Teresa del Valle, anthropologist, feminist and pioneer
Teresa del Valle Murga (Donostia-San Sebastían, 1937-2025), one of the founding members of EASA and its first vice-president (1988-1990) and Emeritus professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), died in her hometown on April 8th. She was an outstanding figure in the feminist anthropology of the Spanish-speaking world, and highly esteemed in her native Basque Country. She was active in EASA’s early years, convened the panel “Constructing genders” at the first conference in Coimbra, Portugal in 1990 and subsequently edited the volume, Gendered Anthropology (Routledge, 1993). She was probably best known for the collective work Mujer vasca: imagen y realidad (“Basque woman: image and reality”) that challenged the theory of the Basque matriarchy (del Valle et. al, 1985) but also for other ethnographic works such as Korrika: rituales de la lengua en el espacio (original version, 1988; in translation, “Basque ritual for ethnic identity”, 1993), studies on gender relations in Basque society and contributions to methodologies of memory and (auto)biography.
In memoriam
When someone like Teresa del Valle dies, someone who cultivated curiosity and posed an endless chain of questions that challenged her chosen discipline, social anthropology, it seems appropriate to ponder the questions that her absence leaves behind.
As memory is one of the themes addressed by Del Valle, we could begin by asking what she herself will be remembered for: what is her intellectual and affective legacy? What mark does she leave on Basque anthropology, research and teaching? What are the tracks that continue to lead those of us who followed her trail in feminist anthropology?
These musings were the subject of a summer course at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), organized by Pio Pérez Aldasoro and Mari Jose Olaciregi Alustiza in 2021; the proceedings were published in Teresa del Valle, bidegile eta gidari (“Teresa del Valle, pioneer and guide”, 2023). There we can find some answers to the question of legacy: evidence that her work contributed to a theoretically and methodologically innovative Basque feminist anthropology (represented by the collective book Mujer Vasca. Imagen y realidad (Basque woman. Image and reality, 1985) or Mujeres en Euskal Herria. Ayer y hoy (Women in the Basque Country. Yesterday and today, 1997). Her thought was complex and dynamic and embraced both urban and political anthropology, as witnessed in her focus on the Basque language movement in Korrika: rituales de la lengua en el espacio (original version, 1988; in translation, “Basque ritual for ethnic identity”, 1993) or the analysis of space in Andamios para una nueva ciudad (“Scaffolding for a new City, 1997). It was also and always feminist, in its inspiration and application.
The feminist critique that del Valle brought to Basque anthropology was informed by the theory and practice she encountered beyond the Basque Country. She studied History in the USA (BA, Saint Mary College, 1966; MA, Saint Louis University, 1969) and then Anthropology as a postgraduate at the University of Hawaii (MA, 1974; PhD, 1978). Her doctoral fieldwork in Micronesia (at present there is an exhibition in the university library in Donostia-San Sebastían about those early years on the island of Guam). On her return from the United States in 1979, she began her career in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), at a time when Social Anthropology was not yet present as a discipline in its own right.
Recently, there has been a spate of publications that pay homage to the legacy of distinguished women anthropologists in Spain and Del Valle is one of them. She is also one of the three pioneers – along with Dolores Juliano and Verena Stolcke -, whose testimony is presented in the documentary, Pioneras, directed by Inge Mendioroz (2021) and produced by AFIT, the feminist anthropology research group of the University of the Basque Country to which we all belong. These three women were key contributors to the implantation of social anthropology in the effervescence of post Franco Spain and particularly significant for the development of feminist thought.
At a time of social and political change, characterized by enthusiasm and hope, these three doyens of Iberian anthropology demonstrated their commitment, dedication, courage and passion for our discipline. In del Valle’s case, she threw herself into the founding and direction of the Women’s Studies Institute, a place of stimulation and support for feminist research and teaching and she worked hard to establish anthropology in the Basque university (where she would later become its first professor). She was also prominent in cultural societies (vice-president for Gipuzkoa of Eusko Ikaskuntza, the Society for Basque Studies – 2006-2010- and member of Jakiunde, the Basque Academy of the Sciences, Arts and Humanities). Her contribution to society was honoured by such distinguished awards as the Emakunde prize for equality (2010) and the Eusko Ikaskuntza-Laboral Kutxa award for Humanities, Culture, Art and Social Sciences (2018).
These accolades reflect del Valle’s commitment to taking anthropology beyond the academy and the impact she had on society. As well as her academic books and scientific articles, she also wrote on a regular basis for the local press (Egin, Diario Vasco, Andra) and frequently gave talks or took part in social debates. She also demonstrated a particular sensitivity towards other disciplines – painting, sculpture, architecture or literature – and this made her outlook both interdisciplinary and avant-garde.
Finally, Del Valle was always attentive to the genealogy of the discipline. In La antropología feminista como desafío (“Feminist anthropology as challege”, 2023), a compilation of contributions presented at the first Conference of Feminist Anthropology of the Spanish state (Donostia-San Sebastián, 2022), Martha Patricia Castañeda (2023) affirms that feminist genealogies are culturally situated elaborations, which resort to the recovery of the past in order to analyze the present and point to radical transformations for the future. We find this quotation inspiring because, it suggests that genealogies are not only a matter of recording biographical milestones or professional merits, but exercises of configuration and reconfiguration, a critical gaze that takes in relationships and influences, learning in and outside the academy, disputes, emotions and affections, political struggles. We propose the farewell to Teresa del Valle should be a reflection on her place in the genealogy of Basque feminist anthropology for she was a founding figure, a pioneer and a precursor and thanks to those beginnings she was part of, today this is a well-known, consolidated and appreciated school of thought, research and scholarship.
It remains to answer the question of what her farewell means for those of us who knew Teresa del Valle, learned from her, worked with her and enjoyed her companionship over a substantial period of time, whether as students, friends or colleagues. In this case, she has left a mark not only on our anthropological projects, but also on our lives. She accompanied many of us in “doing life” and doing anthropology, tasks that were inseparable for her. That is why her mentorship was different, because it went beyond the university; it encompassed the academic sphere but embraced the personal realm, through the different phases of our lives- ours and hers – over time, maturing and aging, until the end. Her absence leaves us orphans, but we still have her work, her thought, her memory.