Introduction

In 2006 I was invited as an academic advisor by the Emerging Research Group of the Mesoamerican University (geiuma, hereafter) of Oaxaca and with my professional support they designed the research project “Cultural Genealogies and Family Histories in Oaxaca”. Thus, several professors were trained to strengthen their knowledge of qualitative research. The geiuma wanted to undertake a study about families with the research model of the national project “La formación de las ofertas culturales y sus públicos en México” (focyp), coordinated by Professor Jorge González Sánchez and financed in 1993 by the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (Conaculta, 1996). The focyp project was developed in total academic empathy with the French school on family histories and social genealogies, based on the intellectual production of Professor Daniel Bertaux -who had visited the University of Colima that year-, which led me to resort to two reflexive and constructivist methodologies such as Oral History and Ethnography.

The objective of the geiuma project was to identify the educational cognitive dispositions that prevailed in a diversity of social actors from four families and their genealogies throughout the 20th century in Oaxaca. This approach implied considering an intergenerational historical perspective in order to understand, in addition, how these educational cognitive dispositions were changing in that historical time, so that, by comparing the four families and their genealogies, the construction of the “educational habitus” (Bourdieu, 2005) in these families and their previous and subsequent generations was analyzed. This long-term research (Braudel, 1958) recorded data from the end of the nineteenth century until 2006 and 2007, the years in which the fieldwork was carried out.

The book Comparative Genealogies. Cultural analysis of the educational habitus in Oaxacan families., published in 2024 by the Universidad de Colima and the Universidad Mesoamericana, shows a detailed study of the cultural trajectories -educational, occupational, religious and migratory- of an infinite number of people from these families made up of three, four and five generations throughout the 20th century. The study pays particular attention to the educational trajectory and focuses on the educational models appropriated by individuals and on the construction of the “intergenerational educational habitus”.

The present text is the result of an “epistolary dialogue” through e-mails between Professor Daniel Bertaux and myself, as academic advisor of geiuma, reconstructed in the form of a real-time conversation, whose objective is to highlight the exchange and interpretation of the ideas of both of us when talking about oral history from their theoretical and methodological perspective, the basis for the construction of the book with the families of Oaxaca.

It all began when I contacted him by e-mail to invite him to write a brief text about this book co-authored with members of the geiuma: Gisela Josefina Ignacio Díaz, Rafaela Andrés Ortiz, Nolasco Morán Pérez and Jorge Mario Galván Ariza. The invitation soon turned into a dialogue, as Bertaux asked me some questions that challenged my own knowledge written in this extensive book of 590 pages; his questions motivated me, at the same time, to make an exercise of self-criticism of what I had done with the geiuma researchers. So, empathically, we exchanged academic experiences and points of view regarding the study carried out on family histories and their genealogies in Oaxaca.

This “epistolary dialogue” has three parts: the first presents some of Bertaux's academic contributions to the field of family studies and cultural genealogies in Latin America. The second shows the epistolary dialogue itself, a reflective communication of pertinent and valuable questions formulated by Bertaux, to which I responded on September 20, 2023. The third part closes with a couple of reflections and some references, one of which allows to obtain the book cited in full and free of charge.

Some academic contributions of Daniel Bertaux to the field of family studies and cultural genealogies in Latin America.

The life history approach proposed by Bertaux (life stories) was inspired by the grounded theory (grounded theory) of Barney Glasser and Anselm Strauss, which always refers to a set of these to provide a much broader temporal perspective and not a single life history. His work highlights the theoretical and methodological category of structural representativeness as opposed to positivism. Her research on family histories has focused on this unit of analysis and observation in several generations, which was very useful for studying the “cultural trajectories” of migrants in comparative perspectives in Europe (Bertaux, 2022).1 This perspective was well appropriated in Latin America by studies on culture and memory (individual, collective, social and historical), as well as by the perspective of internalized forms of culture and subjectivities, by communication from cultural studies, anthropological studies on families, as well as by microhistory, cultural sociology and Latin American cultural history.

