B asques
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23753905 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Xabier Irujo (University of Nevada, Reno, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Pages | 1-7 |
| Publication date | 2015-12-30 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/9781118663202.wberen354 |
| OpenAlex | W4237787255 |
| ISBN | 9781118663202 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
The land of the Basques has been inhabited ever since Homo sapiens arrived in what today we call Western Europe. While the origin of the Basques remains a mystery, most authors agree that they were the first inhabitants of Europe and that their language is not related to any other in the world. Guided by utilitarianism, the Basques organized and regulated labor in line with the concept of auzolan (cooperativism) and are known to have produced one of the first proto‐democratic legal systems in the European Middle Ages. The fact that Basque women have had a superior legal and socioeconomic status than women in other European societies has led various authors to argue that the Basque culture was and still is a matriarchy. Two centuries of political conflict have provoked a massive Basque exile to the Americas, home of the Basque diaspora for the hundreds of thousands of Basques living outside their homeland. Proud of their culture, the Basques are currently immersed in the process of engineering a prosperous social and economic future for their people as a means to keep their language and traditions alive in the new pan‐European political arena.
Democracy · Diaspora · Ethnology · Geography · Homeland · Political science · Politics · Basque language and culture studies · History · Law
| Highly cited | No |
|---|