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Discourses of Identity in Liminal Places and Spaces
This collection explores how people use language to construct the relation between their self and the location they occupy, or to which they wish to belong. Narrative therefore becomes the context and practice through which these participants construct their local identities and their places, both understood as dynamic and in continuous evolution. While the theme of place-identity has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of the volume lies in its investigation of the multiple contexts in which identity is examined; prominence is nonetheless assigned to processes of displacement and uprooting often combined with increased social inequality that make the investigation of ways in which place is discursively constructed and of the roles it plays in processes of selfpresentation and identity creation so crucial. The volume adopts a novel interdisciplinary approach making this a key reading for researchers in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, discursive psychology, geography, and linguistic anthropology. Roberta Piazza is Reader in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sussex. Her research is in the area of pragmatics and stylistics, and identity in relation to space and with reference to marginal groups. Some of her publications are The Discourse of Italian Cinema and Beyond 2011, Values and Choices in Television Discourse. A View from Both Sides of the Screen eds 2015 with L. Haarman and A. Caborn, Marked Identities eds 2014 with A. Fasulo, Telecinematic Discourse: Approaches to the Fictional Language of Cinema and Television eds 2011 with M. Bednarek and F. Rossi.
Routledge Studies in Sociolinguistics
Living Languages and New Approaches to Language Revitalisation Research Tonya N. Stebbins, Kris Eira and Vicki L. Couzens Language Contact and the Future of English Ian MacKenzie Discourse, Gender and Shifting Identities in Japan The Longitudinal Study of Kobe Women’s Ethnographic Interviews 1989–2019, Phase One Edited by Claire Maree and Kaori Okano Language and Classification Meaning-Making in the Classification and Categorization of Ceramics Allison Burkette Language, Media and Globalization in the Periphery The Linguascapes of Popular Music in Mongolia Sender Dovchin Emerging Hispanicized English in the Nuevo New South Language Variation in a Triethnic Community Erin Callahan Racialization and Language Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Peru Edited by Michele Back and Virginia Zavala Discourses of Identity in Liminal Places and Spaces Edited by Roberta Piazza For a full list of titles in this series, visit www.routledge.com/RoutledgeStudies-in-Sociolinguistics/book-series/RSSL
Discourses of Identity in Liminal Places and Spaces Edited by Roberta Piazza
First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-8153-9568-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-18338-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC
In memory of Tope Omoniyi
Contents
Introduction
1
ROBERTA PIAZZA
PART I
Liminality and Chronotope13 1 Chronotopic Identities: The South in the Narratives Told by Members of Mapuche Communities in Chile
15
MARIA EUGENIA MERINO DICKINSON AND ANNA DE FINA
2 Narrating Desire for Place: Chronotopes of Desire for the Portuguese Homeland Before and After “Return”
42
MICHELE KOVEN
3 Discourses of (Be)Longing: Later Life and the Politics of Nostalgia
64
DAVID DIVITA
4 A Space of Your Own: Transforming Roma Heritage Practices and Identity in Contexts of Economic and Social Precarity
83
MIKE BAYNHAM
5 With and Without Zanzibar: Liminal Diaspora Voices and the Memory of the Revolution ROBERTA PIAZZA
109
viii Contents PART II
Liminality and Institutional Power145 6 Challenging Peripherality: Cornwall in Pan-Celtic Narratives of Place
147
MARC SCULLY
7 Place-Identity and Urban Policy: Sharing Leisure Spaces in the ‘Post-Conflict’ City
166
BREE T. HOCKING, BRENDAN STURGEON, JOHN DIXON, NEIL JARMAN, DOMINIC BRYAN, JONNY HUCK, DUNCAN WHYATT, AND GEMMA DAVIES
8 Place-Based Narratives among New Speakers of ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i
193
CHRISTINA HIGGINS
9 Road Signs and the Negotiation of a Place-Based Identity in Israel
217
JUDITH YOEL
10 Touring Amsterdam: Jews and the Tolerant City
237
GABRIELLA MODAN
11 The Politics of Mental Health: Alienation and Community in Inner-City London
263
EVA ODDI
12 ‘Offshore’ as Marginality: Exploring the Panama Papers and the Feasibility of Post-National Sociolinguistics
282
TOPE OMONIYI AND LUKASZ DANILUK
Notes on Contributors302 Index307
Introduction Roberta Piazza
Why it is that football teams tend to win when playing at home? Does space familiarity impact favourably their sense of self and self-esteem and hence their performance?
This volume does not discuss football but has something to do with it, albeit indirectly. It explores the relationship of the individual self with a particular space. Space, and the way it is perceived, can strongly influence identity. As Dixon and Durrheim (2004: 471) put it in their seminal work, these ‘place identity constructions’ help shape, invariably in complex ways, how individuals respond to a physical context. The growing fascination with individual identity during the last 30 years, both among academics and in wider society, is striking. A myriad of studies across a number of disciplines and from a wide range of approaches has examined the nature of selfhood as an individual’s ‘sameness/similarity,’ deriving from the forms of their socialisation and ‘drawn from a common human store’ (Edwards 2009: 20). Post-modern and post-structuralist studies have also contributed significantly to the analysis of identity through their adoption of social constructionist approaches (conversational analysis, social and discursive psychology, ethnomethodology, and anthropological linguistics) where an individual’s selfhood (sense of self as a reality) is not considered to be pre-existing to (as postulated in the essentialist theory of identity) and located outside discourse, but rather it is constructed and shaped through language in the social context in which the identity work takes place. Identity ‘encloses a paradox’ as it involves sameness and difference (Buckingham 2007 in Georgalou 2017: 10). We are, therefore, unique but must negotiate our individual identity with the social group at large. Identity refers to the social circumstances of life, independent of our will (class, ethnicity, etc.), while interactional identities ‘pertain to our [. . .] socialization, [. . .] including occupation, institutional setting and interactional activities’ (Georgalou 2017: 11). Understanding identity as resulting from interaction and as ‘emerging out of social and cultural practices’ (Fasulo and
2 Roberta Piazza Piazza 2015: 4) strengthens the argument of the centrality of discourse as a means to realise such practices and construct situated, dynamic, multiple, fluid, and context-dependent identities (Bucholtz and Hall 2005). Multiple identities combined with the decentring and dislocation of the self (Laclau 1990) in the contemporary global world may suggest irreconcilable fragmentation. However, Zimmerman (1998) and Giddens (1991), from different theoretical perspectives, emphasise the existence of unifying strands and threads of identity that overcome such modern decomposition. The notion of ‘tag along’ or transportable identity defines the self that ‘travel[s] with individuals across situations and [is] relevant in and for any situation and in and for any spate of interaction’ (Zimmerman 1998: 90) The intense interest in identity, however, at one point started being questioned and the validity of the construct challenged (Block 2001, 2006, Brubaker and Cooper 2000, for instance, in Fasulo and Piazza 2015: 5). Hall (2000) views identity as politically exploited in the sense that it is a ‘constructed form of closure’ (p. 18) generally presented as natural. On a similar note, Cameron and Kulick (2005) and Kulick (2005) note how the construction of one’s identity cannot be the only drive for an individual and sexuality instead can be a much stronger need. Insisting on identity as a construct, these authors claim, may even be a dangerous and political choice, as Hall argued, that obscures other more crucial drives. During the last 20 years, the topic of place and space has attracted the growing interest of sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, and discourse analysts, who view it as integral to personal and social identity. In particular, investigations within a framework of social constructivism have highlighted the social and discursive processes through which physical and geographic spaces are transformed into interactionally and discursively produced places (Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain 2013; Blommaert 2005; Hult 2014). Scholars have taken inspiration from theorisations that lie at the intersection of a number of different disciplines that have contributed to reflections on the topic from different approaches and foci. It is increasingly contended that, due to the heightened mobility of people, which has accompanied rapid globalisation, space and place seem to be losing their centrality. However, the chapters in this volume show that this contention can easily be over-stated since it very much remains the case that ‘we are immersed in [place] and could not do without it’ (Casey 1997: ix). As Dixon and Durrheim emphasise in their seminal 2000 paper, just ‘who we are’ is still inextricably linked to ‘where we are’ and also, as a number of chapters in this volume highlight, ‘where we wish to be.’ The collection of chapters in this volume, some of which originally come from a panel on the topic of place-identity held at AAAL (American Association of Applied Linguistics) in 2016, explores how people use
