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Dr Alba Martínez

Dr Alba Martínez

  • Position: Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Areas of expertise: Twentieth-Century Spanish history; gender and women's history; Spanish republican women in exile in France; identities and experiences of ordinary women; antifascist women; humanitarianism; refugees.
  • Email: A.Martinez1@leeds.ac.uk
  • Website: | ORCID

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds as a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow in February 2022 thanks to a “Margarita Salas” Spanish postodoctoral fellowship granted by the Spanish Ministry of Universities and under the supervision of Prof. Peter Anderson. I previously gained a PhD in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Granada (Spain) and in Hispanic Studies at the University of Paris 8 (France). As a PhD student I also did a research stay at the University of Toulouse II-Jean Jaurès in 2019. Previously, I studied a MPhil in Modern and Contemporary History at the Complutense University of Madrid (2014).

Research interests

My PhD focused on the study of the Spanish Republican Exile in France (1939–1978) from the perspective of Women and Gender History, and from the theoretical assumptions of Social and Cultural History. I analysed the everyday experiences and the process of refugee identity construction of “ordinary” women who arrived in France and the end of the Spanish Civil War and during the early francoism. I was particularly interested in their experiences of internment in camps and shelters, in the power relations they maintained with the French state during the process of obtaining the refugee status, as well as in women’s agency in the political and familiar sphere, paying special attention to emotions and care. 

I am currently interested in the humanitarian activism of women, especially British women, who mobilised in refugee relief campaigns in the 1930s and 1940s. I am particularly focused on analysing the female transnational humanitarian networks they were part of. 

You can find some of my publications on my Academia profile. 

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • BA in History (2013, University of Granada)
  • MPphil in Modern and Contemporary History (2014, Complutense University of Madrid)
  • PhD in Gender Studies and Hispanic Studies (2021, University of Granada/University of Paris 8)