Mobility and Multilingualism in Empuriabrava Social Structuration
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ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en Mobility and Multilingualism in Empuriabrava Social Structuration and Inequality in a Tourist Community Doctoral Dissertation By Massimiliano Paolo Sassi PhD Director Dr. Melissa G. Moyer PhD Tutor Dr. Montserrat Ventura i Oller Departament d’Antropologia Social i Cultural Programa de Doctorat en Antropologia Social i Cultural Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona November 2018 Acknowledgements A PhD study is a long learning process which cannot be accomplished without the support and help of many people. Firstly, I would like to thank my PhD Director, Melissa Moyer, for her help and guidance throughout this process. I would like to show my appreciation to my research group, Group CIEN, and particularly to Eva Codó Olsina, Maria Rosa Garrido, Maria Sabaté Dalmau, Gemma Rubio and Hanna Klimava. I also want to thank the Department of Social Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona which allowed me to pursue my PhD, and my tutor Montserrat Ventura i Oller, who has been of great support over these years. My appreciation also goes to the members of the TLang project at the University of Leeds School of Education, who helped me during my time abroad, James Simpson, John Callaghan, Jolana Hanusova, Jess Bradley, Emilee Moore, and particularly Mike Baynham. A special mention goes to Alan Reeves who edited the English of the whole dissertation in a short period of time. This investigation would not have been possible without the support of my parents, Maria Grazia Tomasi, and Gianni Chiossi, who supported me economically and psychologically, and of my girlfriend, Ana Flamarique, who has been by my side and who helped me all the way through my PhD. I am grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for the PhD grant BES 2012-060660 that has enabled me to undertake this research. Finally, I would like to thank the municipality of Castelló d’Empúries and the residents of Empuriabrava who participated in the ethnography and made this study possible. Summary The present dissertation is an ethnographic study that analyzes the role of mobility and multilingualism in processes of social structuration in the tourist community of Empuriabrava, a residential marina located on the Costa Brava in the Autonomous community of Catalonia in Spain. It focuses on social and linguistic practices of the residents from around the world, showing the complex ways social stratification is constructed on an everyday basis. Persons from developing Eastern European countries and the African continent, especially North Africa, intermingle in the community with a European elite from Germany, Great Britain and France. At the root of the social differences that are produced in Empuriabrava lies a person’s motivation for leaving their country, whether it is for enjoying one’s leisure time or for finding work. The manner in which linguistic, social and economic capital are valued is closely connected to nationality, economic resources, and knowledge of English, German or Spanish and to a lesser extent Catalan. This ethnography explores the (re)construction and use of physical spaces and public discourses that are taken up by the inhabitants, and the implication these practices have in the formation of a social structure that gives meaning (both social and symbolic) to the members of the diverse networks residing in the community. The global economic crisis that has produced a world scale recession since 2007 has had a negative impact on the lives of both the labour migrants and the elite who co-habit this tourist space at the time of the study in 2014-2017. The lack of work, and forms of subsistence-level existence have given rise to illicit economic activities that contribute to the deterioration of the community and the marginalization of those inhabitants who are searching for work and better life chances. The Catalan context of Castelló d’ Empúries, where identity and language are used to marginalize the residents in Empuriabrava, who are mostly considered as outsiders, offers a complementary perspective to observe the phenomenon of tourism. ii Resumen La tesis que se presenta es un estudio etnográfico que analiza el rol de la movilidad y el multilingüismo en los procesos de estructuración social en la comunidad turística de Empuriabrava, un complejo residencial con marina situado en la Costa Brava en la Comunidad Autónoma de Cataluña, España. Se centra en las prácticas sociales y lingüísticas de los residentes de diferentes lugares del mundo mostrando cómo se produce la diferencia