 So, hello, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this third session and the second day of this conference on colonialism, organized by democratic memory, the European Observatory of Memories and from the Borre Centra Cultural. First of all, we would like to introduce the first round table of today's afternoon, but first of all, I would like to take advantage of this moment to thank the democratic memory representation of the municipality and the European Observatory of Memories and also the Borre Centra Cultural for having given us the opportunity to organize together with Ricardo Conesa this seminar, which I can say have been a very encouraging challenge because of the content and also because of the challenge to be able to adapt to this context that we are living as a society. I would also like to take advantage of this moment to thank the different participants and the attendees for having been able to re-adapt to this digital format. This is not easy and of course I think and I trust that soon we will slowly recover the normality that we have left behind for many months and in the future we can continue with these debates which are so interesting and so needed and to be able to do it on site. Today we will listen to two different sessions on this colonialism conference and both of them will deal from two different perspectives, the question of colonialism in the past and also the question of colonialism and the heritage of colonialism in the present. In this specific roundtable that we are starting now and we have three different speakers, Alberto López Bargados, Veronica Peña-Filiu and Norma Belith. In this session the idea is to deal with what we have called and the title of this roundtable invisible colonialism and I think that we have to explain this concept and we have to justify the existence of this panel. The way we understand this invisible colonialism is the absence or marginality in the narration of some colonial experiences and this is like this because in general when we speak about colonialism or when we try to explain colonialism which has specific consequences on the Spanish or Catalan question we usually talk about the colonialism and the American experience and the devastating effects they had on this territory but often within this narration we forget other territories and other transnational experiences which are happening now today in our city and basically this will be the justification for this panel discussion for this reason what we wanted to deal with is several questions on the one hand colonialism in Africa and the African colonial memory also the colonial experiences in the Philippines and the Mariannes Islands which are the interventions which will be given by Alberto López Bargados and Veronica Peña-Filiu and we thought it was very necessary to include these points of view and perspective because these are territories that also suffer and had been affected by the colonial question but they have often been excluded from the general knowledge about the dynamics and the functioning and the roots of the Spanish and Catalan colonialism and we think that one way of breaking these absences and this lack of visibility was to include the session during which we could deal with these questions which are very relevant on the other hand we also thought that it was pertinent to establish a dialogue and an exchange within these talks which are also based on academic research within the world of activism and one activism that has to be recognized is promoting this research and it places as in front of an uncomfortable mirror as a society and that we think we have to approach and this is why we have this third participation which will try to deal with the consequences of our country and not America of these colonial regimes such as the questions of symbolic violence or racism that as a society we suffer this is necessary because we have taken on often that these dynamics of colonialism have some effects that have to repair those territories which were colonized but our society lives outside these heritage and we think this should not be like this and this is why we wanted to include this intervention within the concept of forgotten memory or invisible memory. Having done this introduction on the round table and I don't want to dwell on the introduction I would like to give the floor to our first speaker who will be Alberto Lopez Bargados. Let me introduce him. Alberto is a doctor in anthropology and professor of the University of Barcelona. He is specialized in the region of the Maghrib and with community dynamics of Islam in Europe and also practices of Islamophobia that are developed in these territories and recently he has centered most of his research in following the colonial imprint of Catalonia and Spain in the African continent and also he also had as a protagonist the region of Ifni and the subject of debate was the Catalan military service during 1957. Those exhibitions were open at the Museum of Cultures of the World and they allow us to socialize this memory which is very much on loan in the colonial past so without further ado I give the floor now to Alberto Lopez. Hello, good afternoon, good afternoon everybody. My apologies for my voice. I have a call and my voice is a bit shaky but I hope you can follow me and understand me. What I will have to do is to thank and express my gratitude also as Celeste has said the representatives of the municipality, the observatory of memories and the born center of memory and especially to Celeste and Ricard as organizers of this three-day conference which obviously I think is necessary and it's very nice and also needed that we have continuity in the future. I would like to adjust to the time that has been given to me because I always longer I will try to read it won't be very spontaneous but I will adjust to the time and I'm sure you will be thankful for this. Okay, the Black Lives moment in Barcelona last summer and this is when it exploded in the city. It is obvious that on the question of colonial memory and more specifically on the African memorial colony and the Spanish experience in Africa is very much recognized. It is also true that the colonial fact in Africa and America conceals a certain interest and enjoys visibility which means that several years ago it was impossible to think about this and I think that it has substantially changed the perception of this memory and without being too optimistic I think it has stopped being a taboo something nobody was talking about people are starting to talk about it. Modestly I have contributed to this but many people are contributing to speaking about this past and this past which is almost immediate is now on the table and we can discuss it but all this visibility which has been present now is a critical. I mean that it expressed mainly in practice through a process of patrimonial evaluation so through the mechanisms of value creation which are characteristics of the neoliberal capitalism so the colonial footprint is the way it reaches the citizens some examples surrounding us are the following for example beer can be called manila brand of beer can be named manila a hotel in this case 1898 can be proud of being the old headquarters of the Philippines and to have rooms colonial style they have rooms of a colonial style or maybe to be out of the metropolitan