Huarte de San Juan. Geografía e Historia
Huarte San Juan. Geografía e Historia (Geography and History) is an annual diamond open-access electronic journal published by Public University of Navarre since 1994. The journal focuses on the study of history from a broad perspective, from both a chronological and thematic point of view. HSJ was born with the purpose to be a space to discuss and interact open to the researching community, aiming at moving forward and delving into our historic knowledge of the different elements of the past. The journal is offered as a forum for historians to share ideas, review traditional research areas and explore new interdisciplinary approaches and areas. The journal publishes original and unpublished research and reviews in any of the common languages in academia.
La información referente al sistema de autoarchivo y política de derechos de explotación establecido por esta revista puede consultarse en DULCINEA.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s Summary of the Natural History of the Indies on Its 500th Anniversary: An Introduction
Special Issue: Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s *Summary of the Natural History of the Indies on Its 500th Anniversary
Copyright (c) 2026 Álvaro Baraibar Etxeberria https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Power, Property and Rural Agency in the Northwest of Iberian Peninsula between the end of the Roman Empire and the Feudal Consolidation (5th-12th centuries)
This dossier reviews the applicability of the historiographical concept of «no man's land» in Early Medieval Spain. Through five contributions, it addresses various issues relating to the exercise of power by local societies, their relationships with supralocal powers, and the management of their territorial properties before the consolidation of feudal structures of domination. The joint conclusions reveal that Iberian Early Middle Ages were characterised by various local particularities, highlighting the adaptability of local societies in the face of interference from supralocal powers
Special Issue: Power, Property and Rural Agency in the Northwest of Iberian Peninsula between the end of the Roman Empire and the Feudal Consolidation, 5th-12th centuries (coord. Gonzalo J. Escudero Manzano)
Copyright (c) 2026 Gonzalo J. Escudero Manzano https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Construction of the American space in the Summary of the Natural History by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (Toledo, 1526)
Between November 1523, the day of his arrival in Sanlúcar, and the spring of 1526, Oviedo was in Spain after two stays in the islands and mainland. We study the different factors that contributed to the creation and writing of the Summary, focusing on the particular importance of the geography of the discovery. The quality and novelty of the natural history (flora, fauna, and ethnographic data) in this «reportorio» (collection of items) is often emphasized; however, Oviedo is also the architect of an American space. How he defines it, with what sources, and with what effects is the purpose of this study.
Copyright (c) 2026 Louise Benat-Tachot https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
From subject to agent. American nature in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo
Summary of the Natural History of the Indies (1526) by Fernández de Oviedo is not a colonialist text in the same sense as his later works, General History of the Indies and the Monserrate Manuscript. It does not contain the units of a devalorising colonial discourse that would come to govern colonial writing and cultural and political impositions upon subjugated peoples. This early «Indian» work of 1526 does not yet assume the form of a discourse that distinguishes, classifies, and orders—what Claude Lévi-Strauss termed a displaced and distanced form of knowledge, that is, non-indexical, non-proximate, and, ultimately, purely symbolic. An analysis of the rewritings across these texts demonstrates that the three works are oriented from ideologically and politically distinct positions. In the Summary, the celebration of nature, curiosity about diversity, and the recognition of agency among Indigenous men and women enable the development of rich descriptions of the natural world of the Indies and its inhabitants, as well as their interrelatedness, and their recognition as subjects of action and knowledge
Copyright (c) 2026 Vanina Teglia Alonso https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Review of Jon-Mirena Landa Gorostiza (dir.), Jon Penche González y Javier Buces Catello (coords.), Exilios, destierros y deportaciones, València, Tirant Humanidades, 2025
Copyright (c) 2026 Martí Serra Riera https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Medieval science or modern science? A reinterpretation of the Summary of the Natural History of the Indies in the light of the premodern rhetorical framework
This article analyses the Summary of the Natural History of the Indies (1526) by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo with the aim of questioning the traditional interpretation that presents the text as a precursor of modern science. Through close textual analysis and engagement with specialised historiography, the article proposes a reading that situates the work within the framework of premodern rhetorical epistemology. It argues that the empirical observation present in the Summary does not operate according to modern nomological principles, but rather follows a moral, political, and theological logic inherited from late medieval thought and reinforced by the humanism of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Consequently, the work is interpreted as a late manifestation of «medieval rhetorical science», placed at the service of the Hispanic imperial project, rather than as a direct antecedent of modern science.
