Ongoing projects

Study on the impact of caregiving on the physical, mental, emotional, and economic health of mothers of sons and daughters with intellectual disabilities who engage in prolonged caregiving.

2025-2026, PI: Bofill-Poch, Sílvia. Study on the impact of caregiving on the physical, mental, emotional, and economic health of mothers of sons and daughters with intellectual disabilities who engage in prolonged caregiving.

Grífols Foundation (BEC-2025-012). €6,000

Housing initiatives for older people: locally and community-based residential alternatives facing the challenge of the deinstitutionalization of care (ALTERCARE)

IFGENE. Projecting the future of genetic prediction. Shaping the imaginaries of genomic susceptibility, a comparative study

Photo Albums and Family Memory. From the Photo Box to Shared Pixels

RURALEX: Knowledge in Crisis – The Dynamics of Environmental Expertise amidst Rural Change

The RURALEX project asks: How is people’s knowledge about the environment in rural parts of Europe changing, and how do such changes affect the social, cultural and ecological challenges currently faced by local communities? European rural areas have struggled in recent years with shifts in population and land use patterns, such as the out-migration of people to urban areas and the abandonment of traditional forms of agriculture. These moves have contributed to an urgent crisis: namely, that ecological expertise and awareness is rapidly changing, and in some cases being lost. This includes knowledge held both by everyday people (such as farmers or hunters) and by so-called “experts” (such as policy-makers or scientists). Examples include peasants’ controlled burning practices as a method of wildfire prevention, or the practice of building artisanal, single-log boats for river navigation along floodplains. While this crisis is often intangible and difficult to pinpoint, it is also deeply impactful to European lives and landscapes.

The 17 researchers working on the RURALEX project will study this phenomenon in diverse cases across Europe: the Spanish Pyrenees, the Italian Alps, former East Germany, the Estonian coast, Northern Finland, the Danube basin in Romania and Bulgaria, and the southeastern UK. We will carry out long-term research on the ground using qualitative research methods, such as interviewing and observing people, and studying archives and stories. We will also innovate new research methods of our own, including a creative mapping tool (which we call “multi-species deep mapping”) to gather and showcase the different memories, images, and sounds that tell the story of people’s relationships to the environment. By studying people’s intangible (implicit) and tangible (explicit) knowledge about their environments, we will show how long-held and recently acquired expertise can support the many challenges of rural communities. RURALEX will also show how humanities disciplines such as anthropology and history are important for understanding and addressing urgent social and ecological issues that will greatly impact the future of Europe.

Keywords: knowledge, expertise, rural, agriculture, multispecies, nature-based livelihoods, societal disenfranchisement.

Consortium:

Project Leader: Roger Norum, University of Oulu, Finland
Alessandro Rippa, University of Oslo, Norway
Stefan Dorondel, The Institute for Southeast European Studies, Romania
Camila del Mármol, University of Barcelona, Spain
Kadri Tür, Tallinn University, Estonia
Alice Eldridge, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

Project details:

Start date: 1 May 2025
Project duration: 36 months
Project budget: €1,499,663

Funding organisations:

Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)
Estonian Research Council (Estonia)
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España)
Academy of Finland (Finlandia)
The Research Council of Norway (Noruega)
UEFISCDI (Rumanía)

Associate partners:

Antoni Trasobares Rodríguez, Director, Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia, Spain
Giuseppina Daniele, President, Vallarsa Ethnographic Museum, Italy
Helge Bruelheide, Director, Halle-Wittenberg Botanical Garden, Germany
Jordi Abella Pons, Director, Ecomuseu de les Valls d’Àneu, Spain
Liina Veskimägi-Iliste, Chairwoman of the Board, Estonian Folk Art and Craft Union, Estonia
Luis Ovidiu Popa, Director of Research, Grigore Antipa Natural History Museum, Romania
Pentti Marttila-Tornio, Group Leader, Kiiminki River Catchment Area Association, Finland
Sarah King, Rewilding Manager, Rewilding Britain, United Kingdom
Susanne Grießbach, Director, Haus am See Information Center for Environment and Nature Conservation, Germany
Sébastien Moncorps, Director, IUCN French Committee, France
Virginia Maria da Silva Neto, Director, Francisco de Lacerda Museum, Portugal

Project website: http://ruralex.eu/

Implications for migration policies, the exercise of rights, and transnational care in the post-pandemic era

Code: PID2023-148591NB-I00

Funding Entity: Knowledge Generation Projects, Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities

Duration: September 1, 2024 – June 30, 2027

Amount: €71,250.00

Principal Investigator: Antía Pérez Caramés

Research Team Member: Diana Mata-Codesal

Photo: UN Women/Staton Winter

To what extent has essentiality become consolidated as a new form of regulation of citizenship status? To what degree is this a continuation, and to what degree a rupture, from previous measures of rights attribution? How is it articulated within the framework of intersecting inequalities of class, gender, and origin? What are the implications of this for the development of their work and the exercise of their rights? How is the discrepancy between institutional framing and the individual and collective experience of essential work expressed? What forms does the social reproduction of migrant essential workers take in the post-pandemic context? How are labor relations structured in essential occupations performed by migrant women?

