YURTA Association: a passion at the service of the nomadic-tradition indigenous communities
YURTA Association is a legal non-profit association created to give a formal status to the initiatives developed by Santiago J. Carralero in the field of the nomadic-tradition cultures. Without registred members, YURTA usually works in collaboration with governmental institutions, organizations, indigenous associations and committed individuals when developing projects on the field or attending events, but also produces artworks and films, publishes books and issues expert reports as a specialized indepedent researching institution.
Academic formation
Santiago Carralero is twice graduate (Geography and History, and Social and Cultural Anthropology, UNED-Madrid), Expert in Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights and International Cooperation (UC3M) and Master in Anthropological Research and its Applications (UNED).
Expert consultancy
Any kind of issues related to nomadic-tradition communities: history, traditions, culture, environment, anthropology, politics, organization, indigenous associations, international network, art and crafts, tribal-state conciliation, biocultural diversity, transboundary issues, human and indigenous rights, animal fibre, etc.
Last consultancy work
Report "Following the thread of Yak" (commissioned by IFAD, 2019-2020) |
Santiago J. Carralero Benítez applied anthropologist, historian and geographer specialized in nomadic-tradition peoples and their ecosystems "I was born in the southern Spanish city of Málaga in 1962, and since a very early age I began to dream with nomads, East Asia and grasslands. Later, I moved to Canary islands and then to Valencia to study Fine Arts, following my passion for oil painting and the classical masters such as Velazquez and Rembrandt. After some years I become a government officer to get a financial stability. Then I started to travel abroad as a tourist and mountaineer too, and these first trips were key to feed my interest for biocultural diversity.
Besides living in Malaga, Tenerife, Valencia, Madrid, Zaragoza, Granada and Plasencia in Spain, I have also lived in Edinburgh (Scotland) and Chengdu (China). During this period of time and thanks to serveral unpaid leaves I could visit more than 30 countries in search of the nomadic heritage, highlighting Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Peru in America; Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, Uganda and Morocco in Africa; and Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, China, Nepal, India, Thailand and Vietnam in Asia. As a visual artist, I have participated in some exhibitions (Salamanca, Plasencia, Amsterdam) and sold a limited stock of artworks. As a social researcher I has carried out some fieldwork campaigns in South America and Asia. My major anthropological works include a book published in 2007 resuming 3 years of research among the itinerant groups of North-Western India with the leit-motiv of the origin of gypsies (published in Spanish), a research on the present-day situation of the Yaghan people in Navarino Island (Chile), displayed in form of a visual exhibition in the 2009 IUAES Congress (Kunming, China), and some years later (2008-2014), a long campaign carried out in East Tibet (Kham and Amdo), which provided the data to write my master thesis, serving at the same time to gain a specialization in the High Asia environment and culture. More recently, I implemented the two-years porject "Community Dialogues in High Asia" among yak-herding communities of High Asia (2016-17), with FAO funding, and in 2019 elaborated the report "Following the thread of Yak" for IFAD". Experience on the field
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