Introduction 3 language to construct the relationship between their self and the location they occupy in the present, where they lived in the past, or to which they wish to belong in the future. Narrative practice (De Fina 2003), therefore, becomes the context and resource through which these participants construct their local identities and their place in a complex and intense relationship that reaches various degrees of agency and self-efficacy. The common starting point is the contention that places are ‘dynamic arenas’ in continuous evolution rather than fixed ‘containers of social action’ (Dixon and Durrhein 2000: 27), although, in addition, the chapters also propose a conceptualisation of place as symbolic, metaphoric or imaginary. Hocking et al., in this volume, adopt the definition of Proshansky et al. (1983) of place-identity as a subset of self-identity, ‘a clustering of cognitive components’ (1983: 63) that reflect and impact the individual’s experience of self in various spaces determining the sense of who we are in an ecological context. While the theme of place-identity has been explored especially in a context of migration, the contributions to the volume address the multiple contexts in which identity is realised; prominence, however, is given to processes of displacement and uprooting often combined with increased social inequality that make the investigation of ways in which place is discursively constructed and of the roles it plays in processes of selfpresentation and identity creation so crucial. Space and identity are the two themes explored in this volume from different angles and perspectives. While they have been the object of much academic investigation, a third key theme that the book analyses has not received the same attention; therefore, it deserves a few words of introduction. ‘Liminality’ indicates the existential state of being caught between different times and spaces. Liminality describes individuals or entities that are ‘neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony’ (Turner 1969: 95). Liminal individuals stay on the ‘limen’ (Latin for ‘threshold’),‘stripped off their ordinary identities, roles, and positions’ (Eksner and Orellana 2005: 2) that associate them with their fellow human beings; thus, they temporarily live in the cracks or interstices of society, where they have a heightened perception of themselves. Van Gennep first introduced the concept of ‘temporary outcast’ nearly 60 years ago, but it was not until the late 1960s that it gained academic prominence with Turner (1967, 1969) and Derrida (1967). Turner revisits van Gennep and his theorisation of three stages of a rite of passage: separation, transition, and incorporation. The first of the three indicates a rupture from a previous state—e.g., leaving normal life to enter a temple or, on a more prosaic note, leaving one’s family to go to a boarding school; the last one, incorporation, refers to the reintegration into a new transformed state. Proper liminality, therefore, belongs to the middle stage of suspension and transmutation. To the term liminality,
4 Roberta Piazza Turner applies the notion of anti-structure, borrowed from anthropologist Sutton-Smith and indicating ‘dissolution of normative social structure’ (1974: 60). It is in this interim space and time that, while old symbols and paradigms are destroyed, new ones are generated, which can eventually feed back into the central arenas of society (ibid.). This ‘temporary interface’ is not totally revolutionary in that ‘the liminal phases [. . .] invert but do not usually subvert the status quo, the structural form, of society’ (Turner 1974: 72); liminality, therefore, can be easily put to the service of normativity. Turner’s argument is not totally exempt from ambiguity when, for instance, he sees revolutions as a realisation of liminality (p. 76) or when he describes liminality, as in some cases the scene of despair, alienation, and anxiety (p. 78). However, he attributes to liminality a positive charge as it is ‘both more creative and at the same time more destructive than the structural norm’ (p. 78). In spite of these considerations typical of admittedly ‘exploratory phases’ (p. 86), however, Turner puts a positive spin on van Gennep’s (1960) construct of liminality, in that, even at a cost and with a risk of contradiction, it is understood as a dialectic of sort that invites creativity and fosters new meanings and their permutations. In contrast to a socially structured community, liminal individuals, or liminals construct a spontaneous and non-institutionalised communitas that can act as a resistant force or support nucleus. We will see how this concept is most apparent in some of the contributions in which the individual’s self is shaped against the group, be that the Portuguese or East African diasporic community or the oppositional Catholic and Protestant groups in Northern Ireland. For van Gennep, the liminals or initiands (if involved in sacred rites) ‘are pushed as far towards uniformity, structural invisibility, and anonymity as possible’ (p. 59). This is because the signs of their previous life have been eradicated and the new signs have not yet appeared. As liminals are cast outside society, society cannot reach them. They, therefore, acquire a degree of agency and the ‘special kind of freedom a “sacred power” of the meek, weak, and humble’ (p. 59). This condition of liminal anonymity is explored in some of the chapters especially those dealing with groups that aspire more or less silently to a different existential condition as in the case of the Mapuche people in Chile or the Roma youth planning their own future businesses. For van Gennep, liminality is associated with passivity and connoted negatively as the liminal subject has lost the past but has not yet transited to a new existential form. However, Turner goes beyond such negative definition and identifies positive and active features in it (1960: 72–73). After all, liminals invert if not subvert the consolidated order of society and are, therefore, endowed with the capacity to act effectively towards a given goal in a collective and cooperative sort of way. Once again, the subjects of many of the chapters in this volume are strongly agentive
Introduction 5 both in the sense of reaching their desired goals, as in the case of Ana, the diasporic Portuguese living in France, and wishing to return to the birthplace of her parents or the Cornish people who propose a pan-Celtic vision of Cornwall as independent from the London Anglo centre. It is important to emphasise that liminality is not synonymous with marginalisation. Liminality does not mean relegating people to a permanent exclusion. Liminality indicates temporariness and in-betweenness, both in terms of space and time. It is a powerful and heuristically useful construct that allows a reflection on a range of human conditions that are susceptible to further development and transformation—a transformation that is intrinsically linked to the dynamic construction of identity. To sum up, in this volume, therefore, liminality is the backdrop against which identity is analysed in relation to space. The various chapters interpret this construct in multiple and diverse ways not only as an individual choice but also as a result of the authors’ epistemological perspective. The contributions, from social and discursive psychology and anthropology besides sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis, offer diverse insights into the topic of place-identity by approaching it from a variety of methodologies and perspectives. With regard to the methodological approach, there are longitudinal case studies (Hocking et. al., Koven), research based on focus groups (Merino and De Fina) and interviews (Piazza, Scully, Higgins, Baynham), ethnographies (Divita, Oddi), theme and discourse analyses (Modan, Omoniyi and Daniluk). With regard to perspectives, the chapters approach place-identity from the point of view of language policy (Higgins), journalism (Omoniyi and Daniluk), diasporic and migration studies (Piazza, Koven, Divita), minority languages and communities (Higgins, Merino and De Fina, Scully), segregated groups (Hocking et. al., Oddi, Baynham), and tourism (Modan). The first part of the volume mobilises the concept of liminal identities in relation to time and space in terms of the Bakhtinian (1981) chronotope, as the representational configuration of time, space, and identity that is activated in social interaction. In the first chapter, Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina analyse the narratives of a group of Mapuche people from Chile, who have migrated to Santiago to seek employment opportunities. In their narratives, these people use the ‘chronotope of the south’ through the memories of life in southern Chile with which their narratives are interspersed and the references to story-worlds in which the family, traditions, and elders have a major role. Most importantly, by mobilising such a specific chronotope, these narrators authenticate themselves as real or original Mapuche. In this first contribution, liminality is the condition in which this group lives. Their residence in Santiago and desire for the south, their use of Spanish interspersed with the local language, Mapudungun, in sum, their hovering between an actual condition and a tension towards an idealised state is how their liminality is realised.
6 Roberta Piazza The next three contributions further explore the construct of chronotope. Liminality is understood in a similar guise as the condition of being suspended between the realis and the irrealis, between a material state and the coveting of a different experience. In Michele Koven’s case study, Ana, a Portuguese first generation immigrant to France, is interviewed in two distinct moments: when in France yearning to return to Portugal and, a few years later, while in Portugal after her counter-diasporic move. Ana’s liminality, then, is in her continuous longing to be someone else and in being a different persona to what she is: an ‘incorporation,’ to use van Gennep’s term, that she eventually manages to obtain when she moves back to Portugal. The core of the chapter is the investigation of desire, as the longing for a place that is discursively different according to the place and time in which that desire is communicated—i.e., wanting to be in Portugal while in France or thinking about the past pursuing of that dream after having realised it. Koven, therefore, considers how desire emerges relative to the narrating here-and-now chronotope and a narrated there-and-then chronotope (Blommaert and De Fina 2015). In a similar vein, David Divita investigates the written and oral narratives produced by a group of senior migrants who, having lived in France for a long time, are attending a class of Lengua Castellana in which they learn to read and write in Spanish, their original language. Rather than desire, this chapter explores the effects of nostalgia as ‘a longing for a place but it is actually a yearning for a different time’ (Boym 2007: 2). However, as with Koven’s chapter, nostalgia is mobilised in social interaction in relation to the interviewees’ past histories of migration as well as their situation now in later life. Although Divita refers to his participants as ‘marginal people’ and emphasise their being social outcasts in the host country, it is not difficult to see how they can be understood as liminals in terms of their living through the memories of their pueblo or the idealised village, which they left behind in Franco’s era. In fact, the group constructs the class of Lengua Castellana as a liminal place in which each participant feels free to experience nostalgia for a long-gone past. It is nostalgia among these people who are spatially and temporally dislocated that enables them to negotiate a new and solid inscription in the present. The liminality of the Roma youth community Mike Baynham discusses is similarly triggered by a desire for two Slovak Roma siblings living in Leeds to find a social space for cultural activities and design a successful business plan that will also earn them a living. As in Koven’s and Divita’s work, therefore, being liminal means being suspended between a reality of, in this case, social exclusion and the aspiration to reappropriate one’s heritage. Liminality also refers to the two siblings having lived outside the Roma community. Besides this, the same concept of place as discursively constructed and identity as inextricable from dreams and aspirations is central to this study.