Training trajectories and future projects of young people of migrant origin in the neighborhoods of La Florida and Les Planes de l’Hospitalet de Llobregat. A qualitative approach to the application of the Environmental Education Plan 0-20

IP: Sílvia Bofill-Poch and Irene Sabaté

Research team: Raúl Márquez, Diana Mata-Codesal, and Patricia Bertolin
Funding entity: Observatori de la Infància of Hospitalet de Llobregat & City Council of Hospitalet de Llobregat. Bosch i Gimpera Foundation

Funding: €4,500.00

Duration: 2022-2024

Tensions between the right to housing and private property in lease relationships. A socio-legal approach (TEVIPROP)

Reference: PID2022-138661NB-I00

IP: Irene Sabaté (University of Barcelona) and Marco Aparicio (University of Girona)

Period: 2023-2026

Funding: €72,250

Description:

The project Tensions between the right to housing and private property in rental relationships. A socio-legal approach (TEVIPROP) will involve the collaboration of an interdisciplinary team, bridging the fields of Social Anthropology (IP Irene Sabaté, University of Barcelona) and Law (IP Marco Aparicio, University of Girona), with contributions also from other disciplines of social sciences.

The main objective is to understand the actors, discourses, and practices involved in the tension between private property and the right to housing in the rental market, in order to identify the obstacles currently hindering the achievement of the right to housing, within the framework of fulfilling the social function of property. To achieve this goal, the study will focus on two phenomena: discrimination against certain groups in accessing rental housing and unauthorized occupations of vacant housing. These issues will be addressed through a qualitative methodology that combines:

• Ethnography: through interviews, focus groups, and case analysis of conflicts within rental relationships in urban areas of Catalonia.
• Legal analysis: of legislation, doctrine, and jurisprudence from a comparative perspective, to generate relevant knowledge for the design of public policies and the reformulation of the regulatory framework, as well as inspire forms of self-defense of rights.

Ultimately, the aim is to generate an impact on society, contributing to the guarantee of the right to housing and the social function of property, as well as a scientific impact, making contributions to current theoretical debates on the scope of property owners’ powers, the naturalization of property culture, the legitimacy or illegitimacy of different practices surrounding housing provision and the extraction of rents from it, the responsibilities of various public administrations in regulating the rental market in conjunction with guaranteeing rights, or the intersection of different inequality factors in the exercise of the right to adequate housing.

Intangible heritage and museums facing the challenges of cultural sustainability. Policies, strategies and methodologies in the post-covid era (PIMUS+)

Reference: PID2021-123063NB-I00

IP: Xavier Roigé and Iñaki Arrieta

Funding entity: Ministry of Science and Innovation

Funding: Not specified

Duration: 2022-2025

Description:

This project analyzes the policies, strategies, and methodologies of museums to address the challenges of cultural sustainability in the post-COVID-19 era.

Reactivate the popular and solidarity economy driven by women producers, with a focus on gender and human rights, in the Cotacachi canton, Ecuador

Reference: Agreement 20910 – ACC145/21/000061. Collaboration agreement between the University of Barcelona and the Xarxa de Consum Solidari aimed at studying Food Sovereignty strategies in Cotacachi, an indigenous canton in the north of Ecuador.

IP: Jordi Gascón

Research team: Camila del Mármol, Isabel Giunta

Funding entity: Xarxa de Consum Solidari – Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation

Funding: €63,000.00

Duration: 2022-2025

Description:

Collaboration between the University of Barcelona and the Xarxa de Consum Solidari to study food sovereignty strategies in Cotacachi, an indigenous canton in Ecuador. The focus is on the role of women in economic and political processes, and the impact of recent political changes on these initiatives.

Rural resistances: socio-ecological crisis, territorial development and alternative futures in the Pyrenees RERURP

Reference: PID2021-125132NA-I00

IP: Camila del Mármol and Federica Ravera

Research team: Ferran Estrada, Oriol Beltran, Ismael Vaccaro, Jaume Feliu, Sara Mingorria, Maria Borràs

Funding entity: Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities

Funding: €88,330.00

Duration: 2022-2025

Description:

This project investigates depopulation processes and territorial changes in rural high-mountain areas of Spain, particularly in the Catalan Pyrenees. With an interdisciplinary research-action approach, it analyzes “rural resistances” and their transformative potential in defining public policies and sustainable future scenarios.