You work as a journalist in Berria and are immersed in the world of research.

In fact, I say I'm a journalist, but the truth is that I'm here since I joined college. In fact, I have the degree in Sociology, although my initial intention is to study Political Sciences and Public Administration. After studying political science in the first year, in the second year I decided to learn sociology and politics at the same time. So I did it in the 3rd until I went to Mexico to study sociology. That summer, I did my internships in the Berria newspaper, and in the 4th, I was given the opportunity to do replacements in that newspaper. Because I didn't have time to finish the two -- sociology and politics -- I decided to end sociology and since then I haven't finished the degree of Political Science, although I've actually been given enormous instruments. I'm missing about ten subjects to finish, let's see if I ever take time!

So, I haven't learned journalism, but before I finished college, I started working as a journalist, and I love it. In the meantime, I became the Master of Feminist and Gender Studies in the field of Anthropology and a new path opened to me. It seems that I have an identity problem in the professional sphere (jejeje), but over the years I have seen that everything makes sense, as in Berria I have also been working on political and social issues from a feminist perspective: I like writing a lot and I like asking and listening a lot. I'm worried about the inequalities, and I always think there's a lot of interesting information in the creases of the cracks or the hegemonic narratives. I consider it essential to place the above dominations in concrete dynamics of structural relations and power, so I am putting everything I have learned into practice in research. In addition, in my case, all that has been done so far is added. I am studying the routes of violence and resistance to women who have had relatives or friends involved in the Basque conflict, and there you can find everything I have said so far: feminism, concern for the systems of oppression, the presence of voices that we do not usually hear, concern for politics and the account of the conflict in Euskal Herria, ask, listen, write...

You are conducting your thesis in the Feminist Anthropological Research Group of the UPV/EHU.

As the university system is organized, researching and acting in precarious conditions are almost always coinciding, so it is important to surround yourself with people and resources that waste your way. So I can say that I am somehow lucky. Sociologist Marta Luxan Serrano has been at my side from the beginning and has served as a travel partner and tutor since the end of the degree. Imagine, then I was already working in Berria and besides respecting my rhythms, it has always given me the impulse I needed. I also did with him the end of the master's degree work and encouraged me to apply for a scholarship to do the PhD.

As I say, conditions are precarious, and the road is difficult until a scholarship is obtained. You should decide to wager on research without knowing if you are going to be paid and be sure that you want to continue with this issue for several years. I had the opportunity to do a master's degree in the AFIT team for a short research scholarship in which I met the team members: those who are doing a doctorate with a scholarship, those who work with another research project and those who are professors. With all this I would forget someone, so I would like to stress that the support and material resources given to you by the team itself gave me the impetus to undertake this adventure.

Of course, in Berria I have also been given facilities to address the topic of the thesis both when I was working and so that contact with the newspaper is not completely broken, and that is to be welcomed. Last year I was awarded the Basque Government scholarship, and since then I am back at AFIT, because Marta is a member of that group. Through the solitary path of the thesis, it is very useful to have this space that gives you the character of a group, to know what others are doing, to know new looks, to encourage the debate...

She wanted to bring to the center the experiences of women who have had direct involvement of a family member or friend in the Basque conflict.

Lately there is a belief that much more is being written about the Basque conflict, it is said, it rolls. We are forgetting that a number of Basque creators have dealt with the issue before, even at the toughest moments of the issue. On the other hand, it is true that as the political climate has changed in recent years in a sense, such as the disappearance of ETA, a door has been opened to address the issue with other looks. It is not by chance, for example, that the feminist reading of the conflict has spread in the last decade, since the CONFLICT in serious words has lost its centrality. In any case, other political variables have not changed and people are still afraid to speak and their testimonies harm third parties. On the one hand, that is why I decided to establish this time distance as a safety measure for the interviewees and for the research I are doing.

On the other hand, simplification of conflicting subjects has often been used, but there are many factors and ingredients to analyze. For example, during the 1980s and 1990s a large number of actors were involved outside the dichotomy “ETA VS States”: GAL, ETApm, ETAm, BVE, Autonomous Commands... All this is only taking into account the armed groups, but taking into account the rest of the context: the feminist movement is strengthened, the heroin increase is notable, there are a lot of leftist parties and factions ...

I think it is an interesting time to understand the complexity of the Basque conflict, because, as I said before, my intention is to overcome these dichotomies.