Introduction 7 My own chapter on the narratives by a diasporic Zanzibari group understands diaspora in a way that avoids a reification of belonging; instead, diaspora is a complex process that determines collective entities unified by their similar existential experience across time and place, as well as individual subjectivities that are different, fluid, and in constant relation to a variety of geo-cultural contexts. The protagonist of the narratives is the island of Zanzibar and the 1964 Revolution that triggered the economic crisis and the political unrest culminating in the diasporic movement. The interviewees’ identities are inextricable from the way they construct their place and the roles they negotiate during the interview. Liminality, in this case, is once again heuristically useful to understand these people’s condition that, both in the case of the counterdiasporic returnees and those who never went back to the island, is a combination of memories, critical attitudes, and desire. While the first part of the volume discusses the construction of personal identity by liminal individuals in relation to space and time, and hence offers a composite discussion of the Bakhtinian concept of the chronotope, the second part explores how the relation of identity and space is influenced by choices at the institutional level. Marc Scully opens the section with a paper that focuses on Cornwall, an economically and politically deprived area in the UK. Cornwall’s liminal position derives from being both an English county and a Celtic ‘nation,’ although, as Scully notes, neither category actually reflects its true local identity. Cornwall is liminal in another and more important sense. It is at a point of tension between an Anglo centre and a Celtic periphery, but it can truly be imagined as very central to the Celtic region by sea routes according to the words of the Cornish activist that open the chapter. Discourse and identity construction in relation to place is central to this chapter as it is to the others in that Scully examines the identity construction of Cornishness as Celtic of a number of participants at a music and dance Celtic festival. The theme of tension and division is further explored in the joint chapter by Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, John Dixon, Neil Jarman, Dominic Bryan, Jonny Huck, Duncan Whyatt, and Gemma Davies, which, like Scully’s and Baynham’s, is the result of a funded project, in this case the Belfast Mobility Project. Set against the background of the post-Northern Irish conflict, the paper considers Belfast parks as liminal spaces in that they are civic, supposedly shared areas yet surrounded by segregated zones. Public spaces are often the object of tension between a push to shareability and a desire to limit their access to undesirable groups, such as street drinkers or rough sleepers as part of a process of securitisation of the public sphere. Hocking and colleagues highlight the crucial function of place-identity relationships as once again discursively constructed by participants during a series of walking interviews in the parks; more importantly, they
8 Roberta Piazza bring to the fore how such relationships influence and are determined by people’s perception of what a civic and shared space is and ought to be, what spaces can be shared and what people can share them. More than any specific and strategic design feature, place-identity relationships are the crucial factor in determining if a park is, in their words, welcoming or vice versa threatening and contested. The chapters by Christina Higgins and Edith Yoel deal with issues of language policy and investigate two very different situations, the ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i marginal language and the Hebrew dominant language in Israel, respectively. Higgins uses positioning (Bamberg 1997) and narrative analysis (De Fina 2013) to investigate the identity construction of new speakers of Hawaiian language, main actors in the revitalisation of their local language and inverting the long-lived language policy that imposed English on the islands. Through their narratives, the interviewees reappropriate their Hawaiian heritage, their connections to their land, their ancestors and ea, a Hawaiian term that relates to the linkage of life-breath-sovereignty. In so doing they challenge the liminality associated with Hawaiian, a language that does not favour upward mobility, disengage from conventional ideologies about learning languages, and instead prioritise alternative values and beliefs. Yoel similarly examines the relationship between language and identity at the institutional level. Starting from a consideration of the 2009 language policy in Israel that, in the attempt to unify Israel and strengthen its national identity, dictates that all road signs be in Hebrew and both Arabic and English be transliterated in Hebrew, she examines the effects such a choice has on the sense of identity of two groups of Israeli citizens, native speakers of Arabic and native speakers of English. Despite its official recognition, Arabic still has lower status and Hebrew is the dominant language. Similarly, English is not perceived as the international code. While English speakers are less affected by the road sign policy, Arab speakers are offended and humiliated by it and identify the policy as a new affront to their identity. Two different scenarios, therefore, are presented in these chapters, one focusing on revitalising a language and empowering its speakers, the other on marginalising it and annulling its speakers’ identity. Yet, the two papers reflect not just on the space-identity relation but on liminality. In the former case, liminality is associated with an emerging but not yet solidly established Hawaiian language; in the other, there is a double liminality that is, on the one hand, linked to the attempted segregation of Arabic, and on the other, to the continually emerging plan to make Hebrew the only dominant language in Israel’s melting-pot society. In Gabriella Modan’s chapter, Amsterdam Jews are constructed as liminals in the discourse of the city’s self-guided tours. Jews are described as historically associated with Amsterdam history but, at the same time, as excluded from that society. The guides emphasise the pre- and wartime
Introduction 9 period during which the local Gentile population of Amsterdam showed tolerance towards the persecuted Jews. By so doing, such a discourse of apparent openness, however, in the first place reduces Jews to the persecuted, disgraced, unfortunate ones, while at the same time obscures the Amsterdammers’ antisemitism after the war. Modan makes an interesting point about liminality. She notices that in Turner’s view, it has a function for society as a whole as well as for those who are liminals, who have the possibility of growing and leaving that state of suspension and move to the phase of incorporation. This, however, is not the case for the Jews in the self-guided tours who are persistently marginalised as persecuted victims and permanently liminals in the interest of the majoritarian society that advertises a narrative of tolerance, totally obscuring the Dutch antisemitism of war time and later periods. Eva Oddi’s next contribution looks at the important issue of the national provision for the mental health sufferers. While she emphasises the crucial importance of reducing the stigma around it, she makes the crucial point that a specific focus on the individual tends to gloss over the role of the wider social texture, not solely in terms of the cuts to the services but also in terms of society’s general responsibility for mental health conditions. Such an approach restricts the problem to the individual sufferers chastising them for their problems in a de-contextualised way. Oddi supports the exploration of this core theme by analysing conversations with a client of The Hub, a day support centre in Hackney, London for those who suffer from a severe mental condition. The attachment the clients show to The Hub and the way they construct their identities around it are a clear indication of how crucial support is for them. The liminality of The Hub in Oddi’s paper, in which mental health sufferers find protection and solace from an otherwise antagonistic and excluding society, is interpreted in a metaphoric guise in the last paper by Tope Omoniyi, the late colleague and friend to whom this volume is dedicated, and Lukasz Daniluk. This conclusive chapter explores the concept and representations of ‘offshore’ investments as liminal places in which questionable financial activities can occur. ‘Offshore’ is liminal in that it is physically positioned on the margins of reality, as well as being an ‘abstract site of interrogations’ in which the avoidance of financial and fiscal regulations often spurs international scandals. Omoniyi and Daniluk use Appadurai’s (1990) notion of mediascape as ‘the distribution of electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information’ (pp. 298–9), to explore the narratives of identity behind the Panama Papers scandal. The crucial point the authors make is that such narratives are connected to international agents around the world while still linked to their respective nations. Benefitting from this point, Omoniyi and Daniluk propose that the notion of mediascape, as a body of worldwide media practitioners and law firms, may ‘fit the framework of a postnational sociolinguistics.’
10 Roberta Piazza I have so far attempted to pull together the threads that run through the chapters in the volume. Despite the rich variety of methodologies and viewpoints, the contributions understand liminality in a number of interesting factual and symbolic ways. Besides this, they engage the reader in a cohesive discussion of how place is constructed in relation to selfhood, many discussing affect in the sense of nostalgia and desire as the non-sexual drive to a real or metaphorical place, others engaging with the Bakhtinian-inspired concept of time and space (chronotope) as integral to identity and paying attention to authenticity as the search for an imaginary or stereotyped true self. The volume, therefore, contributes to the literature on identity by prioritising the place/space dimension, which is still not sufficiently investigated in recent sociolinguistic research, by proposing the angle of liminality, albeit variously and broadly interpreted. The rich range of geographical, linguistic, and cultural contexts the contributions cover—namely, Chile, Hawaii, Ireland, Israel, Portugal, Panama, and Tanzania—shed light on the complexity of the topic. The strong element of multi-disciplinarity, still relatively new to a discussion of identity (a recent exception being the special issue of CADAAD journal Discourse: multidisciplinary perspectives on identity, 9(12) Piazza and Taylor eds 2017), which characterises this collection is another contribution to the reflection on place-identity.
References Appadurai, A. 1990. Disjuncture and difference in global cultural economy. Theory, Culture and Society 7: 295–310. Bakhtin, M. M. 1981. The dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bamberg, M. 1997. Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of Narrative and Life History 7(1–4): 335–342. Blommaert, J. 2005. Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blommaert, J. and De Fina, A. 2015. Chronotopic identities: On the time space organization of who we are. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 153. Buckingham, D. 2007. Introducing identity. In D. Buckingham ed., Youth, identity, and digital media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1–24. Brubaker, R. and Cooper, F. 2000. Beyond ‘identity’. Theory and Society 29(1): 1–47. Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. 2005. Identity crisis? Language & Communication 25(2), 107–125. Casey, E. S. 1997. The fate of place: A philosophical history. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. Boym, S. 2007. Nostalgia and its discontent. The Hedgehog Review, Summer: 7–18. Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. 2005. Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7(4–5): 584–614.
