Description :
This radio programme, broadcast by Radio País as part of the Tramontana Network, a European cooperation project co-funded by the European Union, documents and preserves the oral heritage of rural communities. In this episode, ethnologist Ariane Bruneton discusses the fieldwork she carried out in Béarn and the Basque Country in the early 1970s, focusing on family life, women’s roles and the social organisation of rural households. The conversation is also framed by her 1974 article published in Les Temps Modernes, introduced by Simone de Beauvoir, at a time of profound social change leading up to the reforms of 1975.
Drawing on interviews conducted during her research on food practices, Bruneton explains how these encounters revealed the complex relationships between generations of women living under the same roof. She describes the tensions of cohabitation between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law, the gendered division of labour, and the limited private space available to young couples, whose bedroom often represented their only place of intimacy. She also highlights the symbolic importance of dowry furniture, the transmission of household customs from one generation to the next, and the collective role played by extended families and neighbours in raising children.
The discussion concludes by examining the profound transformations experienced by rural society from the 1970s onwards. Agricultural mechanisation, domestic modernisation, the arrival of freezers and bathrooms, and especially the 1975 legislation encouraging the separation of generations within farming households gradually reshaped everyday life. Bruneton argues that these changes did not occur abruptly but reflected a broader evolution in women’s aspirations, family organisation and inheritance practices, while many traditional values and forms of rural solidarity continued to endure.