Copyright (c) 2026 Juan Pablo Cruz Medina https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The chronicler’s body and American nature as a tool for political management in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s Summary of the Natural History of the Indies (1526)
In 1526, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo published Summary of the Natural History of the Indies, a pioneering work that offered Europe the first systematic description of America based on direct observation. Dedicated to Charles V, the text transcended the limitations of the European conceptual frameworks of the time by prioritising sensory experience as the most reliable source of knowledge. The objective of this analysis is to examine how Oviedo employed discursive mechanisms to transform personal experience into scientific and narrative authority. This approach was not merely descriptive, but was integrated into a model of imperial management. The Catholic Monarchy transformed American reality into a strategic tool of governance by processing and classifying it through technical and sensory information. This enabled them to exercise effective control over the resources and territories of the New World.
Copyright (c) 2026 Gisela Coronado Schwindt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Lay Archives in the Formation of Monastic Estates. The Growth of Divino Salvador de Moreira during the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries and the Wills of Trutesendo and Gonçalo Guterres
This article analyses nearly two hundred documents dating from before 1100 that were preserved in the archive of the monastery of Divino Salvador de Moreira, near Porto. The study pursues two main objectives: first, to assess the role of this religious institution in the management of written memory in the surrounding area; and second, more specifically, to examine the part played by the family of Trutesendo Guterres in both the growth of the monastery and the formation of its archive. Although Trutesendo was the principal agent in the expansion of the monastery of Moreira, this study argues that he was not the only member of his family who, before 1100, took an interest in the monastery’s economic development. In particular, it demonstrates the role of his brother, Gonçalo Guterres, whose previously unedited will was also preserved in the archives of Moreira.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniel Justo Sánchez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Social History of Subjectivity: A Dialogue Between Literature and Sociology in the Experience of Being a Woman in Modernity
The experience of being a woman in the emerging contexts of modernity is crucial for a comprehensive reading of the modern Social History of the West. A dialectical approach is proposed to understand the complexity of subjectivity and the modern power dynamics that shape it. The sources for this analysis are hybrid: women’s written literature in the 19th century, sociology, and feminist criticism. The point is to explore the essential dialogue between the social contract and the sexual contract. Against this backdrop, women’s written literature serves as a driving force for the reflexive redefinition of the female experience, generating new conceptual frameworks for understanding contemporary social reality and its processes of social construction
Copyright (c) 2026 Irantzu Monteano Ganuza https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
«Et preserunt ipsas villas». Politic domination and territorial property in Portuguese Beira during Early Middle Ages
Between the Visigoth collapse and the emergence of the Kingdom of Portugal, the Beira was a peripheral space that preserved its quotidian activities independent of a central authority that standardized or imposed its own logics of domination. This particularity provides to this region with an optimal context for the study of the micropolitics, i.e., the practices and customary agreements that, without being detached from global frameworks, produced a segmentation within these societies. Based on the written sources from the period, we observe that this space was not – as it is usually defined – a «no-man’s-land» foreign to Muslim or Christian political power, much less a «land without people», rather it was a «somebody’s-land with somebody» where inhabitants acted according to diverse strategies.
Territory, Community, and Authority: Early Medieval Landscape Formation in the Southwestern Jerte Valley (6th-8th centuries)
This study explores rural settlement dynamics in the southwestern Jerte Valley during the Early Middle Ages through an interdisciplinary approach combining landscape archaeology, toponymy, archaeological survey and historiographical analysis. By examining funerary structures, domestic spaces, and production facilities, it reconstructs patterns of occupation and territorial organization shaped by peasant communities. These groups are shown to have developed socially constructed landscapes marked by a spatial management and ecological adaptation logic. Likewise, material indicators of territorial authority, such as numerical slates and specialized production, point to the coexistence of local and supralocal power structures. The analysis interprets the early medieval landscape as the outcome of interactions between peasant agency and systems of domination, challenging narratives of depopulation and underscoring the sociopolitical complexity of these mountainous regions.
