Description
This collective work offers a panoramic overview of the role of places of memory and material culture in the construction of professional identities within the health sector, particularly amongst doctors and pharmacists, in contemporary Spain (19th, 20th and 21st centuries). It examines a wide and diverse range of places of memory within their respective political and social contexts: monuments, street name registers, biographies and obituaries, galleries of distinguished citizens, museums, chemists’ shops, hospitals, funerals, and literary and historiographical works. The main objective is to demonstrate the proactive role played by various institutions (royal academies, university faculties, chairs of the history of medicine and pharmacy, and professional bodies) in promoting these places of memory in order to confer greater social and historical legitimacy and public visibility upon the healthcare professions. The book does not overlook theoretical and conceptual issues, whether concerning the historiographical concept of the ‘place of memory’ itself, the differences between history and memory, or the role of independent professionals as intellectuals.