These conceptions of oral history were promoted through national and international academic networks in universities in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru. The impact of Bertaux's academic production, together with anthropologists, sociologists and oral historians and scientists with interdisciplinary training, spread throughout Latin America. On the one hand, it motivated the study and practice of oral history, while appropriating the epistemological principles of this methodology, method, technique or source. On the other hand, from the Latin American experience and perspective, it imprinted new ways of observing and understanding oral history according to the different multicultural and profoundly ethnic contexts. Thus, study entities emerged, such as the Mexican Oral History Association (amho), the Latin American Oral History Network (relaho), the Oral History Association of the Republic of Argentina (now) and the Brazilian Oral History Association (abho), academic organizations that for decades have held national and international congresses, workshops and seminars, as well as courses at different academic levels, in addition to publishing books and specialized journals from this Latin American cultural geography. It is worth mentioning the contributions of Bertaux's Oral History in biannual congresses, as well as in the publications of the International Oral History Association Conference (ioha) in other continents.

Epistolary dialogue: Bertaux and Covarrubias talk about books

Bertaux had accepted my proposal for collaboration, but he also had some questions to ask me in order to understand what my application was about (Annex 1).

Bertaux: Dear Karla, I will write to you in French, it is better for me, and DeepL will translate everything into English. Only a few sentences because I am travelling (in Belgium) and without direct wifi.

Covarrubias: “¡Bon jour,Dr. Bertaux! Thank you for responding so quickly. I was very happy to receive your message and read your questions. In order to better understand the meaning behind them, I will answer them between the lines, but for my greater certainty, I will translate this dialogue into Spanish.

Bertaux: I went through the whole book in one hour. It's too long, but an hour is also a long time (I don't have much left).

Covarrubias: This is a final version that will be a digital book, and it is too long (588 pages), which could be a problem for some academics; but the research experience contained in this material is worthwhile, because, as you comment, it is a study that considers the reference to dozens of families of four genealogies, traced as complex systems and we the authors studying and understanding the educational habitus in them.

In fact, getting into the families was relatively easy; but, in truth, we couldn't find our way out of that complexity! Constructing the answers to our knowledge questions was a challenge, then how to organize the content for the book, how to write about what was central, and then we grappled with how far to extend the writing around the analysis and finally how to close the book.

BertauxMy first impression is that not only has a lot of work gone into this book, but also new products will surely set a precedent!

CovarrubiasWe worked a lot, many years and many people, which posed several problems. I worked with academics who were more like professors than researchers. I was invited by the Universidad Mesoamericana to advise them and accompany them in the development of qualitative research; this group already knew my teachers and colleagues, Jorge A. González and Jesús Galindo, as well as the national focyp project directed by González in 1993, and the Diploma in Research Techniques in Society, Culture and Communication, promoted and coordinated by Galindo in 2001 at the Universidad Mesoamericana. In 2006 I began this fascinating and somewhat difficult path with the professors of that university located in the beautiful historic center of Oaxaca City, as they did not have much experience in academic research.

I advised the research, they produced the family histories, we all analyzed and we all wrote and rewrote the book. In ten years, out of 15 teachers participating in the above-mentioned Diploma, only four titans remained as authors and myself. Much of this project was designed at a distance between Colima and Oaxaca between 2001 and 2011; but I also made several short academic stays. Then we had a second stage of work between 2018 and 2023 to write the book and decide on its publication; by the way, the time slowed down by the pandemic helped us a lot.

As a working group, we already have a publication in the journal Estudios sobre las Culturas Contemporáneas (escc) and two chapters in oral history books. It is now possible to publish specific issues from this study in the coming years, just the family histories alone are gems.

Bertaux: As soon as I return home in October, I will try to find time to seriously read each of the four family stories.

Covarrubias: Great! Thank you very much.

BertauxEach of the four “family histories” actually consists of a significant number of nuclear families (couples with children). I very much regret that the “genealogical charts” of these four “family histories” are only announced, but not published in this book: why? This is particularly frustrating for me, the representation of the “transmissions of professional orientations” are part of the genealogical lines....

CovarrubiasDr. Bertaux, of course we have the genealogical charts! Without them, this study would be incomplete. Attached to this message are the files of the genealogical charts (Annex 2).

The genograms of families are wonderful, they are a window that allows us to imagine the social world from everyday life in data, there is the look of micro sociology from which it is possible to build great stories of both individuals and families.

BertauxBecause the problem with these stories of a family group spanning several generations is that they are too rich, too complex. 

