Paper short abstract:

I propose the revisitation of two ethnographic research carried out in the Aragonese Pyrenees (70s) and in Andorra (90s), in order to compare the experiences of field work and critically evaluate the conditions, possibilities and limits in each case.

Paper long abstract:

I propose the revisitation of two ethnographic research carried out in the Pyrenees at different times and circumstances, in order to compare the experiences and the limits and conditions I had to confront. In 70s, I did fieldwork in the Aragonese Pyrenees and focused on the the transformations of the peasant household. The result was my doctoral thesis. It was an investigation of youth, of individual character, based on learning as an anthropologist and without funding. In the 90s, I did fieldwork in Andorra. This time I was part of a team and had a more ambitious perspective: to study the economic, political and social transformations that turned this microestate into an international commercial and tourist headquarter. The research was adequately funded, allowing to maintain researchers in the field for two years. These fieldwork experiences were very different, conditioned by the life stage of the anthropologist, by her degree of cultural competence with the Pyrenean culture, and by the way in which she was perceived and incorporated in the context of study by local people and institutions. Here I want to critically assess the constraints that acted in each one of these projects. I plan to revisit, in a material and academic sense, these two areas of the Pyrenees in the near future, and this previous reflection is necessary.