dario
ranocchiari
a transmodal portfolio
bio
i am an ethnographer interested in sharing experiences of collaborative knowledge construction with people whose lives are different from mine. that’s why i love to experiment with audio & visuals, narrative writing, and live performance.
i studied cultural anthropology in my hometown, rome, and moved to lisbon to conduct my first ethnographic research. after two years in portugal, i moved to brazil, then to argentina, spain, colombia, back to portugal, and (finally?) spain again. i have worked as a school teacher, freelance journalist, and in international cooperation, but mostly as a university researcher.
now, I am a professor of social anthropology at the universidad de granada.
this website is a way to bring together traces of some projects i have worked on, the ones i’m developing right now, and those i’m still dreaming about.
scrolling down, you’ll also find an inconstant blog on precarious topics and in fluctuating languages.
(if you are looking for my scholarly production, check this link)
the growling & snarling blog
a place where to bury old bones and digging them up againdreaming...
looking for funding!
flowing stories
[looking for funding!]
what happens when a group of people create together fictional stories based on the challenges of their own community? how can collaborative storytelling be ethnographically relevant?
ginger / europe
is an archipelago
[looking for funding!]
a participatory action research, a performative event and a feature film about the idea of europe in times of crisis. all this through a long and a slow boat trip, from the north sea to the mediterranean island of ventotene, where one of the original ideas of the european union was born.
is europe a union or an archipelago?
doing...
ongoing projects
teaching, producing, distributing and reflecting on multimodal ethnography: embarking on a new adventure with my colleagues from the dept. of social anthropology, universidad de granada.
plastic gardens
“The planet will never come alive for you, unless your songs and stories give life to all the beings, seen and unseen, that inhabit the living Earth.”
Amitav Ghosh, The Nutmeg's Curse
baño de oralidad is a radio show, a container for sound narrations from radio almaina, the free radio of granada. as editor of the show, i program audio fictions, audio documentaries, audio essays, and other sound products that, through storytelling, help to interpret the reality in which we live. all episodes are accessible through the show webpage. you'll find below the direct links to the special episodes in which i interview the creators of each series:
baño de oralidad # la desbandá
an interview with alejandro blanco, director of the radio drama LA DESBANDÁ, on the málaga-almería road massacre and produced by color comunitaria.
baño de oralidad # spectrum
an interview with soledad ruiz, creator of SPECTRUM: ENSAYOS SOBRE EL SONIDO Y LA ESCUCHA, an independent podcast of pandemia teatro.
done ;-)
traces of completed projects
[2023 © eug and the authors]
this book is at the same time the record of a research-creation course, the cathalogue of an art exhibition, and a didactic tool. its aim is to facilitate discussions in educational settings about the absence of black figures in historical narratives about spain. the first part consists of brief texts that aim to establish the basic coordinates for considering the neglect of the black contribution to spanish culture and society, through the perspectives of sociocultural anthropology, art, and historiography. the second part includes biographies of black figures that the historian and activist antumi toasijé has analyzed in his research. each biography is complemented by a didactic activity and a figurative portrait created by course participants.
[funded by the project APIARA B-SEJ-440-UGR20]
ya no estás sola
[granada, 2018-2022 - stop desahucios granada 15 m]
you're no longer alone is a collaborative radio fiction, a soap opera that tells the story of a block of neighbors in whose life unexpectedly breaks real estate speculation and the threat of eviction.
it has been breadcasted by radio almaina, granada's free radio, and by other spanish free radios.
it is the result of a militant and collaborative research project developed by the transmedia group of granada's section of the stop evictions movement, composed by activists and ethnographers.
i'm proud to have participated in every phase of this long and enriching experience, co-writing, recording and editing all the episodes of the 1st season.
- Videomusicking Al Ándalus
[andalusia, 2017-2022 © dario ranocchiari and fondazione giorgio cini]
this feature film is the culmination of a visual research i've been developing from 2017. the film follows 3 musical groups of granada's 'neoandalusí' scene while they co-create 3 ethnographically grounded music videos that delve into their relations with the ecos and the reflections that the last muslim sultanate of the iberian peninsula left in contemporary andalusia.
[san andrés island, colombia, 2020 - © ICANH and dario ranocchiari]
this book is based on the ethnographic research i made in the archipelago of san andrés, providencia and santa catalina and has been published by the colombian institute of anthropology and history. by exploring 'typical', 'gospel' and 'urban' music scenes, it analyzes the relations between musical practices and ethnicity in a context that is at the frontier between central and south america, english-speaking and spanish-speaking caribbean, catholic and protestant(s) traditions.
(a fragment from the audiovisual material shot during the fieldwork. this video is a rough cut of mr "pozo" greenard's performance of donkey race. at the guitar, his son and member of the creole group orlyn greenard. the maracas, the tube-bass and the jaw-bone are played by orlyn's students of sanandrean traditional music. camera: ubaldo medina)
sdg15m
transmedia
[granada, 2017-2020- stop desahucios granada 15 m]
a research project of militant and collaborative ethnography (emergent processes and agencies of the common, directed by aurora álvarez veinguer) burst the bounds of the academy and resulted into the creation of a transmedia group composed by activist of the social movement stop desahucios granada 15m (stop eviction granada 15 may). here go some results of our audiovisual work.
(photo from sdg15m website)
#1 reporteros a pie de calle
1st episode of a streetside report by sdg15m activists. what do the people of granada know about the movement?
#2 reporteros a pie de calle
2nd episode of a streetside report by sdg15m activists. what do the people of granada know about the movement?
#3 reporteros a pie de calle
3rd episode of a streetside report by sdg15m activists. what do the people of granada know about the movement?
la silla vacía
a spot for sdg15m
[portugal, 2015-2018 - inet-md/ua]
MEYES is series of workshops on audiovisual ethnomusicology i created as a postdoc at the institute of ethnomusicology at universidade de aveiro (portugal). i taught the practical course on 'visual ethnography of musical practices' and moderated the MEYES conferences during the first 3 editions.
[portugal, 2015-2016 - universidade de aveiro and moinho da juventude]
skopeofonia is a participatory ethnomusicology research project led by susana sardo and ana flávia miguel at inet-md/universidade de aveiro and developed in partnership with the association moinho da juventude of cova da moura neighborhood (amadora, portugal). the project's main aim was to work with the neighbors - most of them of african origin - on the collaborative mapping of local musical practices. while i was working at inet-md, i made visual research, organized the audiovisual archive of the project and co-directed (with rui oliveira) a series of videos.
por la verea. routes of transhumance
[2012-2013, sierra de segura, andalusia © dario ranocchiari] "nos vemos por la verea" / "we'll meet on the cattle-track" is a common expression between andalusian shepherds to indicate the particular kind of social relationship that they build with the people they met twice per year, during the transhumance (the seasonal migration of cattle, which characterized for centuries european sheep farming and which now risks to disappear). this project, based on an academic practical course lead by ángel acuña delgado at the university of granada, include a documentary film and a photographic report. they document the springtime route of pedro and tomás pérez, some accompanying shepherds and their cattle. these stubborn shepherds try to make transhumance survive in the 21st century, by pressing the local administrations to preserve the cattle tracks (which in spain measure 125.000kms and constitutes about 1% of national territory) and using conscious ecotourism to broadcast their claims. the movie por la verea. los caminos de la trashumancia has been shown in local and international ethnographic film festivals. a short version (18') was bought by rai news channel (italy).
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© 2021