area of Barcelona we can also claim the fortunes acquired through the slaves traffic towards the Caribbean through fair of Indians such as the one that is organized in Bagur but also highlighting the Indian patrimony all through the Catalan coast. Someone could think maybe that all this it's a popular approach and in form of the colonial experience even vulgar we can dare to say the question is that often and I can say it firsthand and I'm going to give you an example of this the academic approach is not necessarily the best and let me give you a specific example which is almost a personal example because it was a firsthand experience not many years ago I had the privilege to be part of a commission created ad hoc in order to evaluate a reform of the ethnological museum of Barcelona which belongs to the municipality of Barcelona and that commission counted on the presence of many university representatives related to anthropology such as myself and within this commission several university colleagues such as myself deny for example that this museum the ethnological museum of Barcelona suffer the original scene of other museums such as the one of Brazil of Brussels or Paris or the British Museum of London to give you three specific samples they had a white patrimony related to the colonial experience heritage which was claimed by these doctors my colleagues say that this original scene was not suffered by the ethnographic museum of Barcelona and in order to show me the innocence of the institution reminded me that all the collections were bought as if the hierarchical relations and the pressure of the colonial system didn't make these organized expeditions of the museum towards the colonies in this case towards Guinea were not an example of domination and of course they were done under circumstances that the one selling did not have a lot of maneuver in order to decide the price of the pieces acquired by the representatives of the museum in my opinion very briefly what I would like to say on the time I have left try to talk about the main reasons that in my opinion explain this ellipsis and I think that this is what it should be ellipsis why can we say and can we see this fracture the idea of a colonial fracture is something already introduced by Pascal Blanchard several authors who have been working on the question of the French colonial memory in France and they introduced basically that the colonial experience it's an experience forgotten not only in the identity of the old metropolis but even this experience is seen as accidental as a contingent as if it were something not determining and not influencing from an structural point of view in the identity construction of the colony as if the experience along the 20th century could be built independent from everything that happened in the colonies this idea of colonial fracture I think can be extrapolated to the French case and the Spanish case the Spanish case and the Catalan case and the one of Barcelona which is the one we're dealing with I will try to approach in a clear way a couple of reasons very quickly and the first one I will say that can be applied to the whole of the Spanish state the second one is more specific and of course I will try to dwell on both of them the first reason is what could be called the amnesty of Frankism and their projects we have to say that this amnesty and amnesia have a sure etymology and this is not by any chance this forgiveness and the way we forgot due to the law of 1977 affecting not only the crimes committed by the Franco regime but also the political projects developed by this regime or taken on by the Franco state among them the colonial African adventure only then in my opinion can we explain the case of western Sahara which is now something we often talk about because 20 years of the ceasefire because between both parties Morocco and Sahara they have gone back to fighting the feeling that the different democratic governments of the Spanish state came from the constitution of 1978 without any responsibility on the future of the subject of colony which de facto continues to be not decolonized it has not been recognized yet by international entities can only be interpreted through this feeling of trying to forget about this responsibility so everything is under the carpet of a self-compliant narration about transition which is and has been just pure propaganda like an official memory or good memory as the carbine says making us self-managing private memories a country where we have not supported and are not it's not supporting with some exception the specific private memories related to these expeditions and therefore they are obliged to deploy and to develop and to become visible in a so generous way through a process of self-management without the academic arguments or scientific arguments that the state and the administrations can contribute with in order to collaborate and strengthen these memories we belong to a country where the colonial memory is almost completely private in my opinion this ellipse has been created by the feeling that we have broken all the political symbolical and responsibility barriers and obstacles with the Franco routine an interested image and perspective which we should leave behind and in second case and this is the second reason and I will close with this and I hope I'm adjusting to the time that has been given to me what we could call the solipsistic myth of conservative Catalanism this term was coined during the 19th century and this myth which was hegemonic for more than 20 years of pugilism and I will say that has been translated without many change to the present process since 2012 this myth says that the colonial project in Africa was an affair of the state exclusively an affair of the Spanish state in which the Catalan elites and of course the rest of the Catalan people intervene without wanting to intervene so any responsibility is in the hands of the state and not the peoples and societies belonging to this state for better wars this argument and this idea that the Catalan society as such did not participate in the colonial project and it was just forced by the circumstances we have seen in a very clear way when we organized the exhibition on Cunde and Guinea which is obvious that we see the role of the Catalan bourgeoisie which was fundamental for the development of the colony from an economic perspective but also in that way we have seen it in the case of yesterday and we could see this in the case of Morocco and more new since because they ended up being a military territory in the Sahara it could also be seen in the Sahara what we see in summary are two mechanisms of building the memory which have favored the notion of responsibility to this immediate one it affects the totality of the transition and the other one which is specific a Catalan project which has been around this country for many years and which allowing us and this is particular on the Spanish army and the Catalan society that was there just by chance well in my opinion the first thing we have to do in order to overcome this ellipsis and this structure and this is what I wanted to say with my talk is to highlight and to place on the table and to talk about these two arguments and to start rethinking them and to talk about responsibility on this immediate past and of course we do have a