Public Funding of Research into Ethnological Activities in Andalusia (Spain): Boosting the Academic Career of Researchers

The advent of democracy in Spain and the establishment of the different autonomous communities marked the beginning of a process to transfer political, economic and other competences over Culture and Cultural Heritage. Following its creation in 1984, the Ministry of Culture of the Andalusian Autonomous Government incorporated a Directorate-General for Cultural Assets into its organisational structure and embarked on an ambitious programme of actions to support Andalusian historical heritage, including creation of a management structure, enactment of a specific heritage law and budget allocations for protection tasks. From the outset, a type of heritage little known until then emerged: ethnological heritage. Dynamic actions were also promoted to fund research into this area, including grants for ethnological activities, financing for publications and funding for ethnological symposiums. This paper analyses the different ethnological activities carried out and their funding, and assesses the extent to which this investment favoured the professional development of teaching staff in the field of Social Anthropology in Andalusia, specifying the marginal effects and differentiating them according to gender and university size using binary choice models (Logit).