Symbol and Ritual in the New Spain: The Transition to Democracy after Franco
, by Laura Desfor EdlesNote: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
- ISBN: 9780521621403 | 0521621402
- Cover: Hardcover
- Copyright: 5/28/1998
This is a book about the role of culture in social change and the Spanish transition to democracy after Franco. Laura Desfor Edles takes a distinctively culturalist approach to the 'strategy of consensus' deployed by the Spanish elite and uses systematic textual interpretation (with a particular focus on Spanish newspapers) to show how a new symbolic framework emerged in post-Franco Spain which enabled the resolution of specific events critical to the success of the transition. In addition to uncovering underlying processes of symbolization, she shows that politico-historical transitions can themselves be understood as ritual processes, involving as they do phases and symbols of separation, liminality and re-aggregation.