

the wider antrl:banco movement throughout

Spain. and also drew wide protest of the francodictatorship from abroad24. Inlewiew wih Narrator #2 [b 1956)Interview conducted by authoClbnosticrSanSebastian.June 199725. Interview with Narrator #4 lb 1 949jIntewiew conducted by auhoC Bilbao, March] 996

26. Interview with Narralor # 5 lb 1 9S81Infewiew conducted by author Bilbao, february1996

27..bJcqueline Rose. Sfa/es dFonfasy, Oxford:Cbrendon Press, 1994, p 39.28. Rose. ]994. p 4129. lam aware hat these Wo are not

necessariV idenHcal. thoLUh in tile language(J

Basque nationalism ethnicity and nationality orenowrlap and merge. While all of the inleMeW

LAutumn 2010 oRAl HISTORY 93

narralors identihed shongV as Basque. many hadSpanish as well as jor instead ofl Basque

herihJge. underscoring the extent lo wtiichcontemporary Basque idenHty is culhiral andgeographical. The single most important 'marker '

of Basqueness was idenHhed as kJnguage. evenby those who were not Huent in he Basque

language euskero.30. Hamiltm. 2007.31. luisa Passerini. Fascism in Fopu/orMemo%Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1 987,P 24.32. Passerini, 1987. p 24.33. Interview with Narrator # 6 lb 1 9441.Interview conducted by aulhoC Bilbao, March1996.

34. Sara Ahmed. Be Cu/bm/ Po/ifics of

EmoNon. Edinburgh; Edinburgh University Press,2004. PP 1 1-1 2.35. Ahmed. 2004. pp 9-10.36. Inlerview with Narrator #7 lb 1 9461.Interview conducted by auhoC[)onosticrSan

Sebasti6n. february 1997.37. Ahmed. 2004. p 170.38. for a discussion of how emotions move

through history and accumulate over time. seeSara Ahmed. 'Affective Economies.' &)cla/ Xexf.

79, vo1 22. no 2. Summer 2004, pp 1 1 9-20.39. Rack 2001 . p 107.40. Interview with Narrator #2 lb 1 9S61InteMew conducted by aulhoqlbnosticrSanSebastian. June 1997.

41. Interview with Narralor #7 lb 1 9461Interview conducted by author, [))nosticrSan

Sebasti6n. February 1997.42. The feminist 'second waw ' is historicalVassocialed wih the radical social movements of

he late 1 960s and 1 970s. In tk Basque county.inducing Spain. an adive womenb mowment

dank)ped in he kite 1 97C)s, folk)wing he dealtcJ he dictator francisco Franco in 1 975 and the

hansition lo liberal democracy.43. Rack 2001 , p 107.44. Rosenwein. 2002. pp 821-345. Ahmed. 2004. pp 16, 202.

Address lor correspondence Carrie Hamiltonc.hamilton@roehampton.ac.uk

94 oRAl. HISTORY Autumn 2010