Recasting Culture and Space in Iberian Contexts

Edited by Sharon R. Roseman & Shawn S. Parkhurst

Subjects: Cultural Anthropology, Geography, European Studies
Series: SUNY series in National Identities
Paperback : 9780791473122, 325 pages, January 2009
Hardcover : 9780791473115, 325 pages, January 2008

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

1. Culture and Space in Iberian Anthropology
Sharon R. Roseman and Shawn S. Parkhurst

PART 1: Colonial Spaces and National Identities

2. The Hidden Empire: Peasants, Nation Building, and the Empire in Portuguese Anthropology
João Leal

3. Displaced Identities among the Malacca Portuguese
Brian Juan O'Neill

4. Imperialist Ideology and Representations of the Portuguese Provinces during the Early Estado Novo
António Medeiros

PART 2: Fascism, Cultural Spaces, and Memory Politics

5. Re-presenting the Fascist Classroom: Education as a Space of Memory in Contemporary Spain
Susan M. DiGiacomo

6. Cursillos and Concursos in Rural Galicia: The Sección Femenina and the Modernizing Project of the Franco Dictatorship
Sharon R. Roseman
7. Crossing Borders, Reconfiguring Lives: A Catalan Exile Family in Wartime London
Oriol Pi-Sunyer

PART 3: Regionality and Space

8. The City and the Countryside: The Virgin of Sonsoles
María Cátedra

9. Race and Space in Interpretations of Portugal: The North-South Division and Representations of Portuguese National Identity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
José Manuel Sobral

10. Local Correspondence: A Village Writer's Contribution to the Cultural Production of Regionality in the Alto Douro of Northern Portugal
Shawn S. Parkhurst

PART 4: Cultural Politics and the Global

11. Kafe Antzokia: The Global meets the Local in Basque Cultural Politics
Jacqueline Urla

Afterword
12. Displacements: The Experience of Vectored Spaces in Peninsular Places
James W. Fernandez

Contributors
Index

Anthropological case studies of the interplay of space, culture, and power in Iberia since 1850.

Description

Focusing on the interplay of space, culture, and power in Iberia since 1850, this collection of case studies demonstrates how questions about social identities and power are also questions about mapping, texts, and concrete spaces. The late nineteenth and twentieth centuries are marked by a drive toward grandiose ideological conceptualizations that affected the production of ideas about modern geographical space. The contributors examine the links between this historical context and the emergence of specific intellectual traditions, as well as everyday discourses and practices. They also explore the making of conflicted spaces in Portugal and Spain, and in foreign sites impacted by Iberian-origin exile or colonial settlement. The essays compel readers to consider exactly how people's political identifications have been forged through cultural struggles over the uses and meanings of physical spaces, whether these are in Barcelona, Bilbao, villages in the Alto Douro of Portugal or in Galician Spain, Malacca, the countryside near Ávila (the "City of the Saints"), or Catalans' wartime London.

Sharon R. Roseman is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Memorial University of Newfoundland and coeditor (with Ellen Badone) of Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism. Shawn S. Parkhurst is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Portuguese Studies Program at the University of Louisville.

Reviews

"…a nicely balanced book, full of fascinating ethnographic material … For anyone seeking an interesting introduction to the anthropology of Iberia, this book would provide an excellent starting-point." — Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"This overview of current issues of Iberian societies has a very good editorial introduction, comprehensive literature review, and a rich diversity of chapters. It certainly will be very appreciated by readers looking for contemporary information about southern Europe. I anticipate that it will be used in courses and will be cited often." — Cristiana Bastos, Universidade de Lisboa