«Ya estábamos en los tiempos de la transición». El cambio social bajo los pies del franquismo: espacios, socialización y desafíos en la Cataluña rural (1960-1976)

Franco died in his bed on 20 November 1975. The dictatorship, however, had already been in its death throes for several years. The political changes that were consolidated by the moves towards a democratic system in 1977-78 had already occurred within civil society throughout the 1950s and 1960s, especially in Catalonia. Far from apathy and demobilization, rural Catalonia experienced an intense process of social change comparable in many ways to that of metropolitan areas. Throughout this period, resistance to the regime, struggles to improve material conditions, and civic, critical and cultural activism became spaces of permanent con conflict that would de ne and expand what was and what was not possible under Franco. When in early 1977 what was left of regime was forced to accept its demise, change had already become a tangible reality for most of the population.