Chronos and Kairos in colonial Gibraltar: Remembering and forgetting on the British territory

This article looks at the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar on the eve of the occasion when its long-standing border with Spain is about to disappear as a result of Brexit negotiations. Based on over 400 oral histories and ethnographic research, it explores how Gibraltarians developed a very British identity over the course of the 20th century and how different generations collaborate to articulate a coherent view of the past, the present, and, to some degree, the future. It develops Ingold's (2023) critique of ‘generation now' to argue that there is – at least on some issues – a very large degree of consensus and communication across age groups: very little is transmitted across generations in terms of historical memory that disrupts the discourse of Gibraltarian Britishness and Spanish alterity. In contrast, all generations project an understanding of contemporary reality onto the past, even if it contradicts lived experience. It concludes that we need to think of new ways to understand how communities create identities ‘across generations’ and pay more heed to what is forgotten and not communicated as well as what is.