Alba Valenciano-Mañé
Social Anthropology | Gender & Colonialism | Equatorial Guinea
Research and Teaching
Extraversion from below
The place where I have spent the most time researching is the SEMU market in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. There, the traders, mostly women, create networks, manage rents, and sustain family relationships by challenging gender roles and fostering political debates in a context of extraverted macroeconomy. From the collaboration with the women of the market emerged my Doctoral Thesis, and a book is soon to be published.
Reconsidering circularity
My new project "[RECIR] Reconsidering Circularity: a multisited ethnography of second-hand clothing markets" critically analyzes the concept of "circular economy" through the case of second-hand clothing.I am writing a multisited ethnography that follows the trajectory of cast-off garments and the people involved in their circulation. How is a circular economy conceptualized? What rules regulate it and what institutions does it produce? How is surplus value generated? What types of inequalities does it create and fuel? Through what regimes of value does clothing pass throughout its trajectory?
Museums and coloniality
I actively participate in the project (Tr)Afican(t)s: museums and collections of Catalonia facing coloniality, where we analyze the colonial collections of five public museums in Catalonia. The aim is to make visible the influence of colonialism in the configuration of museum collections, contributing to the reparative and restitution claims and policies initiated in recent years in Europe, where criticism of ethnological and natural history museums is playing a central role.
Hermic films and the colonial encounter
The critical reflection on coloniality has accompanied my research trajectory. One of the most relevant research projects in this line has been the analysis of the Hermic Films visual archive, a production company that traveled to Francoist Guinea (1944-1946) with the aim of filming about thirty colonial propaganda documentaries. This research has led to various publications and contributed to fundamental debates such as colonial representation, power relations and colonial archives, discursive fissures, and contradictions in the colonial encounter.
Academic publications
My research activity has led to various publications in journals on ethnography, African studies, and political economy. The most recent ones are in Disparidades: revista de antropología, in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, and in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History.
Teaching
My professional activity has unfolded through research and teaching contracts in various undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs related to anthropology. From the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), and the University of Leipzig, among others, I have developed my teaching portfolio in subjects on gender, economic and development anthropology and African studies.