certain responsibility and that's all thank you very much I think this is 20 minutes thank you very much for listening to me don't worry Alberto perfect 20 minutes and thank you very much for your introduction it's been very interesting and I'm sure that later during the debate we can recover some of these questions this relationship between the law of amnesty and colonial presence has steer many questions let's listen now to Veronica Peña Filio let me introduce Veronica who is a doctor in history by the Pumpeu Fabra University associated professor in the master of Asia and Pacific of the same university her line of research has been on colonialism and also the history of the function of how feeding is important in intercultural research Veronica has also done research in Mexico and one where she has combined this and she participates in empires metropolis and the group colonialism gender and materiality Veronica you have the floor thank you very much Celeste let me see if I can share my PowerPoint because I'm not good at technology you have the option of sharing your screen okay now we can see it thank you very much Veronica okay thank you very much first of all I would like to express my gratitude also to the organizers of the conference for having had this such an interesting initiative and so needed and I would like also to express my gratitude to all the institutions involved in the organization of these conferences and especially I would like to thank Celeste and Ricard for having invited me to participate in this table within these conferences I would like to talk about the Pacific a region of the world that although it has a past which is extremely related to Spanish colonialism and also to Catalonia and the history of Catalonia is one of the regions in which we think less when we refer to the mother and contemporary colonialism and I would also like to talk about the specific territory which are the Mariana's islands which is an archipelagic but for more than 300 years 1665 to 1898 was part of the colonial territories of the Spanish Empire and now the footprint and the memory of that period the colonial period is still very much alive and this is a situation that no doubt contrast as I was saying before with the absence of knowledge and reference points that now we have on the Pacific and more specifically on the Mariana's in fact with the title forgotten memories life memories I would like to talk about this amnesia which currently exists in our society and absence an amnesia that contrasts with many of the tangible and intangible elements of the Spanish colonial past present in the Mariana's which go from the river banks gastronomy and religion I would like to dedicate this presentation and to reflect on the possible reasons which explain this material colonial past that exists between one society and the other and with this objective first of all I would like to make a very brief balance of the way the Spanish history has dealt with the Mariana's islands and I think that the different historical narrations that have been built have already conditioned or at least have contributed to widen and deepen on the knowledge that we have on the territory and at the same time I would like to introduce very briefly the footprint of colonialism in the islands and at the same hand at the same time trying to indicate how this past is experimented in the present especially how it is surviving in the public space and finally I would like to mention and to explain very briefly an archaeological project which is coordinated by the Pumpeu Fabra University with whom I was lucky enough to participate and they remember this need to talk about this oblivion in Catalonia and Spain on the Mariana's islands. Let's start by the beginning and in order to answer one of the questions I hope this is not the case but unfortunately this is the typical question asked by all the people working on the Mariana's and people are asking where are the Mariana's people many people don't even know where they are and I include myself because before studying the Mariana's I didn't know about this territory unfortunately on many occasions people who work on the territory where obliged to answer this first question as you can see in the map the Mariana's are four by 15 islands in western Pacific 2500 kilometers away from the Philippines and it's very important to highlight that the Mariana's now are divided into administrative units one on the one hand which is the biggest island of the Mariana's and nowadays is a territory incorporated to the US and then we have the rest of the Mariana's which are the north of Mariana's which are forming the commonwealth of these islands which is also under the influence of the US and this is the situation and is related to the colonial history of the Mariana's since the islands were incorporated into the possessions of the Spanish Empire different powers among them Germany the US and Japan have taken control of the territory leaving a profound footprint in different aspects such as language administration culture and the situation of the islands facing global conflicts remember that three summers ago if I'm not mistaken I think it was three summers ago one was immersed in the escalate of tensions between North Korea and the US in fact we could say and we could still say that one is still under colonial imperialism under the process of decolonization of the UN to which Alberto was referring before this is an organism which is in charge of promoting this process of decolonization of the territories which is still under the administration of colonial powers well according to this committee this is a non-autonomous island which is under the process of decolonization however during this recent period the islands have been marked by the colonial domination and we have to take into account that this has been preceded by many years of occupation in the islands although the islands are separated in administrative units we have to take into account that the whole of the islands share a common culture and they are they are the origin of the Chatmuros which is the name of the native inhabitants of the Mariana's islands why do we know why do we have so few references of the Mariana's in our society personally I think that the way we dealt with the territory from the academic perspective has difficulted this territory in fact I think that the way they have approached some of these factors have contributed to a certain lack of interest for the islands and it has created some narratives which are not related to the reality of the colonial past I wouldn't want to invalidate completely all these contributions because as you know historical knowledge evolves through time and it's conditioned by the context of this knowledge but it is true that these contributions show us the need to be close to this colonial approach from other objectives trying to find the complexity inherent to this period more specifically when I started the research the PhD research on the Mariana's islands I was quite surprised first of all by the little interest in the islands because the literature does not refer to the islands and also the ideas that somehow are limited regarding the colonial the Spanish colonial period in many of the works the Mariana's are described as a minor islands that occupy a marginal position in the Asia-Pacific