María Cátedra, also known as María Cátedra Tomás, (b. 4 March 1947) is a Spanish anthropologist. She was born in the Spanish city of Lerida and completed her undergraduate degree from the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

in 1971. She received a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

from the same university in 1972, and a second doctorate from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in 1984. She later became a professor of social and cultural anthropology at the University of Complutense. Her field research took place in Spain and Portugal, in the towns of

Asturias Asturias (; ; ) officially the Principality of Asturias, is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensive with the provinces of Spain, province of Asturias and contains some of the territory t ...

Ávila Ávila ( , , ) is a Spanish city located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Ávila. It lies on the right bank of the Adaja river. Located more than 1,130 m a ...

, and Evora. Cátedra's early work in Asturias in the 1970s examined perceptions of death, suicide, and the afterlife in the community, and made use of techniques from symbolic anthropology. This project would have an influence on later studies of death and suicide in the region. Cátedra later moved to working in Ávila, where she analyzed the political aspects of the saints of the town. For this project, she used both fieldwork and analysis of documents from archive sources. A 2004 biographical dictionary of anthropologists described Cátedra as a "pioneer of urban anthropology in Spain".

References

Spanish anthropologists Spanish women anthropologists 1947 births Living people University of Pennsylvania alumni Complutense University of Madrid alumni People from Lleida {{Spain-anthropologist-stub