Projects

 

Acção Integrada Luso-Espanhola financed by CRUP and by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación

 

PTDC/EAT-MMU/114263/2009

Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, Susana Moreno Fernandez, João Soeiro de Carvalho, Ana María Jimenez, António Medeiros, Eduardo Contreras, Dulce Simões, Enrique Camara de Llanda, Javier Campos Calvo-Soutelo, Jorge Freitas Branco, Luís Costa, William Kavanagh

 

 

Cross border studies involving Portugal and Spain constitute an important research area that was only recently examined by some anthropologists and ethnomusicologists (Medeiros 2006; Godinho in press, 2005; Pereiro 2008; Kavanagh 2004, Cunha & Cunha 2007). In addition, several international conferences have been organized focussing on this issue. Furthermore, the Universidad de Extremadura (Spain) offers a doctoral program on cross-border transmission processes involving Spain, Portugal and other countries. At the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, a master's seminar dealing with the anthropology of borders, focusing on Spain and Portugal, is part of the curriculum. In ethnomusicology, Celtism has been the focus of research since the 1990s. However, Celtism in Portugal has not yet been investigated. In Spain, Galicia was the main focus of sporadic research (Bohlman, Stokes & Bohlman 2003; Campos 2007, 2002; Costa in press a, b). Despite the common musical heritage, research dealing with the intense cross-border exchange between Portugal and Spain, involving manifestations of Celtism in music, is incipient.

This project focusses on the role of cross-border processes that instrumentalize musical heritage associated with the notion of Celtism in the construction of a luso-galician identity. The project will also examine the impact in both Galicia and northern Portugal of the Celtic imaginary which developed in different fringe areas of Europe (Britany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man), and that was disseminated transnationally.

This interdisciplinary project privileges an unprecedented collaboration between anthropologists, ethnomusicologists and other experts from Portugal and Spain. A comparative analysis of the movement of Celtic music in northern Portugal and Galicia constitutes the main research strategy. Field and archival research will be carried out in Portugal, Spain and other countries. Audiovisual documentation of events and repertories, ethnographic interviews and internet resources will enable a detailed analysis of musical practices connected to Celtism and associated discourses, and will assess the ways in which the Celtic imaginary is used as a unifying element in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula.