For decades Spanish hinterland has declined due to a process of migration from the countryside to cities, leaving a trail of empty villages. The lack of services and job offers is one of the problems and causes of this phenomenon. However, in this context of job insecurity and demographic decline, some people struggle to sustain a life in these places. Inhabiting Empty Spain is an ethnographic film that explores the reality of the people living in a depopulated village in Tierras Altas (highlands), north of Soria.
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Juan F. Díaz Cuyás is a Visual Anthropology student temporarily based in Yanguas, Spain. He has recently finished a master’s degree in visual Ethnography at Leiden University and previously in Social and Cultural Anthropology by Autonomous Barcelona University and Maynooth University. He is a filmmaking and photography enthusiast who aspires to do a PhD in Anthropology using audiovisual techniques as researching methodologies. He has worked in a rural development project in India, photographing the water shortage issue in communities in Bangalore’s rural areas. In the short term, he seeks to start designing a photography project to overcome this year’s indeterminacy (we can do it!).
