Description:
Echoes of the Gift : Traditional community health practices in rural areas of Portugal and Uruguay
Uruguayan anthropologist Ana Rodríguez has been working with memory, sound, and oral traditions in rural contexts, notably through her project Sound Map of Uruguay, and one of the focuses of her work is traditional practices related to individual and community care and health, which have evolved over time yet still persist in rural areas of countries such as Portugal and Uruguay. During artist residencies held in Várzea de Calde (Viseu) and in northern Uruguay in 2020 and 2022, an exploration was conducted into these enduring practices and how they are currently understood by those who benefit from them. In these processes, which can aid in the restoration of health, certain plants play a role, as do oral narratives passed down through generations of people who have lived or still live in rural areas.
Following the research, a bilingual book (Portuguese and Spanish) was published, entitled “Ecos do Dom: Traditional Community Health Practices in Rural Areas of Portugal and Uruguay,” which brings together eleven texts by Ana Rodríguez related to her research, as well as photographic and audio essays, giving the publication the status of an expanded book.
Ana Rodríguez was born in Montevideo and has been living and conducting research in rural contexts since 2001, the year she settled in Tacuarembó, in northern Uruguay. She holds a degree in Anthropology from the University of the Republic of Uruguay and completed a master’s degree in Theory and Practice of Creative Documentary at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She was part of the teaching staff at the Center for Rural Studies (Tacuarembó Campus of the University of the Republic of Uruguay) between 2016 and 2018 and created audiovisual teaching materials on gender and rurality for the Faculty of Agronomy of Uruguay (2016); she created the Sound Map of Uruguay (2016). She is currently an artist developing creative projects in Uruguay and Portugal, many of them in partnership with Binaural Nodar ( Echoes of Departure and Return, Radioballo, Speaking Plants, Lecho, etc.).