Anabasis and Katabasis: An Anthropological Walkabout throughout the Mediterranean Landscape

• In Event: Anthropological Practices in Puerto Rico: A Retrospective View

Abstract

This paper reflects on forty-two years of anthropological practice, as a student and as a teacher, through an analysis of the contributions made by Carlos Buitrago Ortiz (1930-2013) to the formation of various cohorts of anthropologists. My research started in the coastal communities of the San Juan Bay area, in the undergraduate course titled Ethnographical Methods and Techniques, taught by Buitrago. His own ethnographical path started in the piedmont area of Arecibo (Esperanza) and years later moved up into the highlands to study the owners of the coffee plantations in Adjuntas, in the 19th century. One of the key concepts he used was the interface between the highlands and the lowlands (altura/bajura), a notion used by Fernand Braudel to understand the complex history and geography of the Mediterranean Sea. His practice and mentorship established the essential canon for a new generation of anthropologists: a commitment to social history (and historiographical research), the unorthodox incorporation of historical materialism, the importance of the geographical context, and the need for an ethnological approach anchored (in his case) in the examination of Mediterranean societies, for their heuristic value. Those lessons are at the core of my current anthropological practice, based on a constant anabasis and katabasis. That is, explorations from the coastline to the highlands, and the descent to the coast, in a perpetual walkabout, always searching, following and restructuring the pathways chosen by Buitrago almost half a century ago.

Author

• Manuel Valdés-Pizzini, Universidad de Puerto Rico/Mayaguez