PhD Student
ferran.ponsraga [at] mail.mcgill.ca (Email)
Research Interests: Environmental Anthropology; Anthropology of Infrastructures; Heritage; Tourism; Transformations of rural settings.
Project Title: On resorts and parks. Urban tourism policies reshaping the rural
Geographic Focus: Pyrenees
Project Description:
Over recent years rural settings have been experiencing all-encompassing transformations. This project focuses on the notion of change in order to better understand the current political interactions among the different socioeconomic activities as well as their underpinning cultural perspectives that take place in a specific area of the Catalan High Pyrenees (Val d'Aran administrative region). Such region contains some geographical and historical features that warrant our particular insight: The establishment, success, and expansion of the Baqueira-Beret ski resort since 1964 has run in sequence with the creation and spread of different protected areas surrounding the area (Aiguestortes-Sant Maurici National Park, since 1955, and The High Pyrenees Natural Park, since 2003, emerged as the main conservation figures). Therefore, the interaction side by side of these two parallel though sometimes opposing transformative driving forces of rural territories will serve to delve into overall current and historical transformations occurred in the area. White or rural tourism activities merge with livestock and peasant ones in a seasonal or simultaneous manner, sustained and eased by distinctive infrastructures that either allow them to exist or become an intrinsic part of them.
Supervisor: Ismael Vaccaro
Previous Education:
2012-2014. MA in Anthropology and Ethnography at Universitat de Barcelona (UB).
2008-2012. BA in Socio-cultural Anthropology at Universitat de Barcelona (UB).
1999-2004. BS in Biology at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Publication History:
2016. "Nature (s) as a Contested Field". Book Review: Naturalezas en conflicto. Conservación ambiental y enfrentamiento social en el Parque Natural Cabo de Gata-Níjar, Conservation and Society 14(3).
2015. Mines, boscos i hotels. Peguera: usos i representacions d’un poble abandonat (MA’s thesis). Alzira: Germania Editorial.
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