Introduction 11 De Fina, A. 2003. Identity in narrative: A study of immigrant discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. De Fina, A. 2013. Positioning level 3: Connecting local identity displays to macro social processes. Narrative Inquiry 23(1): 40–61. Derrida, J. 1983. Of grammatology, trans. G. Chakravorty Spivak. Derrida, J. 1997 (1967). Of grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Dixon, J. and Durrhein, K. 2000. Displacing place-identity: A discursive approach to locating self and other. Journal of Social Psychology 39(1): 27–44. Dixon, J. and Durrheim, K. 2004. Dislocating identity: Desegregation and the transformation of place. Journal of Environmental Psychology 24: 455–473. Edwards, J. 2009. Language and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eksner, H. J. and Orellana, M. 2005. Liminality as linguistic process: Immigrant youths and experiences of language in Germany and the United States. In J. Knoerre, ed., Childhood and migration. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 175–206. Fasulo, A. and Piazza, R. 2015. Introduction. In R. Piazza and A. Fasulo, eds., Marked identities. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–15. Georgalou, M. 2017. Discourse and identity on Facebook. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hall, S. 2000. Who needs identity? In P. Du Gay, J. Evans and P. Redman, eds., Identity: A reader. London: Sage, pp. 15–30. Hult, F. 2014. Drive-thru linguistic landscaping. International Journal of Bilingualism 18(5): 507–523. Kulik, D. 2005. The importance of what gets left out. Discourse Studies 7(4–5): 615–624. Laclau, E. 1990. New reflections on the revolution of our time. London: Routledge. Liebscher, G. and Dailey-O’Cain, J. 2013. Language, space and identity in migration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Piazza, R. and Taylor, C. eds. 2017. Special issue: Discourse: Multidisciplinary perspectives on identity. CADAAD: International Network Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines 9(2). Proshansky, H., Fabian, A. and Kaminoff, R. 1983. Place-identity: Physical world socialization of the self. Journal of Environmental Psychology 3: 57–83. Turner, V. 1967. Betwixt and between: The liminal period in rites de passage. In The forest of symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Turner, V. 1969. The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Turner, V. 1974. Liminal to liminoid in play, flow, and ritual: An essay in comparative symbology. Rice Institute Pamphlet–Rice University Studies 60(3). http://hdl.handle.net/1911/63159. Van Gennep, A. 1960. The rites of passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zimmerman, D. H. 1998. Discourse identities and social identities. In C. Ataki and S. Widdicombe, eds., Identities in talk. London: Sage, pp. 87–106.
Part I
Liminality and Chronotope
1 Chronotopic Identities: The South in the Narratives Told by Members of Mapuche Communities in Chile Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina 1. Introduction In this chapter, we focus on the centrality of what we will call “the chronotope of the south” in the discourse of members of Mapuche families who, due to poverty conditions of their indigenous communities, have migrated to Santiago in search of work opportunities and can thus be regarded as belonging to a group which is liminal to society. We will concentrate on narrative discourse and on the ways in which this chronotope is recruited by the interviewees in order to authenticate a “real Mapuche” identity for themselves and to negotiate it with the interviewer. The analysis will also allow us to trace and describe how the chronotope is conceived of by interactants in terms of space and time and what kinds of actions and identities are associated with it. This in turn will provide a picture of how members of these Mapuche communities define their ethnic identity. 1.1. Storytelling as Practice Narrative discourse has a central role in the interviews and focus groups that were conducted with members of Mapuche families. This in itself is an interesting fact as it points to the orientation that these interviewees show towards their past both in terms of family origins and in terms of past events. Young and old Mapuche told in the interviews many narratives about traditional practices carried out by their parents and relatives on specific occasions, about their experiences with travels to the south and prolonged sojourns there and their memories of family life as children. Older Mapuche also told historical narratives about the origins of their people and their struggles with the Chilean government.1 These narratives, as discussed later, represented a great variety of genres: from canonical stories as described by Labov (1972), to habitual narratives, to “narrative references”—i.e., brief evocations of past actions mainly attributed to family members—to historical recountings (for an extended discussion of these narrative types see Merino et al.
16 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina 2017). This variety demonstrates a point that has been made repeatedly by interactionally oriented scholars of narrative (see Young 1987; Ochs and Capps 2001; Baynham 2003; De Fina and Georgakopoulou 2012, 2015), (i.e.) that everyday narratives take many different forms, that these forms need to be investigated in concrete occasions of interaction and that a primacy of the focus on the canonical story can only lead to neglecting not only other narrative genres but also the multifaceted ways in which people convey meanings through storytelling. We do take as a reference for the definition of narratives in context their being usually, but not always, about the past and the fact that the events depicted happen in some kind of scenario and involve specific characters, but we also regard the description and study of narrative discourse as fundamentally grounded in concrete storytelling exchanges. This view then leads to a conception of storytelling as a semiotic practice that is always embedded within other discursive and non-discursive practices and cannot be isolated from them. People tell and recognise stories and narratives as part of other communicative and institutional practices such as legal depositions, convivial exchanges, medical consultations, interviews, social media communications and these contexts profoundly change not only the kinds of genres that are deployed but also the participation frameworks that interactants enter into, the storytelling modes, and the kinds of communicative and informational functions that these texts have. Thus, scholars (see among many others Page 2012) have shown, for example, that what counts as a story on Facebook and on social media in general may be quite different from what counts as a story in face to face interaction. In this chapter we follow such interactionist and practice-based perspective, and, therefore, we investigate narratives as emerging within interviews that involve members of the same ethnic group, although not of the same local community. This situation makes identity negotiations particularly important, especially in the context of questions about the maintenance, omission of Mapuche customs in Santiago de Chile and that is why theorisations about identities are relevant to the analysis carried out here. 1.2. The Social Construction of Identities Our frame of reference is social constructionist conceptions of identity (Hall 2000) that regard it not as a collection of attributes residing in mind and perception, but as a process that is continuously negotiated at the local level through discursive work (see Bucholtz and Hall 2005; De Fina et al. 2006). Within these views, the relevance of specific identities cannot be presupposed by the researcher but needs to be demonstrated through close attention to local interactions (Benwell and Stokoe 2006) and to
Chronotopic Identities 17 the way categories of belonging are introduced and negotiated. Much of this literature also recognises the interplay between brought along and brought about identities (see Baynham 2015), in the sense that the interactional sphere constitutes the arena for the indexing or the explicit reference to identity categories that are widely shared socially and transcend the local scale such as gender, age, ethnic belonging, etc. Ways in which such links between the local and other scales are created and positionings are established by participants in discourse vary from the use of explicit discourse categories and acts of identity to the indexing of social identities through linguistic elements and expressions, to switches in style and language variety. Narrative has been shown to be a privileged site for the construction and negotiation of identities (see Georgakopoulou 2007; De Fina and Georgakopoulou 2015) thanks to the possibility for narrators to position themselves simultaneously as characters at the level of the storytelling world, as participants at the level of the storytelling world and as people in different social worlds (see Bamberg 1997; Depperman 2013). We will show in our analysis how these positions are achieved through the evoking of actions and characters in story-worlds that are firmly anchored in the chronotope of the south. 1.3. Time, Space, and the Chronotope In early theorisations about narrative in linguistics and many other disciplines, time was seen as the defining element to characterise narrative discourse. The primacy of temporal ordering has been accepted as a basic principle of narrative organisation both in narratology (see Genette 1980; Prince 1982; Ricoeur 1984) and in linguistics. Labov (1972) for example, incorporated time in his definition of narrative as the “recapitulation of past experience” (p. 359), while Ochs and Capps (2001) characterised personal narrative as ‘a way of using language or another symbolic system to imbue life events with a temporal and logic order’ (p. 2). However, narrative analysts have problematised a view of narrative based on linear time organisation by showing, for example, that narrative time can be cyclical and habitual and that narrative juncture is not a property of all narratives (see Carranza 1998; Mishler 2006; Baynham 2003). They have also questioned the ‘belief that temporality is the only significant dimension’ in narrative (Adams 1996: 129) and have started to consider with greater interest the role of space and the interplay between time and space in the evocation and structuring of story-worlds (see De Fina 2003; Haviland 2005; Liebscher and Dailey-O’ Cain 2013; Santello 2017). Within this perspective, the notion of chronotope has emerged as a very useful construct to study the connectedness of space and time in discourse. This construct, originally proposed by Bakhtin (1990) has, in recent times, experienced a surge in interest. Originally, Bakhtin (1990)
18 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina talked about chronotopes in his examination of literary works. In his words: In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot, and history. The intersection of axes and fusion of indicators characterizes the artistic chronotope. (p. 84) Bakhtin was looking at ways in which types of situations or tropes in the novel evoked characters, spaces and times that constituted a unit of some sort. Thus, he pointed to the existence of chronotopes such as that of the meeting, the road, the castle, the salon, the public square. In essence, Bakhtin captured the idea that humans tend to experience and understand reality within specific time/space contexts. As noted by literary critics (see Bemong and Boghart 2010), Bakhtin’s interest in chronotopes was related to his attempt to contribute to a typology of narrative genres, and for this reason, he described how certain chronotopes were used in and characterised the main western literary genres. As this author did not fully develop his theory, a great many interpretations exist not only in literature but also in other disciplines, particularly on the criteria that can be used to identify chronotopes and on the level at which chronotopes can be recognised. In linguistics, many applications have been proposed (see among others Blommaert 2015; Dick 2010; Karimzad and Catedral 2017). In narrative specifically, the construct has been used in particular to refer to the coexistence within storytelling of two different chronotopic realities: the story-world and the storytelling world (see, for example, Koven and Simoes Marquez 2015; Perrino 2015). However, recently the reflection on chronotopic relations has been extended to include identities. As noted by Agha (2007), notions of time and space are indissolubly connected with human identity and action. In his words ‘entextualized projections of time cannot be isolated from those of locale and personhood’ (p. 320), that means that places, identities and times are often tied together in discourse and in other kinds of semiotic practices. In a recent work on this topic Blommaert and De Fina (2017) argued that ‘it is possible to see and describe much of what is observed as contemporary identity work as being chronotopically organized’ and ‘it is organized, or at least with reference to, specific time-space configurations which are nonrandom and compelling as contexts’ (p. 1). Thus, identities that are socially enregistered are often embedded within specific times and spaces, and in that sense, they can be seen as embodiments of social types; for example, indigenous cultural maintenance in displaced contexts.
