Basque Identity in the 21st Century: Up Close No One is Normal

Abstract

A dynamic conception of identity is not about asserting traits or searching for primordial essences but about the processes and contexts of its dynamic and living production including its social futures. Looking forward to contributing to Basque Studies this article offers an analysis of the complexities of contemporary reconfigurations of identification processes by focusing on the problem of Basque identity in the 21st century. I propose an approach not linked to the "Homeland/Diaspora" model but rather to a form of multifaceted and trans-local dynamics that arises from interaction with multiple places and contexts of cultural production and collective identification. The analysis pivots around a case study concerning a family of five, who emigrated to Argentina in 1973 and returned to the Basque Country 30 years later. The essay belongs to a wider anthropological project about the everyday production of national values and contemporary forms of Basqueness beyond ethnicity both in Argentina and the Southern-Spanish Basque Country.