The regimes of visibility of the Resistance. Editorial

This introduction presents the development of the historiography of the Resistance in a new light: it shows the recent evolution of the field and updates the usual interpretation of the phases of historiography. An approach based on regimes of visibility or memorial regimes allows us to understand the variations over time in the analysis of the past without having to resort to notions drawn from other disciplines such as “concealment”, “taboo” or the “reappearance of the repressed”. Political, social and cultural factors influence the way we look at the past, changing its visibility and sometimes even its meaning. These contextual combinations produce historiographical sequences, which evolve not “from memory to history”, but from memory to memory. In addition to the two already well-known phases – the first focused on the organisation, combat and heroism of the Resistance (1945-1970), and the second which, while retaining this martial and political approach, nuanced and made it more complex (1970-2000) – there is now a third, more social phase which looks at the Resistance in diffuse terms, the Resistance of “non-consent”, which was of vital importance for the organisations and for the victims of oppression.