Chronotopic Identities 19 Social figures as diverse as ancient Greek heroes such as Ulysses or modern football fans can be described in terms of expected behaviours within the boundaries of time/space connections. Thus, social types are not abstract representations: they are located in certain places and in certain historical periods and they are indexically associated with both verbal and non-verbal behaviours. Blommaert and De Fina (2017) discuss how both small and big changes in time and place may be associated with changes in chronotopic identities. We apply these insights to the negotiation of ethnic identities by members of Mapuche families in interview by showing how their main strategy of authentication of their ethnic identity is a reference to life in the south, in particular to story-worlds that are embedded in the south of Chile in past time and populated by members of their families (particularly elders) performing specific actions. While this chronotope is evoked through different kinds of stories, it is also presented as a necessary point of return for the learning of traditional practices or the bringing of essential ingredients for cooking. We will go into greater detail on the characteristics of this chronotope once we analyse our data. Before presenting the data and analysis, however, we need to give some background on the Mapuche in Chile.
2. Context. The Mapuche in Chile The Mapuche constitute the largest indigenous population in Chile. According to the Census (2017), the population of Mapuche people in Chile is 1,329,450 while 1,700,000 of them live in Santiago and 957,224 live in the Araucania region. The Mapuche population is equivalent to the 10% of the total national population (17,373,831). The Mapuche were the first inhabitants of half of the territory today known as Chile and Argentina and their population reached two million. Even though they have suffered centuries of land deprivation and sociocultural, political, and economic domination and forced migration to urban areas, they are still culturally and linguistically vital. Spanish colonisers in the Americas and later the Chilean in Chile carried out a systematic dispossession of their lands and ancestral ritual sites.2 The argument behind this was that they were not productive (since they handle a subsistence economy) and, therefore, they hindered the nation’s progress (Merino et al. 2009); therefore, Chilean intervention and occupation of the territories were seen as justified in term of using and commercialising the natural resources available. Conflicts between the dominant society and the displaced Mapuche communities have continued to flare and they are still very much present today. Within this historical frame, their displacement from the southern territories to the capital of Chile has been a challenge for them and has resulted in an ongoing process involving continuous mobility and communication between their sending communities
20 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina and Santiago, and also between past and present through their narratives of migration. However, still little is known about the consequences and also the connections and cultural practices they keep with their ancestral land-territory at a distance (Merino et al. 2017). In recent years, the Chilean government has tried to redress some of the inequities of the past and in 1993 Law 9,.253, which officially recognised the Mapuche people and seven other ethnic minorities as well as the Mapudungun, the Mapuche language, and culture, was passed in parliament. Mapundungun, whose use was prohibited before, is now included in the curriculum of rural elementary schools in the Araucania region. However, the Mapuche are still not integrated into mainstream society and very few of them have reached government positions. In 2006, among Chile’s 38 senators and 120 deputies, only one identified as indigenous. Furthermore, prejudice and discrimination against Mapuche are still rampant in contemporary Chilean society. Such discrimination has been reported in everyday oral interaction among Chileans (Merino and Quilaqueo 2003; Merino and Quilaqueo 2004; Merino and Quilaqueo 2007); in public and political discourse (San Martín 2001; Merino and Quilaqueo 2004); and in educational practices and school textbooks (Merino and Quilaqueo 2007).
3. Data, Participants, and Methodology The data on which this chapter is based are taken from a wider ethnographic project that was aimed at studying whether and how Mapuche indigenous people living in Santiago reproduce traditional practices and what kinds of identity allegiances they negotiated in discourse. The study was carried out through visits to the homes of 12 Mapuche families from four communes of Santiago which have large proportions of the Mapuche population (Census 2017). These are Peñalolén (30,534 residents), La Pintana (27,540), Cerro Navia (20,814), and Lo Prado (12,689). In the communes, Mapuche live in unfavourable physical and environmental conditions, in basic state-subsidised housing in minuscule spaces, and enjoy scarce green recreational areas. Besides, these communes exhibit high levels of social vulnerability reflected in unemployment, unlawful behaviour, and high drug and alcohol consumption rates. Urban Mapuche families are regularly of an extended character3 including parents, children, adolescents, grandparents, uncles/and or aunts, and sometimes ‘allegados’4 migrated from the south. The study involved interviews and observations of space distribution in the homes and outside, traditional gatherings and interviews both with individuals and focus groups. Participants’ inclusion criteria considered self-identification as Mapuche, one of the family members having migrated to Santiago, and representativeness in terms of various levels of educational attainment and of different types of work activities.
Chronotopic Identities 21 Participation of interviewees was voluntary, and anonymity and confidentiality were guaranteed through an informed consent signed by the participants. The data was collected through conversational interviews held in Spanish but with switches to Mapudungun, with duration of one hour and in the case of family focus groups of around two hours. The interviews and focus groups were semi-structured in the sense that they were based on a set of topics but were also open according to the responses of interviewees. The questions and directions were revised after a pilot study. The main interviewer was a native speaker Mapuche woman who is a member of the research project and who lives in the south. These characteristics had the potential to trigger some degree of concern and stress among family members because they reside in the capital city of the country and not in their communities of origin in the south, particularly among adults and young people born in Santiago who do not speak the language. However, at the same, time the presence of this interviewer can be felt as a challenge for families to reflect on their ethnic identity within the urban context. The interviewer showed respect for the cultural characteristics and protocol5 of the Mapuche dialogue (ngütram) and used Mapudungun or Spanish depending on the informants’ preference. This is an important point to understand how identities were negotiated in interview talk since the interviewees viewed the interviewer as an authentic Mapuche and therefore a potential judge of their own authenticity. Thus, identities were largely co-constructed through discursive work by all participants. Data collection was held at participants’ homes to comply with the conditions of privacy and to maintain a conversation in an environment of trust and have quietness conditions to allow audio recording. Subsequently, the narratives were transcribed to a digital format for the analysis. For the purpose of this chapter 12 out of the total 48 interviews and focus groups were selected in consideration of the presence of narratives and within them the negotiation of personal and group identities. The narratives selected represent two types that we call ‘narrative references’ and ‘narratives of traditional practices’ (Merino et al. 2017). Both constitute the terrain for identity negotiation of what it means to be an authentic member of the Mapuche community within an urban context. Narrative references are brief, fragmentary tellings that make reference to events or actions whose protagonists are usually elders. Narratives of traditional practices are also embedded within conversation and relate to the preparation, staging and performance of cultural rites and ceremonies. Finally, for an in-depth comprehension of the excerpts in the analysis, we provide some contextualising information about the participants is provided. For this, we keep the interviewees’ first name initial word, sex, age, activity, and the commune where they
22 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina currently live in Santiago. All the examples discussed next come from focus group interviews.
