The Basque diaspora online

Today a Basque centre without social media is the exception. What began as the experiment of a few on a mailing list is now the working tool of almost every centre. In 2021 Oiarzabal summed it up like this: almost all the Basque centres in the world are present on several platforms, and most of them have made use above all of social media. At the time he was himself studying how Basques of the diaspora express their identity on Instagram.⁷

The register of centres on this portal gives a measure of it. Of the 177 recognised Basque centres, 143 have a website or social media. Facebook is used by 130, Instagram by 55, YouTube by 25 and X by 21, and 77 have their own website.¹⁰

A good part of that step was taken during the 2020 pandemic. With the lockdowns, according to Oiarzabal, many associations “rediscovered the usefulness” of these tools.⁷ In April 2020, with their premises closed, the Basque centres of Viedma, San Nicolás, Santa Rosa, Bahía Blanca, Rosario, Buenos Aires, Córdoba and La Plata, in Argentina, began their Basque language course online. They gave the classes over Skype or Zoom, posted the materials on Moodle or Google Classroom and kept in touch through WhatsApp groups. In Uruguay, the FIVU federation organised its own courses.⁸

It was not only in the Southern Cone. In May 2020 the Etxepare Institute reported online Basque classes in the United States, Germany, Argentina, Chile, France and Canada, after two pilot trials at the Basque centres of Madrid and Washington with 8 and 29 students.⁹