colonial pathways compared to the Philippines which were considered much more interesting due to their role in the trade roots of the modern age so this image of the Mariana's was deeply surprising for me so as I get acquainted with more written documents and the maps I realized that the Mariana's more specifically in the modern maps were also considered like a hot spot in the maps and the islands on its inhabitants were described in the literature oftentimes in the diaries of the expeditions of the colonial expeditions in the Pacific islands in a manuscript the first manuscript that gathers European descriptions of Asian societies and Pacific societies the document is called the boxer codex the Chamorros is the first ethnic group to be described and here you can see in this picture an image of the codex of the manuscript where the locals are represented and the exchanges between the Chamorros and the colonizers here you can see another image in this piece there is a representation of the ethnic groups by partners so men and women and then there is a short description of their theaters it's a very interesting document nonetheless and besides all this literature it's also true and in my PhD I insist on that as we evolved in the modern age well and a very specific image of the Mariana's was mainstreamed it was considered the islands were considered as a poor territory with no natural resources here is an image of Lopez de Velazco where he reflects his European perception on the Mariana's islands and this idea was mainstreamed was expanded over the next centuries over the following centuries and I believe that history has somehow incorporated this first wrong idea there was a clear lack of interest for the islands as if they were totally unimportant and another element that was quite a striking for me when I get acquainted with these documents is that many of the approaches presented the 300 years of colonial history as a uniform era in which nothing happened and the only states that seemed to be a little bit more important was the first 40 years of colonization of the islands when the conflict between the local population and the columns arise but the ones the colonial ruling was imposed it seems like nothing happened in the Mariana's islands the Chamorros had become Catholics they had converted into Catholicism and nothing else had to be explained and that was quite a striking to me all this lack of visibility of the Mariana's islands in history also in our public space is in deep contrast with the visibility of the Spanish colonialism in the Mariana's island today as you can see in this picture this picture was taken by Dr. Sandra Monto reflects how only when you land at Wang's airport there are several Hispanic references that makes us think about the colonial era as you can see in this picture there's this word in English baggage claim customs restrooms but also in the local language in the Chamorro in Chamorro and you can see the influence in of Spanish in the Chamorro language and as you can see here the vestige of colonialism of Spanish colonialism are very present in the islands in the first walk through Wang you can find military institutes and facilities as well as names of the streets are just Hernano Cortez with this very clear footprint of the Spanish colonialism that means that the colonial heritage survives it has survived depending of course on the perspective that you take but it's still present also Catholicism the religion was introduced of course violently and it's a religion of 90% of the Chamorro population and Catholic prevalence is quite important they in the 20th century after the colonial Spanish period the missionaries also propagated Catholicism in the islands in 1911 Rome created a delegation in Wang and it was by the way led by a Catalan Francesca Villa Imateu who had been born in Arendt Samar in Catalonia and these priests this Catalan priests replaced the pioneers the pioneers of the island I mean that those that have been sent to the islands in first place now regarding other references to Catholicism as we can see here we can find all over the place the statutes and monuments commemorating the Spanish colonial period and more specifically the arrival of the catholic Catholic religion you can see here two monuments the pay tribute to the Jesuit Jesuit San Bittorio's priest the first Jesuit missionary who led the first permanent mission in Wang in the Marianas Island until the mission before the mission the islands had been under colonial rule but they had not been efficiently colonized it was only after the arrival of the missionary that it was considered that the islands were deeply colonized the public space Wang's public space also includes monuments of Chamorro's heroes here we can see in the slide Kipuja according to the literature was the first Chamorro to be baptized he was a local leader and he allowed Jesuit missionaries to expand Catholicism throughout the territory many of these elements that were inherited by from the have been incorporated in the Chamorro island culture in a very singular process and today they are considered part of the traditional Chamorro culture together with religion which is another heritage that shows this interminglement one would say between these two elements of course gastronomy that is in this slide you can see a recipe dating back from the mid 20th century and amongst the recipes of course only the name of the recipe is quite familiar for us as pioneers perhaps the ingredients change but the idea is very much Spanish so it's clear that there is another area where the Spanish colonialism deeply rooted cooking this is traditional dish that includes many of the Hispanic traditional recipes and this presence of the Hispanic food has a deep relationship with the way the Marianas were colonized they were colonized from the Philippines and New Spain from Mexico at the times when Asians and Americans had incorporated many Islamic traditions from the colony from Spain and many of these traditions adapted to the local practices by developing these very interesting astronomy today in the islands even if it has of course evolved in the last few years during the last half of the 20th century it's also important to underline that in Wang's public space many colonial elements coexist with the historic moment previous to the arrival of the invaders that is called the latte period here we can see a picture of the latte columns these are some stone columns on which they would build homes and buildings with different functions in the pre-colonial society and that were used until the end of the colonial period actually the interest that this era provoked this latte period this period previous to colonialism has overcome the academic sector it's considered the last Chamorro period and it's had a key role in the development of the Chamorro modern identity and actually the latte stones are today a symbol of the non-colonial heritage and they are present all around the island now to conclude it I would like to say that the need to develop alternative historic narratives that tried to get closer to the Marianas pre-colonial period from a non-euroscentric perspective that is without paying tribute to colonialism has brought many researchers to develop alternative research on the region on the islands and that's how today in Universitat