4. Memories of Life in the South Memories of life in the south are performed by participants to negotiate their ethnic identities and authenticate themselves as ‘real’ Mapuches in an urban setting. They are entextualised in narration through references to story-worlds that are embedded in the south of Chile in past time and which are populated by members of the narrators’ families, particularly the elders, who perform specific cultural actions. In the following excerpt, taken from a focus group with a family in the Cerro Navia commune, life in the south is presented as the basis for a complete change in the life of the narrator: (1) [J: man, 45, labourer, born in Santiago; A: woman, J’s sister, 48, Mapuche medicine practitioner, born in Santiago; focus group; I: interviewer; Cerro Navia] 1. I: and do you still have relatives in the south? 2. A: (.) oh yeah my mom’s family over there is from the south (.) the Xxx (family surname) 3. J: yeah (.) I met some of them (.) ahh during the process that I stayed in the farm (.) 4. that made me change (.) from a person who was walking straightforward to become 5. violent (.) I was straightforward to become a transgressor (0.1) mmh I would already 6. be in prison or maybe dead ’cause of the habits (0.) I was already adopting (.) city 7. behaviours (.) I would have not been a Mapuche anymore ’cause I was already adopting 8. urban habits (.) ’cause I was born as an urban guy (.) but I left for the farm (.) and 9. there I learned how to plough (.) remove the weed (.) I know how to cultivate the 10. land in large extensions (.) I sowed wheat (.) made my orchard (.) 11. A: yeah (.) my brother lived with my dad there in the south (.) 12. J: yeah (.) I built a ruka 6with my dad (.) in fact since I was 12 until 18 I lived in a 13. ruka that he had built before made of molkachu7 (.) which later we remade into junquillo8 14. (0.2) and while being in the farm (.) I say I learned (.) I don’t know (.) I know the birds (.) 15. I know birds better than people and (.) I used to listen to them “pipipipi (.) this is that 16. kind of bird” and “papapapa (.) this is such other bird”
Chronotopic Identities 23 At the beginning of the fragment, I introduces a question about A’s relatives and she makes reference to the south as a possible place of residence. This prompts A to immediately stress (through deictic ‘over there’ line 2) the southern origins of her mother’s family, which in turn leads J to start his narrative. He states that he met some of those relatives while he lived in the south. Note that he describes this stay in the farm as a ‘process’ of change (lines 3–4), a characterisation that anticipates the gist of his narrative, the profound effect of having lived many years with his father in the south on his life. Indeed, he follows with an argument about the fact that, as an urban Mapuche living in the poorest outskirts of the city, he would have been doomed to become a lawbreaker, thus creating a moral contrast between the character of a city person and that of a person who lives in the field. Such contrast is stressed through the iteration of the expression ‘walking straightforward to’ (lines 4, 5) to characterise the progression towards delinquency. J lists the cultural experiences that impacted him and helped him become a different person: learning how to plough, remove weeds, cultivate the land, living in his father’s ancestral ruka and helping him to build a new one later. Note how the chronotope of the south is evoked through J’s use of ‘the farm’ as a synonym of the south (line 8), and of the deictic ‘ahí’ (line 9), a place adverb midway between ‘here’ and ‘there.’ In lines 9–10 J backs up the idea that his life was changed by his stay in the south by further exhibiting his knowledge of farm and land work, through stress on having learned about bird breed and their whistling. Note his imitation of the birds’ singing that further authenticates him as a ‘real’ connoisseur and therefore also as a legitimate Mapuche with the interviewer as well as with the rest of his family in the focus group. In sum, in this fragment J uses the chronotope of the south to oppose two moral figures: the one of the urban Mapuche who is necessarily doomed to become a delinquent, and the one of the authentic Mapuche who, through the experience of living in the farm in the ancestral land and learning to perform agricultural work also elevates himself spiritually. The opposition, in turn, is used to demonstrate to the interviewer that city living has not destroyed J’s true nature and that he is still an authentic Mapuche. As we will discuss later, its location in rural space as opposed to location in urban space that is one of the central characteristics of the chronotope of the south.
5. Iteration of Travels to the South In participants’ narratives the iteration of travels to the south to visit relatives, participate in relevant cultural ceremonies, and/or bring Mapuche items to Santiago, exemplifies the co-construction of several chronotopic realities: This is revealed in the interplay of different times and spaces in the evocation and structuring of participants’ story-worlds that involve actions and characters in Santiago and in the south and the weaving of these experiences into their present storytelling world. Their trips to their
24 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina indigenous communities in the south to participate in traditional ceremonies or bring ‘original’ ingredients or food items are brought about in the present interaction as ways of stressing their links to the Mapuche culture. This interplay between the different chronotopes is shown in the narratives that follow. (2) [G: woman, 59, housewife, migrant; I: interviewer, interview, Peñalolen] 1. I: (.) so you sell toasted flour here in your shop 2. G: oh yes (.) my neighbours like toasted flour9 very much (.) because it’s good, 3. very healthy and natural (.) it’s made of wheat flour (.) ’cause here they sell 4. flour made of anything (.) not specifically of wheat (.) then the people [her neighbour 5. clients] they all come to get the flour (.) ’cause they pass on the information to one 6. another (.) there they sell good flour so:: we travel to buy there (.) and we 7. always run out of toasted flour (0,1) in fact M [G’s son] when he went in the summer 8. time he brought around (.) 30 kilos and guess (.) in little time we sold it out 9. ‘cause toasted flour sells very well (.) hhh because there are many people here 10. [Peñalolen commune] that are from the south (.) and they know toasted flour 11. and they know that it is a food that (.) most of us who lived in the south we:: 12. were raised with toasted flour (.) so then the people [neighbour clients] 13. as I said (.) they like it very much. G earns her living on a small market that she runs at home where she sells organic toasted flour, candies, and other minor items, so I prompts her to provide more details about this Mapuche food. In her story, G positions toasted flour as a natural and healthy food brought from the south and highly valued and consumed by her neighbour clients (lines 4–6). Indeed, G and /or her son regularly travel to the south to buy this product and keep the stock of it at her shop (lines 6,7). Through first person singular and plural pronouns, G attributes to herself and her son agentic roles within the story-world in bringing the toasted flour from her family farm in the south (lines 6–8). We can observe this in G’s pronoun selection which she orients to the negotiation of her ethnic identity with
Chronotopic Identities 25 the Mapuche interviewer (lines 6–8). A similar resource is observed in lines 10–12 where G discusses her genuine membership to the Mapuche communities in the south. At the same time, G indexes an implicit distinction between Chilean and Mapuche food and its nutritional habits. Furthermore, the chronotope of the south is used here to create a contrast between the way the flour is prepared and sold in Santiago and the way it is prepared by the Mapuche people. This opposition implies different views of nutrition in two worlds: one where food is “good and natural” and one where it is just something else for consumption. This contrast is elaborated through the opposition between the deictics ‘here’ (Santiago) (lines 3,6,9) and ‘there’ (line 6), and also between Santiago residents and people from the south (lines 10,11). Knowing and being able to prepare good toasted flour is thus constructed in lines 10–13 as a typical trait of the Mapuche people. In this way, the whole excerpt reveals G’s negotiation of her genuine Mapuche identity with the interviewer within the storytelling world. Indeed, having migrated to the capital city a long time before the interview took place G is likely to experience the same fear of being identified as an urbanised Mapuche that we saw expressed by J in fragment (1). Finally, the iteration of travels to the south in our participant’s narrative serves the purpose of displaying that G cultivates her contact with southern relatives, and also of reinforcing her ethnic identity presentation. By stressing how all her neighbours like toasted flour and its nutritional value, G is implicitly stressing the superiority of her culture with respect to the local culture. Travels to the south are highlighted as important for other cultural practices as well. Thus, participants, predominantly women, declared that they constantly travel to their relatives’ place to join in a variety of cultural rites, as shown in the following testimony, which reveals the magnitude of the chronotope of the ‘south’ in the narrative construction of ethnic identity among Mapuche families in Santiago. (3) [P: woman; 22; technical school student; born in Santiago; I: interviewer; Peñalolen; interview] 1. I: and do you participate in cultural activities? 2. P: (.) well:: I play the kultrun10 (.) 3. I: oh really? 4. P: yes (.) some time ago (.) we went (.) my mom and I (.) travelled to 5. the south (.) ’cause they invited us to go and (.) I stayed there (.) helping 6. her to play the kultrun 7. I: that’s great you accompany your mother to play the kultrun 8. P: yeah (.) it was for a ngillatun11 they held there (.) and it was very exciting 9. for me (.) playing with my mom (.) very moving (.)
26 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina Playing the kultrun is not frequent among young Mapuche since it is a religious musical instrument and mainly played by a machi12 or expert assistant to religious leaders. For this reason, having this ability makes young P an interesting case. But as she explains, she was taught by her mother who, in turn, had been instructed in how to play this instrument by a machi relative in the community when she used to live in the south. This family background keeps P and her mother regularly connected to the south to where they travel to participate in cultural rites. In this fragment, P authenticates and negotiates her ethnic identity with the interviewer by highlighting her expertise in playing the kultrun with her mother in religious ceremonies. This is performed by the plural pronoun ‘we’ and her and her mother’s agentive roles as main characters in the story-world (lines 2–8). This allows P self-present as a genuine and also ‘special’ Mapuche person, considering her youth and being born in Santiago, far from her indigenous community. The chronotope of the south is observed in P’s central participation in the reproduction of an ancestral ceremony (ngillatun) in present time and in its original setting where the playing of this instrument is practiced and properly passed on in the southern indigenous community. The two aforementioned excerpts reveal the role that the chronotope of the south plays in reinforcing and nurturing participants’ ethnic identities, either through explicit references to practices realised there or through its indexing in the narratives of travels to that land. At the same time, these narratives reveal how frequent travels to the south are seen by Mapuche as allowing them to strengthen their sense of belonging to the culture, even though displacement to the capital city may imply a major disruption of the original cultural environment and the impact of socio-economic and institutional practices imposed by mainstream society. This discourse of belonging and cultivating that belonging through contact seems crucial for interviewees when interacting with a Mapuche interviewer who may symbolise the ‘real’ Mapuche due to her residence in the south and being a fluent Mapudungun13 speaker.
