The purpose of this PhD thesis is to give visibility to Spanish refugee women in France from 1939 to 1942 and bring them out of the shadow of their male companions. We thus set out to write a history of Spanish exodus on French territory through the eyes of women, so as to make them come into historical view. The objects of French administrative control, they were subjected to stereotyped social images which influenced the authorities’ practices towards them. They were assigned to administrative categories which evolved according to French alien policies, and had to follow rules of conduct and conform to behaviors which were imposed upon them. Most stayed in reception centres and some in internments centres. All were under administrative supervision and grappling with gendered power relations. Returning to Spain, emigrating across the Atlantic, reuniting with other family members or finding employment were the ways out of these coercive spaces. Spanish refugee women resisted the many subjection devices deployed by the French State and came to realize their agency by experimenting with various modes of action. In doing so, and while in exile, they shaped new individual and collective identities which were resolutely political.
The Spanish refugee women in France (1939-1942) : women between subjection and resistance