social por parte de los habitantes en su vida cotidiana. Las personas procedentes de países en vías de desarrollo como Europa del Este y el continente africano, especialmente África del Norte, se relacionan en su día a día en la comunidad con una élite europea procedente de Alemania, Gran Bretaña y Francia. La raíz de las diferencias sociales que se producen en Empuriabrava tiene su explicación e las motivaciones personales por las cuales dejan su país de origen tanto si es por ocio o para buscar trabajo y alcanzar una vida mejor. La manera en la cual se valora el capital lingüístico, social y económico está estrechamente conectada con la nacionalidad de la persona, sus recursos económicos y el conocimiento del inglés, alemán y castellano, y en menor medida del catalán. Esta etnografía explora la construcción y el uso del espacio físico y de los discursos públicos que se generan entre la población e intenta explicar las consecuencias de estas prácticas en el proceso de estructuración social de manera que atribuye significado a los miembros que participan en las diferentes redes de las comunidades. La crisis económica global ha producido una recesión a escala mundial desde 2007 y ha tenido un impacto negativo en la vida, tanto de los migrantes laborales, como en la de la élite, que conviven en este espacio turístico durante el periodo de este estudio (entre 2014 y 2017). La falta de trabajo y la forma de subsistencia, ha conllevado un aumento de actividades ilícitas, que contribuyen al deterioro de la comunidad y la marginación de aquellos habitantes que buscan trabajo y oportunidades para conseguir una vida mejor. El contexto catalán de Castelló d’Empúries, donde la identidad y la lengua son utilizadas en gran medida para marginar a los residentes de Empuriabrava considerados mayoritariamente como forasteros ofrece una perspectiva complementaria para observar el fenómeno del turismo. iii Table of contents Acknowledgements i Summary ii Resumen iii Table of Contents iv List of Figures v List of Tables vi Transcription conventions viii 1. Chapter 1. Situating this study 1 1.1. Why study multilingualism in a tourist community? 2 1.2. Research questions 7 2. Chapter 2. Theoretical framework 14 2.1. Mobility and globalization 16 2.2. Tourism as cultural product 21 2.3. Social structuration and inequality 24 2.4. Methodological nationalism and identity in Empuriabrava 32 2.5. Language practices and discourses of inequality 35 3. Chapter 3. The context of the study 39 3.1. Empuriabrava and Castelló d’Empúries 40 3.2. The development of a brand new tourist community 42 3.3 The resident population and the influential national networks 47 3.4. The economy of the tourist community 50 4. Chapter 4. Methods 54 4.1. Research design 55 4.2. Data construction and types of data 58 iv 4.3. A reflexive perspective 60 4.4. The key informants 62 5. Chapter 5. Mobility, language and space 75 5.1. Mobility, language and representation in Empuriabrava 76 5.2. Language practices of the different residents 81 5.3. Spaces of distribution 88 6. Chapter 6. Nationality and representation 94 6.1 Nationality and social class 95 6.2 Networks and spaces of economic activity 101 6.3 Degradation and loss of prestige 108 7. Chapter 7. Multilingualism in the wider context 120 7.1. Empuriabrava in the Catalan context 121 7.2. The role of Catalan and Spanish in the communities 128 7.3. Social structuration and language practices 136 8. Chapter 8. Conclusions 142 References 154 Appendices 163 Appendix A 164 Appendix B 167 Appendix C 192 Appendix D 197 Appendix E 206 v List of figures Figure 3.1 The Residential Marina of Empuriabrava 39 Figure 3.2 Map of the Gulf of Roses 40 Figure 3.3 The Historical Town of Castelló d’Empúries 41 Figure 3.4 The First Phase of Construction of the Marina in 1967 42 Figure 3.5 The Construction of Delta Muga in 1983 44 Figure 3.6 Building of Delta Muga in 2015 45 Figure 3.7 Map of the Different Areas of the Tourist Community 51 Figure 5.1 Your Europartner in Your Holidays 79 Figure 5.2 Social Division in Empuriabrava 89 Figure 6.1 Webpage Offering Sex in Empuriabrava 116 vi List of tables Table 3.1 Population of Castelló d’Empúries and Empuriabrava from 2000 to 2015 46 Table 3.2 Resident Population of Castelló d’Empúries and Empuriabrava from 2000 47 to 2015 Table 3.3 Larger Foreign Groups by Nationality in the Municipality in 2008 and 49 2015. Table 3.4 The Economic Activities in 2014-2015 51 Table 4.1 Participants 62 vii Transcription conventions The transcription conventions used for the interview data that appears in the thesis are the following: Overlapping utterances [ ] Contiguous utterances = Intervals within and between utterances (.) (…) long pause Intonation .