6. Reproducing Traditional Practices Another way in which migrated families in Santiago stress the maintenance of their ethnic identity in the urban and culturally threatening context of the peripheral poor districts where they are provided State houses is the recreation of traditional practices within their houses. Migrants modify and adapt tiny and cement dominated houses to build small gardens or add plants to their kitchens, but they also try to continue performing traditional practices in their new dwellings. Our participants narrated these experiences in stories that recount, among others, how they continue to cook ancestral dishes, to perform dream interpretation
Chronotopic Identities 27 and to practice ancestral herbal medicine and spirituality. These activities are symbolically transferred from their communities of origin in the south and are recreated in urban settings that families adapt for such purposes, but they are always discursively linked to Mapuche identity through their relations with the chronotope of the south. 6.1. Ancestral Food in the City Ancestral food preparation (zeuma iyael) is a sensitive and spiritual14 practice that the Mapuche perform to keep the che (being/person) balanced, with energy and strength. The ancestral practice of yafutuwün involves valuing food as a source of spiritual energy that provides inspiration and strength to the person. Recreating Mapuche food preparation in Santiago is characterised by the reunion of family members in a relaxed, empathic and affective conversation (ngütram15) while they share a matetun,16 accompanied by various ancestral food items. In the following fragment, the family focus group talks about sitting around the kitchen table, a practice that recreates the Mapuche ruka and its central open hearth in the indigenous communities while sharing beverages and food items. (4) [J: man, 57, restaurant cook, migrant; R: man, 23, J’s son, technical studies, born in Santiago; Jo: man, 52, J’s brother in law, restaurant cook, migrant; I: Mapuche interviewer, Focus group; Lo Prado] 1. I: so do you have here at home any place where you practice the Mapuche 2. culture? For example here:: 3. R: resoundingly not ((everybody laughs)) 4. Jo: ahh it’s because there’s not enough space here (.) 5. I: mmm but for example when the family gathers:: 6. J: oh:::yes (.) here (.) when the family gathers it’s mainly to talk around 7. the matetun17 as it’s called in Mapuche (.) to drink mate18 (.) okay? With 8. ñiwin kofke19 heh heh heh with sopaipillas (.) 9. Jo: yeah with sopaipillas, with kofke20ah? With bread (.) with everything 10. J: we share with that (.) 11. Jo: yeah that’s shared and (.) 12. J: we talk21 and (.) we always get to the same topic eh::: about the origins 13. Jo: yeah the origins (.) one always talks about that so the kids can listen (.)
28 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina 14. one talks about the Mapuche origin and (.) about our grandparents hhh 15. J: mmm what our grannies were like (.) and about our mom and dad see::? In (3.1) J and Jo engage in a narration of habitual actions portraying the dishes they eat when the family meets. The chronotope of the south is indexed here through the phrase ‘the origins’ (line 13) that participants refer to as the central topic of the family conversation. ‘The origins’ index the extended family left behind, the ancestors, the family’s tukun and küpan and the territory from which the elders migrated. Talk about origins also plays a major role in socialising the youngest members of families into knowing about their ancestors to build in them a solid ethnic identity. In the excerpt, I inquires whether the family have a space in which to carry out traditional practices (lines 1, 2), to which young R responds with a resounding and sarcastic denial that provokes general laughter. With this emphatic adverbial voicing strategy in the storytelling world, R disputes his social role within the family, as the youngest member. R’s narrative implicitly points to the overcrowded conditions that immigrants live in minute state houses in Santiago, an argument that is supported and enhanced by Jo (lines 3,4). Note how Jo iteratively self-positions as a secondary character by echoing and aligning with J’s positioning (lines 4,9,11). This may be explained by Jo’s status as J’s brother-in-law and as an ‘allegado’ of the family (see endnote 4). J depicts his family gatherings as occasions for talking but also mentions the traditional food and drink that characterise such meetings such as the “matetun,” which he thoroughly describes and translates into Spanish, in order to show off his knowledge of traditional terms and dishes (lines 6–8). With this, J displays his cultural wisdom within the story-world to position as the main character in the narrative, while at the same time, he negotiates his ethnic identity with the Mapuche interviewer. J and Jo’s voicing then co-constructs a list of dishes that must be at the table of a Mapuche, and that, following the tradition, must be shared (lines 10 and 11). Note how the three participants engage in an interaction of mutual authentication as they list these typical Mapuche dishes and drinks. As we mentioned, J’s narrative poses the chronotope of ‘the origins’ as the main topic of conversation during the family matetun. It is important to note here that talk about origins is characterised through a narrative reference (line 14) as being about ‘what our grannies were like (.) and about our mom and dad.’ Once again the construction of the authentic Mapuche is defined in terms of links between the present activities and the activities and identities of elders and ancestors living in the south.
Chronotopic Identities 29 6.2. Ancestral Medicine in Urban Context For Mapuche people plants represent the essence of life and are associated to the mongen (everything that has life), hence, they feel that there is a natural relationship with the ‘greenery,’ which represents life and enhances person-nature bond in everyday life. Plants and herbs fulfil not only a role for aesthetic and ornamental reasons, but they are also used for the preparation of natural medicine. Green leaves help to drive away the wecha newen22 or negative spirits that generate diseases; therefore, a variety of plants are used as lawen (herbs’ healing properties) and constitute the most important medicines to which the Mapuche families resort when a member of the family becomes ill. This is known as feyentun (having faith in ancestral medicine). The following interview fragment is devoted to the role of herb-based medicine in the life of the family (4) [F: woman, 45, housewife, migrant; P: woman, 22, F’s daughter, student, born in Santiago; I: interviewer; focus group; Peñalolen] 1. I: and for example (.) talking about medicine (.) if your kids get ill do you take them 2. immediately to the primary health service or (.) do you use any other kind of:: 3. F: No (.) I first go to herbs (.) 4. I: and:: which herbs? 5. F: e::h (.) every kind (.) I learned that in the south 6. I: mmm okay (.) 7. F: the thing is that I also worked for a long time helping a machi to prepare medicines 8. I: oh::: (.) and that was in the south? 9. F: no::it was here (.) in Santiago (.) she lived in another commune 10. I: ohh I understand:: so when the baby or the kid becomes ill (.) you::[talking to P] 11. you said before that you have a newborn? 12. P: mmm yes (0.2) for example when my kids get ill (.) say a stomach ache (.) we 13. take him there (.) we go to a:: when my kid is ojeado23 (.) we take him to a (.) 14. woman ’cause that’s an empacho24 15. I: aha (.) and what do they do to him when he is empachado? 16. P: a:::h the woman ‘le tira la cola’25 poh 17. I: oh (.) and then what do they give him? 18. P: that agüita26 with lemon (.) lemon (.) oil and grated potatoes (.) and I give him 19. chamomile when he’s got a stomach ache (.) or:: when he’s got fever (.) I put on
30 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina 20. him canelo27 leaves or:: I lay thin slices over his front head (.) 21. F: Yes:: potato slices (.) 22. P: yeah that’s it (0.1) my grandma used to do it (.) so when he’s got fever [her baby] 23. I use potatoes (.) or also raw flour (.) you put it over his stomach and on the soles 24. of his feet for the fever:: to decrease the fever (.) Excerpt (3.2) reveals the role that Mapuche mothers assign to the transmission of ancestral medicine to their daughters and the importance that maintaining this practice has for the Mapuche in general. Note how in excerpt (3.2) I indirectly prompts participants to display knowledge of ancestral medicine by implying an opposition between the Chilean health system represented by the “primary health service” (line 2) and “other kinds” of health practices, an opposition which immediately evokes a reference to Mapuche herbal medicine in F’s answer (line 3). In the story-world, F not only self-presents as genuine Mapuche but also negotiates her ethnic identity with I, who is perceived by F as genuine due to her residing in the communities in the south. This is accomplished by relating that she learned Mapuche medicine in the south which was boosted by helping a machi in Santiago, a rare event in the capital city (lines 5,7). Mother-daughter cultural knowledge transmission becomes essential for the continuation of the culture in urban contexts. This process led by elder women has allowed P, at her young age, to handle knowledge about a wider variety of herbs and mixtures to cure her children’s illnesses. What is interesting in the excerpt is how, again, ethnic authenticity is negotiated around its roots in the chronotope of the south. Note the relevance of spatiotemporal rooting of traditional medicine in the chronotope of the south. This allows knowledge and practices to be discursively transferred from the elders to the younger generations in current urban Mapuche story-telling worlds through their recreation in new spaces, far away from their original setting. 6.3. Dream Interpretation Narrating dreams (pewma) and their interpretation is a common Mapuche cultural practice, learned and rooted in the south, which contextualises Mapuche ethnic identity in the city (Merino et al. 2017). As sensitive beings,28 the Mapuche attribute high relevance to dreams as premonitory messages that are to be deciphered by the members of the family in everyday interaction, specifically in the morning while drinking a collective mate. Dream interpretation allows the dreamer to become prepared to what may happen in the near future. In the excerpt that follows, we analyse the interaction between B and the interviewer with regard to
Chronotopic Identities 31 dream interpretation and also about B’s machi authority. B migrated to Santiago with his mother when he was ten. Since he was very young he learned that he carried the machi spirit29 so at present early every morning he performs the llellipun30 ritual which he accompanies by singing and playing his kultrun. (5) [B: man, 51, machi, ancestral medicine practitioner, migrant; I: interviewer, Cerro Navia] 1. I: well (.) I thank you lamngen31 for trusting me (.) and well (.) I also have 2. machi ancestors (.) my grandmother (.) and also my mother (.) and both 3. raised me so they transmitted me all the Mapuche wisdom so:: (.) I can imagine 4. how hard it must be for you being a machi here in Santiago (.) 5. B: feley lamngen32 then you know that many special things happen to a 6. machi (.) for example (.) my case (.) if I cut my hair then pimples burst all over here 7. [points back to his neck] but nothing happens if I wear my hair long (.) 8. so things like that I can’t tell anybody because (.) imagine I tell them 9. [his Mapuche neighbours] “you know (.) I have a machi newen” they would (.) 10. I don’t know laugh or:: (.) because some time ago (.) in a Mapuche ceremony 11. here in the commune I heard some of them commented “hey (.) B believes himself 12. a machi!” eh eh eh eh (.) why? Because I corrected them the way they were 13. doing the ceremony and (.) I explained how it is done in the south (.) 14. I: of course (0.1) well (.) so I imagine you also practice the dreams (.) 15. B: of course (.) you’ve got to tell them very early in the morning (.) we:: tell our 16. dreams in the family (.) besides (.) I have this special wisdom to interpret 17. dreams so when my daughter or (.) even when I go to the south (.) my nephew 18. she is a machi (.) she asks me to interpret her dreams (.) so I interpret her dreams 19. I: oh really?
