Construction of the Combatant’s Subjectivity: A Comparison of the Soldier’s Experiences in the Canary Islands and Okinawa (1936–1945)

Abstract

War contexts can always be analysed from multiple perspectives. One of them refers to the study of war experiences. In fact, this question allows us to delve into the collective and individual subjectivities of people who have participated in war from a socio-cultural approach. This work attempts to analyze the construction of the subjectivities of Canarian and Okinawan ex-combatants as a result of their experiences in the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. This study also contributes to research on this question, which is absent in the historiography dedicated to the study of these geographical spaces with a comparative approach. For this purpose, this research has made use of several testimonies of ex-combatants. Despite being culturally and geographically distant examples, both island scenarios presented evident similarities in their war experiences.