The Historiographic Path of Spain’s Photohistory: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

With over a quarter-century of the historiography of photography in Spain behind us, we now have considerable perspective on what was achieved, what are current historiographic trends, and what might be the constructive direction to take at this point. The following underscores the fact that both photographic subject and photohistory are often locally focused and merit re-evaluation in different terms, in order for the photography of Spain and by Spaniards to figure more meaningfully in global photohistories. Spain’s current political structure has worked against this end, while it has fostered many excellent results on the regional level, but this need not persist, nor is it advisable that it persist, as Spain’s historiographic norm.