GIRHAC-AHCISP
INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND CULTURAL RESEARCH GROUP (GIRHAC), Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, UAB.
GIRHAC (Interdisciplinary Group for Historical, Environmental and Cultural Research) is an interdisciplinary, inter-university and international research group that was founded in 2008 by Professor Silvia G. Álvarez Litben, with the collaboration of Professor Alexandre Coello.
Currently, the GIRHAC is a research unit of the AHCISP (Anthropology and History of the Construction of Social and Political Identities)
https://www.uab.cat/ca/antropologia/ahcisp
The GIRHAC's objective is research in the field of socio-environmental knowledge, the society-nature relationship and the socio-cultural forms of sustainable management and use of natural resources from the perspective of nature as a subject of rights and heritage of humanity.
With an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, especially from archaeology, ethnography and environmental sciences, from its beginnings several decades ago to the present, its research has focused on native populations of Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Catalonia and Nordic countries (especially Norway, Iceland and Sweden). The research projects carried out by GIRHAC members focus on:
- Knowledge and enhancement of technologies of pre-Columbian origin and management of water and natural resources in South America (Camellones fields, Jagas or Albarradas, Camanchaca).
- Recovery of ancestral knowledge and worldviews that guide community strategies in their adaptation to climatic phenomena and environmental impact.
- Transfer and application of theoretical models in the experimental field with rehabilitation, planting of crops and adaptation to current problems using ancestral technologies.
- Communication of results through museum exhibitions, documentaries, visual arts, workshops, and community curators.
- Theoretical-critical analysis of categories associated with the environmental field (sustainability, Good Living, ecosystem services).
- Sustainability evaluation using indicators and indices.
- Preparation of thematic cartography based on geographic information systems.
- Subsistence hunting, management and conservation of wildlife in indigenous and rural communities.
- Wildlife marketing networks.
- Socio-environmental innovation for development in areas of high poverty and biodiversity.
- Construction and perception of the landscape and its link in the construction of collective and individual sociocultural identities.
- Community-individual-ecological environment relationship in high mountain areas.
- Evaluation of projects for the introduction of animal species.
- Eco-spirituality.
GIRHAC excels in its work of research transfer, training, intervention, restoration and intercultural participation with social actors involved in environmental processes. The research carried out and planned within the framework of the group is supported by the notion of sustainability, comprised of multiple dimensions (ecological, social, cultural, political and economic). It is expected that the contributions generated and proposed by the team will provide elements for decision-making in the field of public policies.
More information https://blogs.uab.cat/girhac (under construction)
Contact:
Dr. Irina Casado and dr. Dídac Santos
Interdisciplinary Historical, Environmental and Cultural Research Group - GIRHAC
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Autonomous University of Barcelona
Building B – Faculty of Letters
08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès)
+34 935812747
MIEMBROS ACTUALES DEL GRUPO
Dr. Silvia G. Alvarez Litben
Silvia G. Álvarez Litben has a degree in Sociocultural Anthropology and a PhD in Philosophy and Letters (Cum Laude) in Prehistory and Social Anthropology. Full Professor of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology from 1996 until her retirement in September 2022. She is a specialist in interethnic and intercultural relations, issues of ethnicity, acculturation and resistance processes. From 2008 until 2021 he coordinated the GIRHAC, being part of a work network with researchers from Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil. Since 1980 he has been carrying out research in Ecuador on rural, urban and ethnic populations developing a prolonged ethnographic fieldwork. His subjects of study revolve around ethnic territoriality, construction of identities, ancestral knowledge and processes of long-term social and environmental transformation. For years it has also maintained a line of work on issues of cultural heritage and museums, environment, management and handling of common goods in organizations with collective territory, and migration processes towards cities. Currently, he works on the reflection of the concept of Buen Vivir (Sumak Kawsay), sustainability and collective management of natural resources. He has participated in social policy projects studying migratory movements, identity processes and social integration in urban contexts, as is the case of the city of Barcelona. At the same time, she is interested in the development of new qualitative methodological proposals and in the application of participatory methodologies, educational dissemination and the return of knowledge to society. It has maintained a constant link over decades with the groups and social subjects with which it carries out participatory approaches in the construction of scientific knowledge. He has published in influential indexed journals in the field of Experimental Anthropology or Ethnobiology. He has obtained several transfer contracts and participated in several R&D-funded projects, including the MIXED-YOUTH project (CSO2015-63962-R), led by Dr. Dan Rodríguez García (UAB).
