Miren Guilló Arakistain
Miren Guilló Arakistain is an anthropologist and lecturer in the Department of Philosophy of Values and Social Anthropology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). She is a member of AFIT (Feminist Anthropology Research Group, UPV/EHU). She holds a PhD in Feminist and Gender Studies (UPV/EHU, 2020), a bachelor’s degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology (UPV/EHU, 2012), in Pedagogy (UPV/EHU, 2006), and in Social Education (UPV/EHU, 2004). She has conducted research visits at UC Berkeley (2012), UC San Diego (2013), and the IRSA (Institute for Developmental and Strategic Analysis Research Centre/ Inštitut za razvojne in strateške analize) in Ljubljana (2014).
The main theoretical perspectives on which she has based her research, which are transversal in different studies, are: the social theory of the body, the theory of emotions and affects, the anthropology of medicine and health, LGTBI+ studies and social movements, all of which are crossed by feminist epistemologies. Additionally, her focus on processes of knowledge production, social memory, and collective processes converges in her diverse works.
In her doctoral thesis, she conducted an analysis of various social and cultural transformations prevalent in our society, through an ethnography of alternative menstrual politics and cultures. These transformations encompass aspects related to corporality, health, gender and feminism configurations, consumer society, collective knowledge processes, and affects. She received the Micaela Portilla Award (UPV/EHU) and the Extraordinary Doctorate Award (UPV/EHU). This research led to the publication of the books Sangre y Resistencia. Políticas y culturas alternativas de la menstruación (Bellaterra, 2023) and Odolaren matxinadak. Gorputza, politika eta afektuak (2024, UPV/EHU).
She is currently involved in a research project focused on friendship “Dislocando las fronteras del conocimiento, el género y el parentesco. La amistad como política y redefinición de los afectos y la reciprocidad” (ADISKIDE, PID2022-137967NB-I00). Additionaly, as a researcher at AFIT, she has been involved in various research projects that explore alliances between social movements and collaborative spaces for political engagement. Among them, the research project “SOLIDARY. Nuevas solidaridades, reciprocidades y alianzas: la emergencia de espacios colaborativos de participación política y redefinición de la ciudadanía” [New Solidarities, Reciprocities, and Alliances: The Rise of Collaborative Spaces and the Redefinition of Citizenship] (2018-2022), as well as other research around the Feminist Movement and the Women’s Houses (2021) or the influence of the pandemic in the social movements of Euskal Herria (2022). Additionally, she has also coordinated the book “Festak, genero-harremanak eta feminismoa. Begirada teoriko eta anthropologikoak, praktika sortzaileak eta plazeraren kudeaketa kolektiboak” (Guilló ed., 2016, UEU Udako Euskal Unibertsitatea), about festivals, gender and feminism, which combines theoretical and anthropological perspectives, cultural practices, activism and reflections on pleasure.
She teaches classes leading to the Bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology as well as Masters in Feminist and Gender Studies and in Social Anthropology at the UPV/EHU. Currently, she is the coordinator of the Social Anthropology Bachelor’s degree at the UPV/EHU.
She is also a member of the research group Laboratorio Saperi Situati (Universitá di Verona), as well as the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR) Additionally, she is part of the Basque Anthropology Association ANKULEGI and served as its president from 2015 to 2020.