Archives

Hawthorn to protect against lightning

0
Posted on 2024-03-01 in

Hawthorn crosses. Ezkio (Gipuzkoa). Author: Felix Mugurutza

Our ancestors believed that thunderstorms were the most common, known and feared expression of atmospheric violence: the home, livestock, harvest or life of people hung by a thread during the storm.

 (more…)

The ethnography of a convent

0
Posted on 2024-02-23 in

Santa Clara Convent in Tolosa, 2023. Author: Fernando Hualde.

At the end of November 2023, the doors of Santa Clara Convent in Tolosa (Gipuzkoa) closed for the last time, after over four centuries of being home to the religious order and the remaining four nuns were moved to another convent. Before they left – and with their cooperation –, I had the opportunity to make an extensive inventory of all the artefacts within the walls of the convent that had been home to the cloistered religious community, the Order of Saint Claire (the Poor Clares). A heritage intervention thus took place from May to October of that year with the goal of preserving the memory of that convent; the outcomes were four different books being produced and published, the recording of the oral memory of the last four nuns, the making of a documentary and the organisation of an exhibition.

 (more…)

Lower-case initial for ethnography

0
Posted on 2017-05-26 in

In the realm of knowledge ethnography (with a small e) is a minor field of study compared to Anthropology, for instance, which, shall we say, does not carry much weight in the arena of social sciences either, nor science in general for that matter. (more…)

The legacy of José Miguel de Barandiaran

0
Posted on 2017-01-06 in
k16o27a5

Barandiaran at Sara Etxea. Ataun, 1987. Ángel Alonso. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

On 21 December 2017 we commemorated the 25th anniversary of the death of José Miguel de Barandiaran. Those of us who devote ourselves to ethnography as members of the Etniker (name created by Barandiaran to signify ‘ethnographic research’) groups certainly owe him a debt of gratitude. He not only founded the mentioned working groups but transformed a discipline which had until then been rooted in rather romantic and biased views. Barandiaran’s new approach to ethnography was based on scientific evidence. By adopting a systematic method and maintaining, first and foremost, such an open frame of mind, he put us on the broad European map. (more…)

Carrito

Archive