Pumpeo-Fabra in Barcelona there's a research group the regime that is focused on the study of the Marianas from this perspective by paying attention to the materiality and trying to discover the traditional narratives to understand the colonial era in all its complexity one of the most important initiatives that this research group is living is the archaeological excavations all around the islands in this slide you can see the spot where we have been working in the last few years is the former colonial church San Dionisio church here's an image of the bay and well it is said that this is the place where the first contact between the colonialists and the Chamorro's place in the framework of a research project called Averiwa we aim at understanding the identity, permanence and change processes related to the inclusion of the Marianas to the Spanish Empire and our aim is to understand the impact that colonialism had on the islands and that the incorporation of the islands into the Spanish Empire had for the local traditions the fact that we carry out excavations in this Dumata church while the decision was taken by the Dumata community the local inhabitants took this decision and well we responded to their demand and that's why we started the excavation in this area and during all the different campaigns that we have carried out excavations have always been let's say or well we've always taken into account the needs of local population and we want to of course give the church back so the desire to somehow overcome the lack of interest that the Marianas island have today well there are different members of the team that are trying to develop community museums in the island and to celebrate exhibitions that aim at presenting the territory from a different perspective not from an imperial perspective and by underlining the most important figures in the discovery of the Pacific the aim is to explain the impact that capitalism that colonialism had on local traditions on the Marianas islands and especially in the material perspective of the islands and that would be from my side this is my last slide and I would now say that that's it from my side thank you very much and I will be very happy to answer all your questions thank you very much Veronica it's been a very interesting presentation I really didn't know much about the Marianas and the Pacific and I believe it's it's a very interesting topic Africa is already not very well known and the situation is even more dramatic when it comes to the Pacific region now we're gonna hand it over to the third speaker you will have to and share your screen my apologies of course now the third presentation will be by Norma Belith Torresano she's from Ecuador she's been living in Catalonia for eight years and she is a well acknowledged activist in the area of the care economy she works in the organization Mujeres Palante a project accompanying migrant women who work in Catalonia and she's also helping in the development of a project called Mujeres Unidas Entrevieras Women United in different parts of the world and these project aims at facilitating support to women working in the cleaning sector hello and good afternoon one and all and fortunately I don't work in Mujeres Palante anymore I am now working in another sector I work in a cooperative I work in the promotion of cooperatives in Catalonia a year ago December last year I started working in this new project and now I support the project Mujeres Unidas Entrevieras which is a cooperative of women cleaners and care workers I would like to thank the organizers and those who have allowed me to take part in this session I would like to thank the organizers for the effort of integrating a foreigner person like myself thank you very much for integrating me my presentation is a reflection and a proposal on how to integrate the voice of migrant women housekeepers and workers in the care sector first of all I would like to ask and invite you all to think about memory and to think about history and what is it that we are doing to build this memory because of course it's important to pose ourselves such questions in order to understand to what extent we are today acting as colonized beings as Elisabeth said at the beginning of this presentation colonialism can sometimes be invisible and I believe that my presentation has to do with this invisible colonialism that is taking place here and now in Catalonia and also in other parts of Spain I believe it is important to incorporate the voice of migrants activists and we need to also bring on board the strength the struggles of migrants in order to have a more holistic definition of history I don't like that many people have been left behind also racialized people that have been born in Catalonia or in Spain these people have been here for ages actually they have lived in the community for ages and they are treated as migrants oftentimes the voice of the voice and the narrative of migrants is this regard that us migrants are contributing to building up the country from the roots that's why migraines organizations call on our host society to question the mainstream memory and narratives that's why everybody's important yeah I've had it it's important to build memory and history all together it is also important that when it's a collective history right based on the community where the voice of everyday life citizens is as important as the perspective of the academic the of the experts and researchers is important to include our experience and our struggles to break this paradigm of who tells what and how the methodology and the format has to be chosen by us all by the groups that are struggling that are carrying out activism that are contributing to drafting and reshaping history I would like to share with you an example which is the one that we are putting together as the group of migrant women care workers in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain my colleagues are top my Madrid colleagues are top and they are building history through songs and claiming the struggles of migrant women and care workers on today's migration of logics and patterns it's been now around 20 years and migration pattern but a lot of times it's women to import the care workers into western countries and these ideas oftentimes we are continuing to be economy and economy that the system wants to be a black economy right and full but economy because of course we live in a macho and patriarchal the system of racist system which is not interested by women and even less so if we look migrants the system has never liked migrant women women not even from other parts of Spain now it's even less the case I mean now that we come from the other side of the Atlantic even worse so then right in 1985 the first deal on housekeepers was approved and the bill was reinterpreted in 2011 we would like to know what happened before before right with that with those women that were neglected by the system my aim here is to play the focus on the invisibilization of the care economy the economy led by women by my own women that we've come all the way from the other side of the Atlantic by crossing the Atlantic before it would be that's why I would like to call migrant migrants and the feminist struggle for all feminists to work hand in hand with us migrant women to claim for our rights also the right to benefits