CovarrubiasIt has been an extensive and in-depth work that has taken considerable time, we have discovered a great diversity of relationships and complex worlds before our epistemic gaze. We confirm once again that the interpretation of the reality we study is always below reality itself. What we are able to observe in this chaotic and dynamically alive reality depends on the capacity of the researcher.

BertauxSo the question is: how to identify the essential, the specific framework that emerges from the history of this family group?

CovarrubiasIt was possible to identify the essentials because we established a central research question.

BertauxWhat are the generating principles?

CovarrubiasIf you refer to the knowledge-generating principles, I can tell you that the essential part of the study was to identify the “educational habitus” that these families had for generations and how this habitus was transformed throughout the twentieth century. That is where we focused our attention and analysis. We generated a concrete central question, but at the same time an enormous historical and generational one, which took a long time of academic work to follow.

BertauxOr a large tree, in France I would say an oak; in Mexico, I don't know which tree is exemplary of the country.

Covarrubias: Nice metaphor, just the same, it could be an oak tree!

BertauxIf one tries to describe it in detail, the complexity of this tree is considerable. It has many large branches, which in turn divide into medium-sized branches, which in turn subdivide into smaller branches and so on. And each branch has many leaves, and no leaf is identical to another....

CovarrubiasFrom our essential principle of knowledge, I would like to return to the metaphor of the oak tree. The study of these families and their genealogies led us to identify the central trunk of each oak tree; then the different large, medium and small branches with their own leaves of tender green or dark green, brown, dry and curled leaves as unique and unrepeatable units, all different, and sometimes they seemed similar to us as they came from the same tree and its own root. In the same way it happened with the families and their genealogies, each one had its own cultural root and the stories of its members, although they seemed similar, were very particular, but at the same time similar!

In the research carried out, we also had other knowledge-generating principles to arrive at the essential; I could summarize them as follows: a) Family and living conditions from a generation that we call zero and that in at least three cases of the four that make up the study, referred us to a historical time of the last 15 years of the nineteenth century; b) Cultural trajectories such as educational, religious, migratory and occupational; c) Sociocultural world of families (cultural roles of men and women, inculcated values, inherited trades, life in poverty, triumphs and challenges, social and cultural capital; conversion of capitals in these social groups); d) World of families with work and mobility processes; world of families with studies, appropriate educational models in their experiences and collective memory, until we manage to understand; e) family habitus, inherited and emerging educational habitus in the members of all of them, and so on.

This is part of the complexity of the sociocultural world of families, which is why it was necessary to have a central driving question for the research. To observe “everything” and then stop at these knowledge-generating principles is very interesting.

BertauxBut the (scientific) analysis is not particularly interested in the “geography” of this tree (which is specific to each tree). Science is not about reproducing itself as objective reality.

Covarrubias: Agreed. We worked with the greatest capacity for astonishment, resorting to Ethnography and Oral History as reflexive methodologies, constructing and analyzing observables in the manner of grounded theory; however, we did the best we could under the conditions we had. As a team we worked hermeneutically in workshops to share experiences, observables and findings; as well as intersubjectively in the field research, we carefully looked for the new, that which broke the linearity of the families“ daily life and its meaning, we did not seek that repetition called ”scientific objectivity"; with this I do not omit the construction of knowledge in an intersubjective way through critical and reflective dialogue among my fellow teachers and researchers.

The knowledge of this educational habitus in these four families was constructed in two phases: the first, from an “intra-family comparative hermeneutic analysis” (within each family and their genealogies) written in the third part of the book; for the second phase we developed an “inter-family comparative hermeneutic analysis” (between the family histories and their genealogies); in both there is an explicit interest in the educational trajectory; in the fourth part of the manuscript you will find this analysis of the educational habitus.

BertauxTo understand this tree, this oak, is to discover how its roots generated the trunk and bring it the water of life; how the trunk gave birth to the branches; how the branches subdivided into smaller branches. How a leaf develops from a bud.

CovarrubiasI believe that we were able to identify the roots that generated the trunk of the oak (tree) in these Oaxacan families. We identified their cultural roots at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In fact, they turned out to be very similar to the cultural roots of the families I studied in Colima in the 1990s and early years of the 21st century. Their roots have conditions of absolute and relative poverty as the experts call it; hunger and work are reasons for family migration, the inherited cultural roles of men and women fester at the root, violence in all its forms against women is built there, illiteracy is part of the identity of people born from the same tree; from there arise the legitimate struggles for survival, as well as subjective and social resilience as a strategy for survival and cultural change.

