The scientific and affective identification of Republican civilian victims from the Spanish Civil War Layla Renshaw Kingston University, UK Abstract This article addresses the concurrent processes of the scientific and affective identification of human remains, resulting from the excavation of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War. Affective identification refers to the reconstruction of locally meaningful identities, recognition amongst the living of affective bonds with the dead, and the emotions of mourning elicited in this process. Drawing on fieldwork in two rural communities in the Burgos region of Spain, it follows the exhumation of mass graves containing the human remains of local Republican civilians, victims of extrajudicial killings during the Spanish Civil War. The long time lapse between these deaths and current exhumations place these events on the boundaries of living memory, creating challenges for the investigative process. Widespread experiences of political repression during Spain’s dictatorship have resulted in a fractured transmission of memories of the dead, making the question of affective and familial bonds with the dead more complex for these communities. Keywords exhumation, identification, memory, mourning, Spanish Civil War Introduction The Spanish Civil War (1936–9) was triggered by a military coup headed by General Franco against a democratically elected leftist government. The war was fought on bat- tlefields between Francoist and Republican military forces, but was also marked by a very high number of non-combatant deaths, comprised of both civilians and prisoners of war (Congram and Steadman, 2008). It has been estimated that at least 150,000 people were killed away from the battlefields during the Civil War and in the first decade of Corresponding author: Layla Renshaw, Life Science, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston KT1 2EE, UK. Email: l.renshaw@kingston.ac.uk Article Journal of Material Culture 15(4) 449–463 © The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1359183510382961 http://mcu.sagepub.com Journal of MATERIAL CULTURE