Mariela Eleonora Zabala
mariela_eleonora@yahoo.com.ar
Museo de Antropología FFyH-UNC, Argentina
Abstract:
Historically, anthropology has been considered a discipline dealing with illiterate peoples far away from the researcher’s place of residence. Also, it is a field where both the inquirer and the inquired were contemporary. Even though there were and are anthropologists who have used historic written records in their inquiries, they have not reflected upon the social spaces where they are kept and protected. In the last few decades, several anthropologists, including myself, have begun doing ethnographies based on written records on past social events. In this case, I am reflecting upon the meaning of an anthropological approach to past social events and the anthropologist’s task «on» archives. I made my fieldwork in the archives of the city of Córdoba, because I wanted to interpret the study and teaching of ethnography in that city in the early 20th century by Monsignor Pablo Cabrera. Throughout this paper, I will show how I discovered and resignified the archives, which turned from record reservoirs into social spaces.
Keywords: ethnography, records, history, anthropology, monsignor Pablo Cabrera.