the right to enjoy all social security benefits the right for our work to be recognized for our rest to be respected holidays etc because we are oftentimes neglected as women making care of others both at home or in elderly centers and day centers even though I would like to make a clear defense here it's not the same to work in house and working in institutions when we work in house we are even less protected than if we work in a public institution now in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic it's more clear than ever that there is an important lack of care for those who are participating in the care economy so we need to play the focus we need to lay on the table all these topics we need to open a discussion about what is that we want to build what society do we want for us for our children for our grandchildren are we going to focus only on capital on benefit on trading people from one side to the other of the world without providing them with human rights so this is what my presentation is about colonialism is here is happening here in africa in asia in latin america but also here we're being colonized we're being slaves it's some sort of migrant migration bill that imposes us a horrible work 40 hours a week at least a week in order to be a legal citizen or a welcoming bill that imposes us a long list of documents and studies with a lot of people especially for those who are working in our endless hours they cannot study and so we're also the night family are regrouping not everyone can reach this position right and it's even more difficult to have an apartment to rent an apartment so the bill is crazy it's impossible to go for a family group that's why we have colonialism inside us the migration bill is macho and racist and it keeps killing us with all these great requisites also we are colonized when we believe or when some people believe that we are here to steal jobs from nationals from locals when we believe that we are abusing the public health system all these stereotypes against migrants means that there is a system ahead of us like a lonely system that is doing its way to ensure that we are denied our human rights and we are the ones that are in the waiting rooms of the hospitals and they see how the pandemic we can also see who are in hospitals also the fact of having stereotypes because of the origin for example latin-american people who are very good at taking care of the elderly and in the Philippines taking care of children and cleaning and also the routines of cleaning and picking up the fruit african people people of african origin for working in the fields and also where there is a lot of strength needed so we have some globalized ideas and we swim with them and also for example there are several studies on feminism and migration there is always an etnocentric western perspective within social sciences and also when there is a patronizing attitude with people coming from other countries people believe that we are alone according to a specific sector so it's interesting to see how we are told that we still work from the autocrans population but they see us as cheap labor in underground economy well in summary what we are requesting what we are proposing is for this cleaning ladies to be listened and also the group of migrants because we are the ones who are interested in this solution this cannot be solved without us and we as workers of domestic tasks we have to think about ourselves and this is why the self-organization of the different groups of many migrants who work at home and it's crucial and we are often underrepresented and we are trying to make evident the capacity of proposals of domestic workers and the range of maneuver that we have so we are trying to break some stereotypes and some other ideas that come to mind in people when they are hiring us there are many people who have university studies and at least studies of higher education but they believe we are Tabula Raza and this is also having colonized what we are requesting is to rebuild the memory all together the memory with the people in the street with the activists with the workers with the workers but not from the sphere of power not from outside and we are we can fight for these historical objects and I'm asking and we are always asking for the autocrine population to be next to us to be together of this process and we don't want these boys to be landed we don't need anybody to save us we need people to be next to us in the process of recognition of rights and I think that the welcoming society has forgotten that we are people and also that we have capacity and that we can propose and this is why we are not just asking for parity we are asking for solidarity although solidarity has also some nuances as charity and we can show that we can provide for mutual support and we can recognize the effort that we are making and this is why we are asking for the decolonization of schools and the colonization of bodies mindsets studies activism and we want to decolonize the citizen participation the academia and the benefit of a collective project and this is why from united women which is the collective of different women participating in care we are building narratives memories the memory of generations of different workers and not only as women coming from other coins of the world but also from colleagues working in the spanish state as a contribution to society and also a contribution to the economy to the economy of care we should be supporting life learning recognizing the resilience and also the people of the spanish state we have to recognize all this and this is why besides being an activist and users of the service we are also mates colleagues and this is why we want to break the barrier on of who is paying attention to who and the way we do it thank you thank you very much norma for your interesting contribution as we have already said it's like a mirror of this racism of our society on which we want to reflect and we want to see as you have said this racism and these relations which are a proof of this colonial heritage which in the end are the base of our productive system and of course we have organized ourselves around these racial hierarchies of gender and class having said that I would like to thank the three speakers for their interventions if we could please turn on the camera and we will go to the q&a I have a question about the two conferences I was not aware of the fact that one was still pending decolonization Alberto has pointed to the Sahara question I understand that these are very different processes but I would like to emphasize on the question of taking on responsibilities by the Spanish state and also how can we force the state to solve these questions what are the competences of the state to solve these questions I don't know if Alberto would like to start we say that the committee of the colonization of the UN has been saying that Spain has to take on its task and responsibility and to participate in the resolution of the conflict which is affecting territory which the fact continues to be a colony and at the same time we have also remembered the Spanish Catalan Basque and the Canary Islands civil society for years they have been talking about the different paradoxes political and international which they are presenting in this territory pending of decolonization