My first study with family histories was the one that constituted my doctoral thesis in 1998. I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that in the spring of 1993 I visited him in Paris at the suggestion of Dr. Jorge A. González. We met at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, three or four [times], I don't quite remember. I had previously sent him my thesis research project, he read it and we met; perhaps he does not remember it. How fortunate I was then, and today to be here talking with you thirty years later.

My research project for my doctoral thesis was the construction of identities based on religious conversion experiences in people from poor evangelical families. I observed the same cultural roots in other studies with Catholic families immersed in popular religious practices and in families in conditions of poverty as the object of study. In fact, I have used his work to cite the “structural representation” of the "structural representation".”.

BertauxIf we understand that, we understand the principles of all the oaks in the world.

Covarrubias: Exactly. We hope to have achieved it in this material for the book, I'm optimistic, we'll see.

BertauxA genealogy of professions is a bit like an oak tree. What are the principles that made this or that person choose this or that professional orientation, then this or that profession?

CovarrubiasThe personal and contextual conditions, the social and cultural conditions of reference, which act as guides for people to assume a profession without any reservation, to reproduce a lineage of great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, grandparents and parents that the sons or daughters take as part of their family history to reproduce it and dedicate themselves to it. These same conditions are particularly decisive in the choice of profession; internally, women's impulse for their sons and daughters to study. Historical cultural conditions and roots are central to understanding people's choices when we study families.

BertauxWhen studying the genealogy of a family group over several generations, we seek to identify the underlying principles that are responsible for its history. Some are external to the family dimension: these are local contexts (e.g., professions that are easily accessible in the context). But others are internal to the family group: children start as apprentices to their parents, for example, and if they like doing this work, they will continue to do it all their lives.

CovarrubiasIn the analysis we observe at least two types of orientations. First, people “appropriate the cultural heritage that comes from their families”, as I pointed out before, trades and knowledge from generation to generation that are of “internal origin”, as you say. Second, people choose their profession based on their achievements in “study-work-study-work and its intrinsic link with cultural, economic and social capital”, which generates processes of social mobility involving elements of “external origin”; this choice breaks with the tradition of inheritable trades.

From an intergenerational point of view, we identified that the third generations had easy access to higher secondary education (high school) and higher education (university) compared to the second and first generations; this was due to the fact that the families migrated in search of work and settled in the city of Oaxaca, a context of great public or private educational offerings that favored the educational level of the families. We found prestigious professions such as being a doctor or lawyer and a diversity of professions among the second generations and a great diversity among the third generations.

BertauxFor women, I don't know; and for Mexican women, even less. You tell me...

CovarrubiasThe analysis made it possible to observe trades and professions of women and men by family, generation and genealogy, as well as the educational backwardness of women from the first generations; the attitude of fathers (as men) and mothers (as women) towards their sons (men) and daughters (women) was observed in relation to the value of work and study. It is shown that the sons studied much earlier than the women, while the mothers from the first and second generations were the ones who encouraged their daughters to study, not the fathers; so that, when the sons and daughters of the third generation reached university, they obtained better jobs and favored their well-being.

The condition of these Mexican women from Oaxaca is that, in addition to being women, they are poor and ethnic. The families studied are already mestizo, but even so, the women had everything against them inside and outside their families; always behind and in the constant struggle of wanting to study and when they succeeded, marriage at a young age or unwed pregnancies truncated their studies. Mothers have always placed their educational expectations not only on their sons, but also on their daughters.

Looking back at the beginning of the 20th century, between the great-grandmothers or grandmothers and the granddaughters or great-granddaughters, there is a gulf in the living conditions that befell them in their generation, but the impulse to undertake their studies was repeated over and over again in each generation.

Bertaux: I believe that the tremendous work that you, Karla, and your colleagues have done should result in the discovery of some of these hidden principles.

CovarrubiasIt was a titanic work carried out with a lot of enthusiasm under my direction. My colleagues were initiated into the “shifting sands” of qualitative research, as I write in the introduction of the book. Qualitative research has a deep and extensive nature, which results in an epistemological and real challenge in its production, understanding and analysis. To write I asked my colleagues to “inhale” twenty percent and exhale eighty percent, so they did their best! I learned this from my teacher Jorge A. Gonzalez and it was motivating to give shape and meaning to the materials obtained.