Copyright (c) 2026 David Sánchez Serrano, Francisco Reyes Téllez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Of Contos and Realities: An Approach to the Early Medieval Past of the Tudense Area (Val da Louriña and Condado-Paradanta Regions, Galicia)
This paper examines the territory north of the Miño River during the Early Middle Ages, focused on three valleys forming the historical core of the diocese of Tui. Using an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeology, toponymy, and fragmentary written sources, the study identifies settlement patterns, spatial hierarchies, and forms of power not documented in textual sources available. The scarcity of written records prior to the 11th century makes archaeology a key methodological resource, particularly for understanding the territorial organisation of this area in the Early Middle Ages
Copyright (c) 2026 Mario Pereiro Fernández https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Post-Depopulation Scenarios: An Archaeological Perspective from the Locality
Sánchez Albornoz’s depopulation theses has determined the narratives on the early medieval settlement pattern in the Duero basin, even after being considered overcome. This interpretative framework has been especially influential when analysing the material record, jeopardizing the emergence of solid historical narratives which could account for the complex empirical reality. In this paper, I will first describe the main problems concerning the archaeological interpretation based on the depopulation theses. Next, based on an approach from the concept of locality, three case studies will be presented. These examples allow not only to overcome the «strategic desert» of the Duero basin, but also to consider the bases upon which we may confront the diverse scenarios that appear once the approaches based on depopulation-reconquest-repopulation dynamics are rejected.
Copyright (c) 2026 Carlos Tejerizo García https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Review of Leonor Zozaya-Montes (ed.): Los archivos y documentos de la Edad Media a la Contemporánea en Europa y América: estudios de caso, Gijón, Ediciones Trea, 2024
Copyright (c) 2026 Ana María Doreste Buerles https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Intersectional critiques to Heritage (coord. Daniel Palacios)
Copyright (c) 2025 Daniel Palacios Gonzalez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Review of Óscar Chaves Amieva, Imágenes cautivas: arte, violencia política y cultura visual en España (1923-1959), Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Juan Carlos García Funes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Beyond Chueca: limitations of heritage-centred understandings of historical queer spatiality
Drawing from both international dynamics and local histories, LGBTQ+ neighbourhoods have been increasingly studied and experienced as sociocultural heritage. Ranging from internationally well-known areas such as Castro and Greenwich Village to more nationally significant neighbourhoods such as Canal Street or Le Marais, the intersection of LGBTQ tourism circuits, activists (or activism?), scholarly research, and heritagisation has produced a growing understanding of queer spaces as collective heritage sites. This article analyses the case of Chueca in Madrid, the capital of Spain, where defining the area as an LGBTQ heritage site is inexorably intertwined with both gentrification and a selective representation within Madrid and Spain’s broader queer histories. Drawing on archival and fieldwork research, along with social reproduction theory and critical queer studies, the article argues that applying heritage-centred perspectives to queer spatiality produces both exclusions and limitations, emphasizing leisure spaces or the predominance of male identity over other experiences.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ignacio Elpidio Domínguez Ruiz, Moisés Fernández-Cano https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Epistemological and ontological shifts to rethink the debate around cultural heritage
To what extent and in what ways can we identify certain ruptures with the hard, heavy, systemic, and organic matrix of cultural heritage—reproduced and self-reproduced—expressed in the ideas of monuments, tradition, or relics, which conceive it as a unique, sacred, and imperishable expression of society, particularly Western society? The term «turn» refers to a significant change or shift in a particular discipline, field of study, or new conceptual approach. It is important to note that some of these turns come to constitute true epistemic ruptures within a discipline or field of study, challenging the constitutive and dominant paradigms of the sciences. We propose analyzing the five turns that are currently affecting the field of cultural heritage: the historical, participatory, feminist, decolonial, and ontological turns, which constitute key theoretical breaks for rethinking cultural heritage today.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luis Alegrìa, Claudio Galeno, Carolina Stefone https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Social control and the three stages of the control system in contemporary Spain: historiographical orientation
This article defines «social control» and the «control system» (police, judicial and penitentiary), to warn about the risks that historical research must face. From this theoretical and methodological basis, the uses (explicit or implicit) of the concept of social control in Spanish historiography are assessed, identifying three stages of the control system: a disciplinary one, which acquired its modern forms with the construction of the Liberal State, reached its climax in the Second Republic and collapsed in the bellicose and repressive dynamics of the Civil War; another punitivist stage, which definitively truncated the evolution of liberal disciplinary control and was developed over the course of the Franco regime, putting the centrality of punishment before the maintenance of political and social order; and a security system, which emerged in the transition from dictatorship to democracy, displaying to the present day the features of the security state and the «society of control».
