DOCTORAL THESIS What the women have to say women’s perspectives on language, identity and nation in Catalonia Iveson, Mandie Award date: 2017 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 What the women have to say: women’s perspectives on language, identity and nation in Catalonia by Mandie Iveson BA, MSc A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD Department of Media, Culture & Language University of Roehampton 2017 Parlen les dones, la seva poesia tendra i forta. Ben pocs s’aturen a escoltar aquestes veus, que, trasbalsades, un nou llenguatge diuen nascut al fons dels segles. The women speak, their poetry tender and strong. Very few stop to listen to these voices that have stirred up a new language; born, they say, since the beginning of time. (Montserrat Abelló, Dins l’esfera del temps, 1998). i ii ABSTRACT The social and political history of Catalonia has long been dominated by debates about language, nation and identity and forty years of linguistic and cultural repression have impacted the sociocultural landscape of the region. The new millennium and new nationalist/gendered identities in the context of changing patterns of migration, growing multiculturalism and economic crisis have led to a resurgence of nationalism and renewed demands for Catalan independence since 2010. Adopting oral history as a central method, this thesis examines language, nation and identity from a gendered perspective and investigates to what extent women use Catalan in their everyday social practices to construct gendered and national identities. The focus of the study is three female 'generations' from one Catalan village. It covers 50 years of historical change from the 1960s to the present. The thesis explores women’s contribution to the preservation of Catalan language during Franco's regime (1939-75); how the emergence of a feminist movement and discourse, and changing patterns of migration, have transformed the relationship between gender and national identity in Catalonia; and the role that Catalan plays today in defining women's (individual) identities and as a nation-building tool. Previous research has not considered an intergenerational approach and this study addresses this gap. Drawing on theories of nationalism, gender and nation and language ideologies, I adopt a new analytical approach incorporating discourse analysis and small story research to examine the narratives of 40 oral history interviews and a corpus of social media data. In order to organise the diverse themes in iii my data I develop a spatial framework in which I identify three principal spaces: physical, ideological and temporal. Mainstream and political discourse exemplify the Catalan nation as civic, intercultural and tolerant. This study challenges these canonical beliefs. The findings reveal ethnolinguistic ideologies and a complex divergence/ convergence of issues surrounding migration that are difficult to reconcile with official discourse. Specifically the findings provide insights into some of the issues of inclusion and exclusion that are absent in political and nationalist discourse and suggests that an increased understanding of cultural pluralism at a local level can be abstracted to the Catalan community as a whole. iv RESUM Durant molt de temps, la història política i social de Catalunya ha sigut dominada per debats de llengua, nació i identitat i cuaranta anys de repressió lingüística i cultural ha impactat l’entorn sociocultural de la regió. El nou mil·lenni i noves identitats nacionals i de gènere en el context dels models canviants de migració, l’increment de multicultralisme i la crisi económica va dirigir a un resurgiment de nacionalisme i noves demandes per a l’independència a Catalunya des de 2010. Adoptant l’història oral com a mètode principal, aquesta tesi examina la llengua, nació i identitat des d'una perspectiva de gènere i investiga fins a quin punt les dones utilitzen el català en les seves pràctiques socials quotidianes per construir identitats nacionals i de gènere. El focus d'atenció són tres generacions de dones procedent d'un poble català. La tesi abasta 50 anys de canvis històrics des dels anys 60 fins al present. La tésis examina la contribució de les dones en la preservació de la llengua catalana durant el règim de Franco; com l'emergència d'un moviment i discurs feminista i canvis en el model de migracions han transformat la relació entre gènere i identitat nacional a Catalunya; i el paper que juga el català avui per definir les identitats (individuals) de les dones i com a eina per construir la nació. Recerques anteriors no han considerat un enfocament intergeneracional i aquest estudi aborda aquesta llacuna. Recorrent a teories de nacionalisme, gènere i nació, adopto un enfocament analític inovador que incorpora el anàlisis de discurs i el marc de 'small story' per examinar les narratives de 40 històries orals i una corpus de dades dels v mitjans socials. Per organitzar els diversos temes, he desenvolupat un marc espacial i aplico tres espais principals: el físic, el temporal i l'ideològic. El discurs polític i prevalent presenta la nació catalana com a cívica, intercultural i tolerant. Aquest estudi qüestiona aquesta creença canònica. Els resultats demostren unes ideologies etnolingüístiques i una divergència/convergència complexa d'assumptes sobre la migració que són difícils de reconciliar amb el discurs oficial. Concretament, les troballes proveeixen un enteniment de les qüestions d'inclusió i exclusió absents del discurs polític i nacionalista i proposen que una major comprensió de pluralisme cultural al nivell local es pot aplicar a la comunitat catalana sencera. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ______________________________________________________ iii RESUM _________________________________________________________ v TABLE OF CONTENTS ___________________________________________ vii TABLE OF FIGURES AND TABLES __________________________________ xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS __________________________________________ xii ETHICS STATEMENT AND PERMISSIONS ___________________________ xiii TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS __________________________________ xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ________________________________________ xv Chapter 1 __________________________________________________ 1 INTRODUCTION _________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Catalonia: a brief overview _____________________________________ 2 1.2 Contextualising El Masnou _____________________________________ 7 1.3 Positioning the study _________________________________________ 10 1.3.1 Renewed nationalist projects _________________________________ 13 1.3.2 Language and identity ______________________________________ 14 1.3.3 Migration_________________________________________________ 16 1.3.4 Oral history, discourse analysis and social media: distinctive methodological approach ________________________________________ 17 1.4 Research questions__________________________________________ 19 1.5 Overview of the thesis ________________________________________ 20 Chapter 2 _________________________________________________ 24 THEORETICAL CONCEPTS _______________________________________ 24 2.1 Conceptualising nation and nationalism __________________________ 24 2.2 Ethnic and civic nationalism ___________________________________ 32 2.3 Transnationalism ____________________________________________ 35 2.3.1 Hybrid identities ___________________________________________ 37 2.4 National identity and its discursive construction ____________________ 38 2.5 Language and nation_________________________________________ 43 2.6 Ideology and language _______________________________________ 45 2.7 Gender and nation___________________________________________ 49 2.8 Contextualising Catalonia _____________________________________ 53 2.8.1 Stateless nations __________________________________________ 53 2.8.2 The revival of nationalism____________________________________ 54 2.8.3 Nationalism in Catalonia_____________________________________ 57 2.8.4 Gender and nation in Catalonia _______________________________ 63 2.8.5 Catalan nationalism in the 21st century _________________________ 66 2.8.6 Catalonia today – the road to independence? ____________________ 71 2.8.7 Current migration and integration policies _______________________ 74 2.9 Conclusion_________________________________________________ 75 Chapter 3 _________________________________________________ 76 METHODOLOGY AND METHODS __________________________________ 76 vii 3.1 Why El Masnou? Why women? ________________________________ 77 3.2 The Oral History approach ____________________________________ 78 3.3 Intersectionality _____________________________________________ 83 3.4 Sociocultural linguistics approach _______________________________