It's been with women who have been on either side of the conflict. Who?

Creating a climate of confidence to talk about these kinds of issues is fundamental, because there is still fear of speaking clearly. In addition, if these women have ever testified, it has been to testify to their husband, their partner, their son, their brother... and not to tell their own experiences. Confidentiality is therefore essential.

I do the interviews, and then I change the names into a document. Since then, I've been working with invented names, so that I, too, can slip into the informal spaces. So I can't tell you who you are with the full names, because it would be betraying the participants. What I can say is that the relatives or friends of these people involved in the conflict are women: widows of policemen, friends of former ETA members, daughters of deaths by para-police groups, daughters of ETA victims, relatives of deaths by torture, mothers of prisoners... Most Basques.

What have the meetings been like?

Since I started doing the final master's degree work, I've been conducting similar interviews for about four years, and I've also tried as a journalist on issues related to violence, and I think I haven't yet found or found the right formula. It is clear to me that what is information for researchers or journalists can be the time to open a wound for the interviewees. We're asking you to open it up, to tell you the biggest pain. We go home with a two-hour recording, but maybe they spend days going around the subject. We must be aware of this and offer them the possibility to participate later in the process to see what we are doing with their information, how we deal with the issue...

Therefore, I like to agree with them the conditions of the interview. First contact, if you want more information, I send you a brief report to create a field of trust, I propose to stay with me before, without recorders or questions, without any further intentions to meet us. If we see that it is a safe space, we define a new quote where they want: some prefer to do it in a more intimate place (at home or in mine), others seek the “anonymity” of public space (in a bar), others prefer a neutral space (a municipal hall...).

I have also been negative, and most of all I have been surprised to hear my proposal that I do not want the experience of that third person to be told, but that of them. It's also been different for those who were used to giving lots of conversations, and I don't know if it's terror, if it's pain, if it's necessary to release some emotions -- but silence has had as much weight as words in this process. At first it was uncomfortable, but I realized that one of the main keys to the work will be precisely the haje of all the stuff that hides this silence.

What have the results shown?

I do not have definitive results at the moment, but some conclusions can be drawn. The “great” conflict mentioned above has made other oppression and cross-conflict invisible, such as the knot these women have had with care. The work done and the violence suffered have not been acknowledged. The violence suffered, the sexual violence and the violence not named so far are multiple: forced displacement, psychological, economic damage... And that has been experienced by women from “all sides.” They also share resilient strategies and practices to cope with everyday life.

He has found similarities in the testimonies side by side ...

Precisely... one of the objectives of this work is to question this dichotomy “from one side to the other”. Would the story change if instead of distinguishing “one part/another” we considered the experiences of these women? Of course, it is not a question of equating pain or of imagining that we are in a situation of peace. The objective is to observe the details and cracks of these hegemonic narratives.

What has been done with these testimonies? Or what should be done? Or what do you expect to do?

I have already said before that the trajectory of the thesis is solitary, but it also seems that the knowledge and wisdom that accompanies our firm is a very individual and private property, and I do not think that is the case. If I manage to do this fat job, it is also because of the knowledge of the feminists that we are discussing the issue, of the people who have lived the conflict closely and of other agents who are working around it. That is why I would like the voice of these women to go as far as possible and not remain in very academic language and within the reach of many people.

I say that your experiences are invisible, and that is why I would like to receive the center. I don't know how to do it, but at the moment I want the interviewees to be part of the process. I'm doing it to be a doctor, but I'm also doing it to make your experiences known. So I'd like to do something legible and talk as much as I can about it. It is about doing a job that my ladies can read and see “reflected” in those texts.

What challenges do you have?

One of the main challenges will be to correct writing. From silence, from not comparing experiences, from having a mine recovery process and not from opening wounds even further, from being legible, from being an object mutated by these women as an active subject... This is related to the thesis process.

What would I like to be older? To have a feminist view in the construction of the hegemonic story and in the shared coexistence in the mouth of so many others, and to address the Basque conflict from this perspective.

He participated in the Chilean Thesis. What was the experience?

Very fun and interesting. I use Twitter for work and leisure, and it was a good opportunity to make the issue known. It was also an exercise in synthesis, and I found it a good dynamic to think about how to explain academic work in a more informative way. It is also a good project to learn about other research being carried out.