L‘ACADIE POST-NATIONALE: PRODUCING FRANCO-CANADIAN IDENTITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY By Mireille McLaughlin A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements For the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Mireille McLaughlin 2010 ii Abstract L‘Acadie post-nationale: Producing Franco-Canadian Identity in the Global Economy Mireille McLaughlin, 2010 Ph.D. in Education, Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, University of Toronto Language is at the center of much debate in l‘Acadie, a Francophone community in what has always been a peripheral region of, first, European Empires, and next, the North American market. Now, mobilizing neoliberal ideologies, Acadian community leaders and the Canadian federal government are striving to develop the global commodification of Acadian culture, through arts and tourism, as a way to ensure the reproduction of Acadian identity in a global economy. The Acadian art scene, first institutionalized as a space for the protection of Acadian culture and the French language by community organizations and the State, has long been a privileged space for the production and reproduction of nationalist understandings of Acadian culture. The commodification of culture is a site of ideological tensions on questions of nationalism as, simultaneously, increased urbanization and the democratization of the media is challenging the nationalist understanding of Acadian identity, as artists and community organizations claim a space of multilingualism in their work. In this presentation, I will draw on data I collected in a multisited ethnography, to show how the push for commodification is a source of tension for the Acadian community. I track ideologies of language from the government decision-making to the production and circulation of Acadian art, to analyze the tensions Acadian artists and community organizers experience as they try to enter or maintain iii themselves in the global economy, through the use of web-based media, alterglobalizing networks or government and private sponsorships. I will show how the institutionalization of languages as homogeneous is constraining the field of Acadian art, as actors are deploying diverse strategies to participate within or critique the existing networks. Keywords: linguistic communities, nationalism, postnationalism, globalization, neoliberalism. iv Remerciements- Aknowledgements Qui remercier sinon mes guides. Qui remercier sinon vous tous. Qui chacun dans vos vies m‘ont raconté une légende, une blague, m‘ont lu une histoire, un poème, m‘ont dépanné en tant de crise, m‘ont donné une réponse, rendu un service, participer à un entretien, offert un cours, un coup de main, m‘ont invité chez eux, le temps d‘un repas, d‘un café, d‘une conversation pour m‘aider à comprendre le monde des arts et de la culture Acadienne. Maman et papa furent les premiers à reconnaître que j‘étais une étudiante à vie. Ils m‘ont aussi appris à dire merci. Merci à vous deux pour votre soutien infaillible. Merci à ma grande sœur Nathalie, qui trouvait toujours le mot juste soit pour me motiver ou m‘apprendre à relaxer (et pour citer Radio Radio : Merci pour la free cruise grande sœur!) Un merci sans réserve à ma directrice de thèse, Monica Heller. Quel souvenir je garde de ma première lecture de Linguistic Minorities and Modernity : Monica avait ainsi décrit ma trajectoire. Merci pour ton honnêteté et ta sincérité. Merci surtout de m‘avoir aider à mieux comprendre le monde de la recherche. Un merci à mon comité de thèse Normand Labrie et Kari Dehli. Thanks for your guidance and support and for helping me meet the deadlines I had set out for myself. Merci à Diane Farmer pour son soutien inestimable et merci à Alexandra Jaffe pour ses commentaires stimulants et pertinents. Aux membres et amis du Centre de recherches en éducation franco-ontarienne. Un grand merci à Hind et André pour votre soutien, votre amitié et votre bonne humeur constante. A big thanks to my fellow grad students, friends and colleagues who have shared parts of this process with me: Erica Blesa and Bryan Gopaul (equity aside), Amy Gullage, Emanuel da Silva, Lindsay Bell and Mary Richards. À Annette Boudreau, Lise Dubois et Claudine Moïse, mes premières guides, avec Monica, dans le monde académique. Merci à toute l‘équipe de recherche de Moncton et un merci particulier à Hubert Noel pour sa générosité et son empressement à partager son coin de pays et sa passion pour la culture acadienne. Un grand merci à mes ami.e.s, que je ne saurais nommer tous : Mylène, Martine, Marie-Élise, Mélanie, Hélène et Marie-Renée en particulier. A special thanks to Adonis, who, an arts and media community worker in Toronto, helped me understand the similarities across the board when it comes to the role of government in instituting art scenes through community organizations. That and then we ate all those oysters. People often ask me if writing a thesis was hard. I can honestly say it wasn‘t, thanks to your support and understanding. v ABSTRACT II 1. NEW BOUNDARIES: POSTNATIONAL PRACTIC ES AND DISCOURSE 1 2. CRITICAL SOCIOLINGUIS TICS: A POST-LINGUISTIC TURN TO LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL ACTION 13 2.1.1 Three Generations: language and social change in New-Brunswick 13 2.1.2 Acadian identity in a postnational context 18 2.1.3 Sociolinguistics and the post-linguistic turn: critical sociolinguistics and social sciences 19 2.1.4 State doing community through language 25 2.2 The end of State-nationalism? 