Survival of the Traditional Romancero: Field Expeditions

Research work in the humanities and the social sciences at times demands two kinds of parallel and complementary activities: first, obtaining material directly from the context in which it is produced and, second, processing the data later outside of its context. The ways in which the fieldwork should be organized as well as where and how it is to be carried out depend upon the objective that is being pursued. Oral literary genres differ in the ways they are transmitted, but we can find them together in the same cultural environment. Narrations in prose, like stories or legends, live together in the collective memory along with proverbs, riddles and sayings, and poetic forms, among which are included canciones (songs), coplas (couplets), and romances (ballads)