Dr. Pedro Oiarzabal

Pedro Oiarzabal successfully defends Ph.D. dissertation

Pedro Oiarzabal who began his Ph.D. at the Center for Basque Studies in the fall of 2001 successfully defended his dissertation on August 4^th.  The defense that lasted just over 2 hours was attended by committee members in Reno, as well as by Dr. Joseba Zulaika in the Basque Country thanks to the collaboration of Eusko Ikaskuntza who facilitated a video-conference site in Donostia.

The dissertation entitled, “The Basque Diaspora Webscape: Online Discourses of Basque Diaspora Identity, Nationhood, and Homeland,” was the result of 5 years of coursework and much field work conducted both in North and South American Basque communities.  It examined the ways that the basque institutional diaspora represents and imagines itself, nationhood, and the homeland – The Basque Country – according to the discourses of cultural and political self-identification and re-imagination as constructed on their current organizations’ official web sites across sixteen countries.  He addressed questions such as why the Basque diaspora uses new technologies such as the internet, and what difference do they make.  What is the impact of new global technologies of communication such as the Internet on strengthening and maintaining Basque identity in the diaspora?  What do the Basque diaspora online discourses emerging from the contents reveal about Basque diaspora identity and about the Basque diaspora institutions’ political ideology, political symbolism, or political definitions of nationhood and homeland?  And finally, why does the Basque diaspora articulate those discourses?

The dissertation was praised as being very timely and pertinent, as it will serve as a basis for further research in these areas.  Oiarzabal was also encouraged to turn the dissertation into a book.  Both he, and Dr. Totoricagüena his mentor, were congratulated on a job well done.  Oiarzabal, originally from Bilbao, will now graduate with a Ph.D. in Basque Studies with an emphasis in Political Science.