Basque ethnography at a glance

In the process of collecting oral memory, we know that photographs, everyday objects or letters can function as “triggers” for memories, as tools that awaken individual and collective memory. Through these elements, and their ability to evocate, he who observes them, may bring to the present the histories contained in a certain space and time, even when they are not so present in our daily memory.

This and many other methodological reflections are the result of the experience of the “Memoria Anclada-Memoria Ainguratuta” project promoted together with the San Jerónimo Residence for the Elderly in Estella/Lizarra. There, ten residents of the centre have “given voice” to certain photographs and personal objects selected for their special significance. When faced with a black and white image of their family, of the tools they used in the fields before the arrival of agricultural machinery, or of the rag doll sewn for their daughter, these people have not only been describing the life and customs of another era – collective memory – but they have also been able to weave a life story – individual memory. The exercise of remembering is a difficult exercise, and full of emotions, silences, ties and disagreements. Therefore he who listens actively from ethnographic practice must understand and respect the limits of such exercise.

Handing of the key to memory to one of the participants. Source: Labrit Ondarea

Memory is a function that happens in the human mind, the ability to store and promptly retrieve learned information or a living fact. The methodologies we use within our task of combining oral memory, such as photographs interpreted in audio-visual format, if properly adapted, can become keys to memory for the protagonists of these photographs, who, being in their hands, allow us to constantly turn to the memories and experiences of these people. In fact, it may happen today that memories are clearly evoked, but they often disappear: sometimes, little by little, almost unnoticed, like that patina that seems to tarnish a photograph of which we can still appreciate the most important elements; other times, suddenly, turning previously easily identifiable faces and places into unknown ones.

Hence these keys may be used by the owners, and by those who have the consent of the owners, as a formidable instrument to reach every corner of our experience. So they become both individual and collective memories.

So, this ethnographic outcome of the memorization exercise, in this case, has been left to the residents of a nursing home and will allow it to be used in a variety of therapeutic applications when there is, for example, cognitive impairment, but also for self-referencing or sharing this exercise collectively. Memory is the protection of the past, but at the same time it gives meaning to the present and illuminates the future.

Ane Etxarri – Anthropologist at Labrit Heritage