36 2.2.1 Postnationalism defined 36 2.2.2 Two faces of the same coin: ethnolinguistic nationalism in New-Brunswick 43 2.2.3 Franco-Canadian studies and nationalism 47 2.3 Methodology 51 2.3.1 Multisited ethnography 51 2.3.3 Engaged participant observation 56 2.3.4 Confidentiality 62 3. PAR LA BRÈCHE DE LA C ULTURE : ART AND NATIONALISM IN POST-WAR CANADA 65 3.1 Government, Art and nationalism 65 3.2 A history of art: the condensed version 67 3.3 The Massey Report 77 3.4 Governing diversity in modernity: Ideologies of language and culture 86 3.5 Two nationalisms: French Canada‘s turn to State infrastucture 93 4. ―MERCI POUR LA CASH‖: STATE PRODUCING COMMUNITY PRODUCING STATE 99 4.1 Conceptualizing the State 99 4.2 Ethnographies of governmentality 102 4.3 Neoliberalizing community 108 4.4 Harnessing the power of State 110 4.5 Selling language communities 113 4.6 The State‘s understanding of francophone communities 118 4.7 Structuring the field 125 4.8 Creating publics 127 4.9 Who does culture belong to? 129 5. A NEW ECONOMY? THE ART OF WORKING IN THE ARTS UNDER CHANG ING CONDITIONS 131 5.1 Context: from the old economy to changing identity 133 5.2 How to play the field 141 5.3 Development: community or economic? 151 6. LINGUISTIC NATIONALIS M IN GLOBAL MARKETS 160 6.1 Acadian identity beyond nationalism 160 6.3 From prescriptivism to multilingualism: the multiple ideologies of the Acadian art scene 167 6.3.1 Creating a space for French 172 vi 6.3.2 ―Moi je suis point activiste‖: linguistic variation and multilingualism in postnational Acadian art production. 181 6.3.3. New conditions: new practices. 189 6.4 New Boundaries: reterritorializing linguistic practices 193 7. THE PRODUCTION OF CLA SS: ART AND THE REPRODUC TION OF SOCIAL MARKETS 196 7.1.1 Who does art? To whom does art belong? 200 7.1.2 Commodifying Acadian identity: theoretical background 202 7.1.3 Culture is economic development 204 7.1.4 Working culture under ideologies of capitalism 215 7.2.1 "C'est juste pas assez Acadienl" : producing Acadian identity in the neoliberal regimes of governance. 224 7.2.3 On diverse agendas: l'Acadie diversifiée 226 7.3. ―Le drapeau a pourri‖: from oppression to commodification 232 7.4 Doing art, yes, but for whom, according to whom? 237 8. CONCLUSION : CULTURE AND LANGUAGE AS SITES OF SOCIAL S TRUGGLE 241 BIBLIOGRAPHY 249 APPENDIX 1: NEW-BRUNSWICK OPERATIONAL GRANT PROGRAM 260 1 1. New boundaries: postnational practices and discourse c‘est comme politically correct astheure de parler chiac Alex (APN participant, new media artist) I am sitting at an academic conference where a friend and colleague, Denise Lamontagne, is providing a gendered psychoanalytic analysis of Acadieman, an increasingly well known animation about an Acadian anti-hero (in fact, Acadieman is more like a non-hero than an anti-hero: an average guy whose heroism is perhaps more his humility and his working class code of ethics). Dano LeBlanc, the show‘s creator and main writer, is there with Denise to receive questions. The public is constituted mostly of professors involved in one way or another with Acadian studies at the Université de Moncton. They quickly get onto the topic of the show‘s impact on local high school students: they all express a fascination with the degree to which youths identify with the character. According to most, this is because the character speaks the youths‘ language, Chiac, a local variety of French that has long been at the centre of linguistic, sociolinguistic and educational debates (Boudreau 1995, Perrot 1994, Péronnet 1989). Acadieman, indeed, is known for his use of Chiac and for his all- languages-are-equal quips about linguistic variation. In the show, Acadieman never waivers from his accent and he never perceives it as problematic, even as other 2 characters, from Québec or the Acadian upper class, comment on it. What the crowd at the Lamontagne talk does not comment upon is that Acadieman also represents Acadian youths in other ways: he works at a call centre, hangs out in cafés, lives in the city (even though he was brought up in the woods), is asked to tour the francophone1 world to promote an Acadian tourist event and bears a rather cynical-yet-laid back understanding of Acadian identity: Acadieman, being authentically Acadian (by his practices), doesn‘t have to wave flags or overtly state allegiance to Acadian identity, other than through his clothes.