Once again, "Basque love(s)"; symbolic grandmothers without body or voice; the 80 grandmothers of Oteiza; the amamas with which the descendants relate. Grandmothers, considered by men. I'm convinced that there's a big difference between confessing and reproducing some ideas. And when men make the declaration of women* to us, I find it suspicious. Rather than denying one’s own privileges, showing the work done by others and continuing to link those others – in this case women – with some jobs, is it not easier for them? Suspect.

I have been researching seeds and cultivated varieties for several years. To the surprise of many, from anthropology. From the very beginning, instead of linking to a near past that we often idealize, I have focused on current relationships, practices and knowledge. Yes, because they were. But it will be because we are (and). And we are because we are. Furthermore, I believe that these relations and genealogy between past, present and future are not so natural, but must be questioned.

Those who want to join the present, yes, but those who refer to the past have become commonplace in my research career. Frequently performed by men. Often, questioning a general "grandmother." "The seeds kept by our grandmothers" are the "from here" seeds that we have today. They say. On the contrary, very little research has been done on how, where and which seeds were kept in the Basque Country. Even less, why some and not others (say) performed these tasks. In case I am not mistaken, I am not against women visiting the jobs they have done for the roles they have historically been assigned. The importance of these works must be recognized and the importance of the work carried out by women and their logics must be investigated, collected and disseminated. However, we should not build fixed, essentialist and naturalizing links between these women and these works. And again, when men make that confession, it's suspicious.

In the film, love appears creatures in one of the most conflicting moments between the father and the daughter. The father asks the daughter, without waiting for an answer, if she knows why she sows those seeds. The same father responded immediately: "because they retain the wisdom of our ancestors." When talking about seeds and local varieties, it is often stressed that seeds are more than just objects that are going to be sown and fertilized. In the seeds, wisdom accumulates. Seeds are the vehicle of the survival of different ways of life, the stimulus of autonomy. Seeds are the result of the relationship between the environment and the human being. The seeds are rooted. In fact, these seeds have been preserved and produced year after year and often from generation to generation. The seeds of the best plants have been selected, well preserved, shared and replanted, giving rise to variations and naturalization. Along with these variants, we have built knowledge, emotional ties, rituals and beliefs. So we say that seeds are not just seeds. They're not just the basis of the next harvest. But they are too.

As has been said, these seeds have often gone from generation to generation. They've been linked to the hamlet. Not always, however, and through other avenues they are also opening and maintaining. We're there. Reality is not so monolithic. But yes, seeds are the way to bring generations together and create genealogies. I think it is an interesting and fruitful road. Seductive and suggestive, as always, feminist and ecofeminist thinker Donna Haraway – biologist and philosopher, among other things – challenges us in one of her latest texts: building fraternal relationships beyond reproduction and genealogy, even beyond the category of species. We relate kinship not only to the creation of life, but to the close and stable relationships that sustain life, which are not only "blood" or "vertical". The feminist anthropologist Mari Luz Esteban invites us to consider relations between equals and networks and communications of mutual support (forgiveness, communities) as a relationship of kinship. And it is that, too often, the rope that binds these potential grandmothers is suffocating; in others, the same rope confers rights and recognition to violent relationships; finally, many of the relationships that are fundamental to us are invisible and nullified by that close kinship and by the laws, norms, responsibilities and rights that derive from it.

So can we understand our relationships with these seeds from affinity? I think so. We need each other, we have incredible care and attention with the seeds, we identify and identify ourselves, they are often linked to the farmhouse and we build the affectivity around them. Anyone who has kept a seed in these years knows what I am talking about. Yes, I think so. Let's build close relationships with the seeds. Let's confess them. But not anyway.

In line with Esteban, Haraway tells us that we don't always build kinship for generations.

It goes beyond genealogies. And I agree with that, but I think that rather than discarding genealogies, we have to build them in a different way. We put into our family trees those who are not in the chain of 80 amamas. From feminism, many other genealogies have also been highlighted. To understand who we are, we have to problematize where we came from and reconstruct it. So let's build genealogies. Let's stick to it, if that's our wish. With seeds, with husbands, with land or with machines, as Haraway proposed to us. But we do not reproduce the relationships and roles that have led us to situations of dependence. In the name of a hypothetical Basque identity (or not), please no more mythical grandmothers in a man-oriented and regulated society!