Copyright (c) 2025 Pedro Oliver Olmo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Chapel, procession and execution: the last hours of a condemned man on death row in Madrid during the 18th century and the first third of the 19th century
Since time immemorial, the death penalty has been the sublimation of punishment and public vengeance. Over the centuries, its persuasive and pedagogical nature gave rise to a staging that was gradually refined until it reached its peak in the 19th century. From here, and using the city of Madrid as the main stage, due to its status as the Court of the Hispanic Monarchy, and thanks to the multiple primary sources we have used, we aim to reconstruct the last hours of those condemned to the final torment; From the moment they were notified of their sentence and entered the chapel, until their burial in the corresponding cemeteries; paying special attention to the helpers of the condemned and transmitters of their memory, to the ceremonial and the real journeys that these poor wretches made before meeting their maker in one of the squares in Madrid destined for this purpose.
Copyright (c) 2025 Francisco Javier Cubo Machado https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Anti-monuments: emerging practices in the struggle for memory
This paper analyzes the anti-monument, a new form of memory practice emerged in Mexico in the 2010s, which articulates innovative ways to understanding monumentality in relation to collective memory and social demands. The paper defines and characterizes the anti-monument through a qualitative analysis of significant recent academic and journalistic works on the topic. The anti-monument is presented as a political and artistic expression from social collectives that transforms public spaces to contest memory and democracy; initially, its goal is to preserve the memory of traumatic events and demand justice in contexts marked by state impunity. The anti-monuments reshape urban spaces by encouraging critical reflection on the past, recent history, and the state of social justice in society. The analysis shows how anti-monuments highlight current issues, such as forced disappearances and femicides, which are closely connected to unresolved historical traumas, aiming to foster a collective memory and a path toward a more democratic future. Additionally, the peculiarity of the anti-monument is highlighted in contrast to other alternative memory practices, such as such as the counter-monument. Finally, the paper underscores the role of anti-monuments as tools for social action and highlights their theoretical and methodological contributions to the field of memory studies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Everardo Pérez Manjarrez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Fragments for a Materialist Critique of Cultural Heritage
In this text we discuss a series of theses towards a materialist critique of cultural heritage, forming a constellation of arguments that a) begin from the position that we must analyse cultural heritage as part of the process of capitalist accumulation, highlighting its role in the reproductive process of capital b) relate the practices of cultural heritage to the expansion of capital and c) as a consequence, derive the form of cultural heritage from the social relations of capital. Based on this position, we identify a process, which we call monumental enclosure, constituted by a twofold mechanism: First, the disappearance of class domination under the «innocent» realm of memory. Second, the elimination of «everyday life» both through the hierarchical prioritisation of the past over the present, and through the segregation of spaces linked to the past and their transformation into a commodity.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marios Panierakis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Industrial heritage and a matter of class: a memory lockout?
A recognition of the fact that heritage and monuments construct a way of understanding reality has led this article to examine the class dimension of heritage by examining three former factories which have been declared industrial heritage for how the industrial past is narrated and the way workers are portrayed within it: Battersea Power Station (London), the Gas Factory (Athens) and the El Águila Brewery (Madrid). This will be accomplished by analyzing relevant bibliography and narratives of monuments studied. A new urban design incorporates the industrial past of the city. Restoration of some buildings was based on architectural singularity or the uniqueness of the machines housed. Monumentalistic conceptions of industrial heritage that reduce factories to machines. The human perspective of industrialisation, the experience of work and of the workers, seems to be left out.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mariana Stoler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Rethinking the legal definitions of cultural heritage from gender and decolonial point of view
Protection of cultural heritage is vital for survival of cultural identity, collective memory and preserving deeply integrated values. Prerequisite for this achievement is a well drafted definition of cultural heritage in international legal framework. Yet, adopted legal instruments have faced multiple criticism coming from legal doctrine, practicing lawyers and even bearers of the heritage. There are a couple of definitions. Heritage is divided, even though tangible and intangible heritage are considered to be «two sides of the same coin». Some of the definitions are descriptive, restrictive, too wide, too narrow, problematic to interpret, etc. Moreover, lack of inclusivity makes them easily challenged from gender and decolonial point of view. Consequences of patriarchal and Eurocentric approach are reflecting on the heritage, but also on the limitation of human rights of the bearers. Overall, questioning existing legal acts and implemented system is necessary in order to safeguard heritage for future generations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Miljana Jakovljevic https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Rebeca Matte Population. The Heritage and Silenced Experiences of the Popular Sectors of Ñuñoa, Chile (1956-2023)