BertauxAre there passages in the book that I could read slowly and very concentrated where we can see you discovering one of these principles?

CovarrubiasThe third and fourth part, the knowledge produced from “intra-family analysis” and “inter-family analysis”.”, respectively.

BertauxYours sincerely, Daniel Bertaux.

CovarrubiasThank you, Dr. Bertaux. I will be attentive to your next communication. A big hug. Karla Covarrubias.

Final reflection

This “epistolary dialogue” was motivating and extraordinary for me. From October 2023 to February 2024 I wrote several times to Professor Bertaux, but I no longer received a reply; I thanked him, it was enough for me to have communicated with him and to rehearse myself in the answers to his masterly questions that questioned my academic knowledge on the study of these family histories and their social and cultural genealogies. This experience reaffirms that methodological -epistemological- reflexivity is necessary on our professional responsibilities in the development of any research; those produced with oral history are no exception, especially since I have dedicated myself to it for more than thirty years since my undergraduate thesis in 1991.

The book Comparative Genealogies. Cultural analysis of the educational habitus in Oaxacan families., The book, co-edited and published on February 29, 2024, was presented on May 31 in the city of Oaxaca - its socio-cultural and academic home - in the presence of officials, students, professors and researchers of the Universidad Mesoamericana. It was also presented at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (fil) on December 6, 2024, at the Altexto Bookstore, by Dr. Ana María de la O Castellanos Pinzón, researcher at the University of Guadalajara, specialized in Oral History, and Dr. Miguel Ángel León Govea, from the University of Colima.

I am infinitely grateful for the willingness and the time that Dr. Bertaux dedicated to talk about this research experience. Nothing is lost and everything is a gain, without a doubt. In the references I list the link to the book for those who wish to obtain it free of charge. By downloading it from cyberspace for interested readers, the task of having written it with great taste and academic sense will have been accomplished. With its extensive and profound content, this book contributes to the studies of culture, education, memory and oral history in Mexico.

Bibliography

Bertaux, Daniel (1994). “Genealogías comentadas y comparadas, una propuesta metodológica”, Estudios sobre las Culturas Contemporáneas, vi (17), pp. 333-349. Disponible en: https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=31661718

Bourdieu, Pierre (2005). Capital cultural, escuela y espacio social. México: Siglo xxi Editores.

Braudel, Fernand (1958). “Histoire et sciences sociales: la longue durée”, Annales E.S.C., núm. 4, Débats et Combats. París, pp. 725-753. Disponible en: file:///C:/Users/Amor/Downloads/fernand-braudel_la-larga-duracic3b3n.pdf

Covarrubias, Karla, Gisela Josefina Ignacio Díaz, Rafaela Andrés Ortiz, Nolasco Morán Pérez y Jorge Mario Galván Ariza (2024). Genealogías comparadas. Análisis cultural del habitus educativo en familias de Oaxaca. México: Universidad de Colima/Universidad Mesoamericana. Disponible en: https://doi.org/10. 53897/LI.2024.0003.UCOL

Annex 1

Annex 2

Karla Yolanda Covarrubias Cuéllar Professor and Researcher B, Centro Universitario de Investigaciones Sociales (cuis), Universidad de Colima, Mexico, until July 31, 2024. D. in Sociology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Professor of the Faculty of Letters and Communication and of the Doctorate in Social Sciences at the University of Colima and other national and international postgraduate programs. She is a member of the sni, level iii; she is a visiting professor at the Universidade Municipal de São Caetano do Sul (uscs) and Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in Brazil. She is editorial director of the indexed journal Estudios sobre las Culturas Contemporáneas (escc) of the University of Colima, Mexico. Contact: karla@ucol.mx.

Daniel Bertaux is research director emeritus of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France and of the Laboratoire Dynamiques Européennes at the University of Strasbourg. He worked at three other very prominent sociological research centers, directed by Pierre Bourdieu, Raymond Boudon and Alain Touraine; he also had very stimulating academic relations with German colleagues at the Frankfurt School. During the 1970s he developed with great interest “life histories”.”, approach presented at the 1978 World Congress of the International Sociological Association (isa) in Uppsala.