Email: paty_zamba@yahoo.es
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9092-1764
Dr. Maria Laura Zulaica
Degree in Environmental Diagnosis and Management (UNCPBA), Specialist and Master in Environmental Management (UNSL) and PhD in Geography (UNS). She is an independent researcher at CONICET, working at the Institute of Habitat and Environment (IHAM), Faculty of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design (FAUD) of the National University of Mar del Plata (UNMdP) and assistant professor at the FAUD and the Faculty of Humanities (FH) of the UNMdP. She teaches postgraduate courses in various academic fields. His participation in interdisciplinary projects stands out. Currently, his research focuses on the construction and evaluation of environmental sustainability indicators, among the fields of application of which stand out: environmental and habitat management, territorial planning and environmental impact assessment. Directs and participates in research, extension and transfer projects related to environmental and habitat issues developed in peri-urban areas of the city of Mar del Plata (Argentina).
Email: laurazulaica@conicet.gov.ar
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8101-5957
Links: https://www.conicet.gov.ar/
Dr. Dídac Santos Fita
Biologist from the University of Barcelona (UB) and Postgraduate Diploma in Basic Training in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain: Master in Zoology (area: applied zoology) from the State University of Santa Cruz (UESC), Brazil; Doctorate in Ecological Sciences and Sustainable Development (with orientation in: Conservation of Biodiversity) by the College of the Southern Border (ECOSUR), Mexico and Postdoctorate at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico. He has worked as a researcher-teacher at universities in Mexico and Brazil, from 2015 to 2022, carrying out research, teaching, thesis supervision, liaison, dissemination and management tasks. Current affiliation: Postdoctorate "María Zambrano, for the attraction of international talent" in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the UAB. It belongs to the National Research System Level 1 of Conacyt, Mexico. He has advised undergraduate and postgraduate theses in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. Instructor of various cutting-edge ethnobiological courses in Mexico and other Latin American countries, where he has also participated as a speaker at congresses. He has experience in interdisciplinary research, with a focus on the following topics: a) Human-nature relations, b) Ethnobiology/Ethnnoecology, and c) Wild fauna management and conservation. Hunting, d) Customary law. Biocultural Heritage, e) Cultural identity and territorial processes.
E-mail: dsantofi@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7347-8476
Dr. Irina Casado and Aijón
PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Master in Basic and Applied Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology (UAB), degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology (UAB) and degree in History (UAB).
His research focuses on three lines, two of them developed from 2001 until today and another more recent (2019):
1.- Catalan Pyrenees. He has spent two periods doing ethnographic fieldwork in the Àneu valleys thanks to obtaining two grants from the Inventory of the Ethnological Heritage of Catalonia (2004 and 2006): during the first, his purpose was to respond to how the farming communities of high mountains perceive their natural environment and how they relate to nature while collecting ethnographic data on popular knowledge, both questions analyzed from the construction of individual and collective identities in these valleys; during the second stay, his research focused on the ethnography of the landscape, on identities and the new emerging socio-economic models in contexts of depopulation and climate change.
Since 2012, he has been doing ethnographic surveys and evaluations around the reintroduction and recovery of animal species in the Catalan Pyrenees and in other natural places in Catalonia, with special attention to the reintroduction of the brown bear and the recovery of the wolf and the otter.
2.- Nordic societies. This line of research began in 2001 and is currently still active. He did two ethnographic stays in Oslo (Norway) in 2002 and 2004, which had as one of the main research objectives the Norwegian national identity and the relationship with nature and the landscape as main elements of education and identity transmission to children. Focusing on landscape anthropology and the construction of socio-cultural identities, this line of research focuses on how Nordic societies perceive the landscape and how the individual and society as a whole relate to it they relate
Since 2019, he has also been working with the Icelandic and Swedish cases.
3.- Since 2019, he has been carrying out fieldwork around the symbolism, ritual and therapeutic forms of mysticism and contemporary spirituality in Catalonia.
This line of research is located within the framework of Eco-spirituality and how human societies relate to the notion of Mother Earth, the natural environment and the rest of the species that inhabit the planet through belief systems, symbolism and rituals.
E-mail: irina.casado@uab.cat
Links: https://uab.academia.edu/IrinaCasadoiAij%C3%B3n
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Irina-Casado-I-Aijon
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4601-565X