This article offers a critical examination of the traditional conceptions and management of cultural heritage in Chile, which have historically prioritized large-scale state and oligarchic projects while marginalizing the sociocultural dynamics of working-class communities within the country’s heritage protection framework. Through a historical study of the Rebeca Matte housing complex in Ñuñoa, Santiago de Chile, we reassess its history and collective memory by drawing on documentary sources, oral testimonies, and historiographical analysis. Our study explores the neighbourhood’s significance as a unique case of urban development during the 1960s, shaped by public policies and informal transformations initiated by its residents. Within the broader context of rural-to-urban migration, irregular land occupations, and the social struggle for housing, we conclude that, despite its evident historical value, the neighbourhood is not recognized as heritage housing due to its lack of the attributes established by state heritage regulations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alvaro Rivas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Colonial memories, slavery monuments and the anti-racist movement. Idrissa Diallo Square as dissonant heritage in Barcelona
This paper examines the conflicts surrounding Idrissa Diallo Square in Barcelona, highlighted by the removal of the monument to the slave trader Antonio López in 2018. Based on ethnographic data, it analyses the official discourses coming from public institutions, museums and memory policies, as well as the counter-narratives of anti-racist, migrant and racialised groups that challenge the hegemonic vision of heritage. The renaming of the square in 2022 and the public debates reflect an attempt to criticise the history of slavery, although Eurocentric narratives that perpetuate colonial imaginaries persist. Anti-racist movements expose the colonial history that memory policies forget to explain, also making their legacies visible in the present. The dissonances of an uncomfortable heritage expose the limitations of institutional memory policies, and challenge institutions to structural change. It is concluded that the decolonisation of public space requires transforming symbolic and material practices and redistributing power in the construction of collective memories.
Copyright (c) 2025 Camila Opazo-Sepúlveda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Creation of a Select Image of the World: A Look at the Reflection of the 1889 Paris World’s Fair
The Universal Exhibitions of the 19th century can be analysed as generators of collective imaginaries about nature, through the creation of a select image of the world. From socio-environmental history, cultural history and the history of mentalities, as well as through the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the iconographic representations of the Official Bulletin of the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1889, we have studied the idea of progress, shaped by the environment and otherness. This interpretative analysis of the images has been made possible by the iconographic heritage generated by the exhibition, where, by combining different perspectives, we have analysed the construction of images and the hierarchies present within them. In the environmental case, we studied how the illustrations reflected the understanding of nature as a resource at man’s service. They also illustrated and exalted the conquest of space and technical progress. At the same time, the construction of the different othernesses reflected in the engravings of the bulletin has also been analysed from a social point of view. In both cases, there is a clear representation of the foreign as something conquerable, exotifying elements external to the Western world.
Copyright (c) 2025 Irati Zurbano Zuazu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Review of Ángel Organero Merino, La prisión de Ocaña: de presidio a reformatorio de adultos. Origen y evolución hasta la Guerra Civil (1883-1936), Madrid, Ministerio del Interior. Secretaría General Técnica, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 Aarón Suárez Pérez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Mass Graves of Republicans in Madrid: Locations and Investigations Based on the Causa General
This article reports on the discovery of 56 previously unregistered mass graves containing the remains of members of the Spanish Republic Army and civilians who were victims of reprisals in the province of Madrid. This finding was made possible through a comprehensive analysis of judicial documentation from the Causa General, including the files titled «Localización e identificación de mártires de la Cruzada en Madrid y su provincia» and the «Pieza Principal o Primera de la Provincia de Madrid.» The research highlights that, despite having been conceived for repressive and propaganda purposes, the judicial archives of the Causa General can constitute valuable primary sources through a rigorous process of critical deconstruction. In this sense, it demonstrates how documents generated by the regime’s own repressive apparatus can be reappropriated as fundamental tools for identifying and locating mass graves resulting from the violence perpetrated during the war and the dictatorship. The article also highlights the persistence of a regime of post-mortem discrimination, identified as funeral apartheid, which condemned the victims of the uprising and dictatorial violence to invisibility and marginalization even after their death.
Copyright (c) 2026 miriam Saqqa Carazo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Misconduct in the scribe guilds of Murcia at the end of the Middle Ages
This article examines the main is- sues that affected the scribe guilds, such as misconduct or the use of counterfeit credentials to practice said profession, in Murcia and in other towns of this kingdom in Late Middle Ages. Through the study of municipal and royal documentation, it is possible to characterize the typology of actions carried out by some members of this guild and the implementation, by the competent authorities, of mechanisms to investigate and punish them. In this regard, the council itself stands out, as it sought to maintain the reputation of the scribe guilds amidst continuous intrigues, while the monarchy dedicated efforts to provide greater transparency to their activities.
Copyright (c) 2025 José Damián González Arce, Inazio Conde Mendoza https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0