and we demand the central government and the autonomous government some time of clear political stance so far beyond the autonomic position in favor of decolonization the central government has always denied the existence of this problem whether we are talking about the conservative government or a progressive government and I think that if the UN is not able to achieve like a change of policy by the metropolis if the civil society and the old metropolis is not able to do it the only possible conclusion is that unless the UN and France can do it and these are the other powers that have an influence on the territory it's very difficult to imagine that someone can do it thank you very much Alberto Veronica well yes let me just tell you that in the case of one it's pending the decolonization of the US and I think that it's 1846 as the beginning of this domination and this means that we don't see a very bright future because of the interest that the US has in one which is precursor of all the defense system now they have two naval bases there which are occupying part of the territory and to do without these possessions in their opinion is not part of their plans in the island we have very diverse movements by the local population and they provide support to the present situation and also some of them refuse the situation some others are looking for intermediate stances such as maintaining the privileges which in the point of view they contribute to because they are related to the US and therefore I don't know I don't see that the situation can change in the near future that's my perception at least after having been in contact recently with the local population in the island thank you very much I have several questions which are reaching the chat one is for Norma they're asking me if you think that the current approach on the colonial memories is a question that is focused much in the past and it's not affecting present situations I think that the memory is built towards the past always it has to be centered also in what the different groups and collectives of activities are doing and also the people in the street in order to build this part of history and this is why I was saying that it's very important that people remember and are aware of what we are all doing well it depends on everybody's interest and of course to have a perspective towards a non-majority sector a minority sector maybe we're not interesting domestic workers we are not a sexy objective for building memories or making history generations and this is why with the workers and with my colleagues we have to say that we need to build the object that we want to live for future generations and we always talk about the past only about the past I completely agree with you thank you Norma there is a question in the chat I don't know if Alberto you've been able to read it and it's a public question it's a bit long let me read it talking about the patrimonial value of colonial memories at home as a proof of neoliberal activity for example the fair of indians how can we reverse this trend without eliminating these activities that is to say what are the tools of the cultural promotion agents in order to make these events something more inclusive open and critical thank you that's a difficult question to answer what we have to do first of all is to abandon the discourse reproducing this type of activities and this demands a couple of things first trying to incorporate and to reformulate the activities so the other one can also welcome a more critical perspective on the colonial experience and the properties and the tragedies which were the consequence of this when we start a completely abstract and self-compliant discourse on the celebration of cultural diversity in itself and also the multicultural discourse multicultural that went over well in Barcelona and we don't leave room to a critical discourse and to these activities that highlight the conflict and the tragedies that have gone together with this cultural context so in summary very clearly we have to abandon this discourse and we don't want just to have the abstract perspective of the university to reformulate the activities in order to have a critical discourse i have another question and this is for Veronica and i have another one i'm going to ask both of them the first one you have said that local people participate in research campaigns i would like to know if these local people are chamorros or what is their identity and in what way this participation happens in their projects of research and on the other hand i have another question if there is any social contestation in the imaginary colonial memory in the marinas whether there is a contrary response well thank you very much for your questions and related to the participation of the local community yes the local community is made by the chamorros and their participation is its primary that's very important in the sense that all the wish to try to recover this memory that was being lost and it was not our initiative but they had this need to highlight this patrimony for different reasons it was ruined and also the participation in the different campaigns it's on a day-to-day basis the members of the community that wish to participate in the activities of archaeology they come every day and we are excavating hand in hand and the truth is that this is an experience which is very interesting for the whole team and it's fundamental in order to contribute to introduce a different perspective there are some links which are created and these links happen in a different way you break this obstacle that i was feeling before going to one i was just reading the literature the written one the one i refer to from a triumphalist perspective exalting imperialism and my perception of the islands was completely different of course i was not hyper-mediatized by this but i didn't have this link that has been built from working together with them and also having a shared objective in this sense of the participation which is 50-50 and in fact the project is coordinated by the Pompeo Fabra institution university but also the Marianas institutions of one the university of one and the university of hawaii which is a joint project and there are many groups participating in this same common objective and the other question is the monuments their responses are ambivalent it's also like the link with the us and the current political situation there are some populations that have already incorporated these monuments to their imaginary and in fact one day they celebrate the day of the discovery and they celebrate this first contact between the Marianas and also those Chamorros living there sectors of the population refuse it the most activist ones and also the different sectors that don't want to be related to this heritage memory and other sectors have incorporated this and they don't see any conflict such as Catholics and they also accept these figures San Vitoris the Jesuits who created the mission Marianas and in general sometimes often when they are in the island they heard that we were coming from Spain and the perception from many people was of interest and they knew more refusal there are many attitudes but there is a lot of ambivalence people who want to incorporate this and people who refuse it directly especially in more activist sectors well thank you very much Veronica the second question is related to these celebrations and symbols and the question is for Norma and these are two questions Norma the first question is how do you build memory within the micron groups from activism what actions do they take place and how do you leave from these collectives celebrations such as the 12th of October I will first answer the one of the 12th of October with something which is very significant for me when I was my first 12th of October here in Catalonia I've been here for eight years only in Spain it was very interesting to realize that my country or at least in Latin America the 12th of October depending on what place is celebrated as something of claim against the colonizing movement and in other sectors they celebrated us that we have been conquered so I was very pleased to see and to share the first 12th of October with the collective of migrants where I was living because they say you fuck us more or less against the domination colonialism and also against scavenging that had happened there so it was very significant to realize that here we were going through and we were living in a specific reality and in my country in some sectors of my country at least many were very much colonialized and they were thinking for these colonial powers Latin America still has a tendency to think for the colony and the colonizing power but there are other sectors who are against the colonialist process because of all the lands abuses in women etc and let me answer also the first question of how we celebrate these memories of activism by belonging to these groups I think that it's important that as we were saying before feminist and everyone considers himself or herself feminist fights together with other women who have across seas and oceans in order to build this history so what we are requesting is to walk together with our activism thank you very much Norma I have a question for Alberto I don't know if anybody would like to add anything to these questions any reflection any comment or Alberto what should the public administrations do with the monuments in the street that live episodes or protagonists of colonialism and these law of official secret how does it affect the Spanish colonies I think that to the first question all of you could answer well both questions are very pertinent especially the second one that could give way to long reflection and maybe Thaleste could also contribute because she knows very much of this colonial and Veronica for sure what about the first one the first question let me just mention something and Norma and Veronica can contribute to my comments well first of all let me tell you that to generate the space of discourse and negotiation with the citizenship in order to see if especially those which are more playground such as streets and plattas and nomenclature maybe could be revisited and reformulated and changed also occasionally and not to do it from top down a decision taken by the political elites because then it will be almost impossible it's slower and it generates a bigger level of conflict for the negotiation I think it's indispensable in order to have a minimum agreement if possible on different names and to mention that it's the offense that use and the indifference of the others and as far as the archives well Spain in this sense is probably one of the European countries which has a regime of colonial archives civil and military of difficult access and of bigger opacity and arbitrarity and although there have been some recent initiatives of trying to change this opacity in practice we everything has its own tradition and inertia and allowing for example access of documents which are duplicated in another archive and on the contrary prohibiting the access to some archives and documents which allow another access so the researcher has a feeling of complete arbitrarity of discretionality by the institutions of these archives and what we are requesting is an effort of coordination and facilitating the access and reproduction the question of reproduction is very important because for example I have been working in different archives civil and military with a certain frequency and almost all of them allow us to take a picture of these documents if we are under the critical perspective of archivers and if they're accessible and it allows us to introduce the digital camera there which is not very common here because it difficult the research and having to go through these services of reprography of the archive the cleaning process the process is more difficult there are many obstacles but well this is the archives that we have I don't want to dwell on this because the experience I have with the archives and colonial documentation is not the best but the reflection on the fact that it doesn't only affect research I have often found in the archive of the administration migrant people who come from workers of the colonial administration or because of the decolonization are a patry that they cannot access their documentation to claim their passive rights in front of the administration and this is unacceptable not long ago a guide was made to help Sahara wish to have documentation in order to claim their nationality and I think that besides this this pillar which is affecting migrants and people coming from colonized peoples it's also an important access to reflect I think Norma wants to say something or Veronica there's a question also to me a question from Norma in what way intellectuals and academics can collaborate with their fights and processes of construction of migrant memories are you interested in this collaboration or are you more critical as far as the role of intellectuals thank you very much Norma for your work and activism that's a very interesting question because I think that the colleagues are more and more sensitive to who is asking for experience or asking things about the claims because people are not very clear and they are depending on the situation and also depending on the political perspective of the person who is carrying out specific research or some intellectual work I think that for this we are a little bit more critical here and who is coming to do some research work but I think I think it's very important that these fights and these processes of building memories of migrant people can happen I think that we have to build a memory and contribute to history but I also think that from the intellectuals as she's saying we also have to see the participation of them in these processes but together with these processes I think that we should not absorb the experience and the situation and to publish the historical project whatever it is a book a magazine an article but to intervene and to participate in the process of construction but that takes time so this is what's difficult excuse me my microphone was off well I don't have any more questions and it's time to close this round table I would like to thank all the speakers for their participation and the care they have had with the tempos and also for answering the question it's been a pleasure to listen to all of you thank you very much once again and to the rest of people present let me remind you that we will be back at quarter two seven don't disconnect the session and please stay here with the camera and the microphones off thank you