32 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina 20. B: yeah (.) and sometimes it’s very hard because you’ve got to tell a person 21. that he or she is going to suffer (0.1) as it happened to S my daughter in law (.) 22. she usually tells me her dreams (.) and once she told a particular dream she 23. had (.) and I felt so sad to tell her “you know (.) your mom’s going to die” so I 24. would tell her “someone from your family’s going to die” (.) 25. I: and which was her pewma?33 26. B: buuuh (0.1) she:: dreamt that her teeth fell off and she would cry a lot in 27. the dream (.) and then she would get lost in the dream (.) she wouldn’t tell 28. where she was (.) a::ll that indicated that the lazo del ombligo34 was going to 29. be cut (.) 30. I: hhh::: In the excerpt, B starts relating how difficult it is for him as an urban Mapuche to assume that he carries the machi essence. Thus an important aim for him in the interview is to authenticate himself as a genuine machi even though he lives in the city, far away from his indigenous community of origin. To pursue this he indexes various descriptors as particular to the machi: having body scars, his profound knowledge of Mapuche rites and ceremonies, and his expertise in dream interpretation (lines 5–7). It is interesting to note that due to B’s condition as a machi practitioner in Santiago, I constructs her narrative by negotiating her ethnic identity with the interviewee. This is displayed through her introducing herself as a descendant of a family lineage of machi from her mother’s part. With this, I positions herself not as an ordinary Mapuche but as pertaining to a special ‘caste’ within the Mapuche social hierarchy. It is this common ground that allows her to align with B’s conflicting experience of having the machi spirit (lines 1–4). B refers to a machi spirit condition: the apparition of ‘pimples’ around his neck and scalp when he cuts his hair so that he needs to wear long hair35 (lines 5–7). Due to past experiences of incomprehension on the part of Mapuche neighbours, in the story-world action B self-positions as a different ‘type’ of individual. This is done by the use of direct reported speech, a discursive strategy that highlights agency and assigns a more intense character to the related actions by incorporating reported speech to build a more convincing and moving argument (lines 9–12). In Mapuche narrative scheme direct reported speech followed by the verb ‘pi’ (he/she said) is widely used. Note B’s rhetorical questions to involve the addressee as an active participant in the interaction (line 12). Furthermore, B authenticates himself through references to his deep
Chronotopic Identities 33 knowledge of the protocols of Mapuche ceremonies, a wisdom sustained by the presence of the chronotope of the south in participants’ narratives of ethnic identification. Note how B’s reference to the chronotope evokes a necessary point of return for the traditional cultural practices (line 13). At this stage of the conversation,36 I introduces the topic of dream interpretation (line 14), which he presents as a daily practice at home enhances by his special interpretative wisdom as a machi. Once again, B uses the chronotope of the south to authenticate his knowledge and ability by stating that when he goes to the south he interprets his nephew’s dreams even though his nephew is a machi in his community of origin (lines 17,18), a fact that surprises I (line 19). In the last part of this fragment, B continues to explain how carrying such wisdom may become a hard burden since it may cause pain to the dreamer, an argument that B supports through his daughter in law’s example and may lead the interpreter to foresee tragic events (lines 20–24). The fragment shows G’s negotiation of her genuine Mapuche identity with the interviewer and the chronotope of the south provides greater credibility to his claims of spiritual exceptionality but also to construct a contrast between the role of the machi in the community of origin and that of the machi in Santiago through relating his difficulty in gaining the respect of the members of the local community. The success of his argumentation is shown by the growing alignment of the interviewer who at different moments demonstrates understanding and empathy. Having obtained such alignment is then a result of a successful strategy of selfpresentation as an authentic Mapuche by B.
7. Conclusions In this chapter, in line with other cases discussed in the book, we have looked at the role of chronotopes in the identity negotiations of people that can be regarded as liminal to society given their status as perpetual outsiders in the places that they have been destined to occupy. We have shown how members of Mapuche families migrated to Santiago display a strong attachment to their ethnic belonging in interviews with a member of the same ethnic group who still lives in the south, which shows how liminal they feel with respect to members of the majority population. As we argued earlier, the presence of an interviewer who is Mapuche was an important contextual element in that it clearly led the interviewees to stress their own authenticity and their interest in maintaining cultural continuity. They did so by making reference to a variety of practices and objects that they regard as central to their culture. The main motivation for the stress on group alignment seems to be the existence of a shared and generalised idea that living in the city changes the Mapuche by making them forget their traditions and sometimes even embrace criminal or
34 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina amoral behaviours. This background explains the significant role that the chronotope of the south plays in the negotiation of such identity, and in that sense, we can say that the way that the Mapuche interviewed characterise an “authentic” ethnic identity is chronotopic. Indeed, the Mapuche persona is embedded within the chronotope of the south. The analysis of the narratives told by members of the families shows that the chronotope can be characterised as a place: the southern land (symbolised by specific places such as the farm or the village) populated with relatives and elders and firmly anchored in the past. The past may be a mythical or a more recent past, but it is in any case, not the present. The chronotope also involves an image of people who are the true knowledge bearers of how to carry out specific practices which include cultivating the land, taking care of animals, recognising animals and plants and using the latter for medicinal purposes, realising spiritual practices and investing prominent community members with the authority to deliver them, building and using objects and foods. The main gist of many of the narrative fragments that we have analysed has been to demonstrate that although these traditions can be reproduced in Santiago they still have their roots in the south and such roots need to be renovated through physical and spiritual contact by urban Mapuche with their place of origins. Comparisons of Santiago (‘here’) with the indigenous communities in the south of the country (‘there,’ ‘my land’) are laid out to demonstrate the superiority of different aspects of life in the south: the south is presented as a place of spiritual richness cultivated through the closeness to open spaces and nature, the respect of its products, the performance of rituals related to the teachings of ancestors. That explains the claim by one of the members of the family in Cerro Navia that he has become a better person by spending time in his father’s farm. The analysis has also shown how chronotopes become powerful mediating frames for the evaluation of human experience and its meanings and for the construction of identities.
Appendix Transcription Conventions
The following transcription conventions were used in the examples. (.) Noticeable pause __ Emphatic stress @ Laughter () Comment by the analyst Cursive Word in a language different from English :: Vowel or consonant lengthening ‘ ’ Spanish word with no possible English translation Word Emphasis . At the end of utterance marks falling intonation , At the end of utterance marks slight rising intonation ! At the end of utterance marks animated tone, not necessarily an exclamation
36 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina
Notes 1 Before colonisation, the Mapuche people occupied a vast area extending from the south of Chile to the central zone of the country and southern part of Argentina. The arrival of the Spanish had severe consequences for the indigenous population, which suffered devastation and dispossession of their land, and after the creation of the Chilean state the Mapuche lands, resources, and sovereignty were lost as a result of the ‘Pacification of the Araucanía’ in 1888, the region became integrated into the Chilean state. Mapuche were confined to reservations that covered about 6% of their original territory. These events caused land reduction, impoverishment, and migration to urban areas. 2 For example, Ngillatuwe (sacred field destined for religious ceremonies), paliwe (field for playing the palin a game slightly similar to football whose ball is wooden made and players hit it with a woden stick), rewe (machi’s altar sacred field) 3 In the Mapuche culture, extended family or lineage clan (lof) is part of its social organisation. A Mapuche house (ruka) is inhabited by the family members but also by relatives and friends. 4 The term ‘allegado’ is a Chilean (western perspective) word for a relative or close friend who, being jobless, comes to live the family for a short period of time. 5 In order to ensure cultural appropriateness, the interviews were conducted following Mapuche customary conversational protocol which includes the following steps: chaliwün (initial short salutation), pentukun is performed by two or more people who meet and ask a series of questions to learn about the individual, family, and community events of the interlocutors; pentukun is not only a greeting of words but also physical contact (hands and a hug); tuwün and küpan presentation by the speaker of his territorial and parental origin, tuwün (territorial origin) and küpan (parental origin); and, finally, yewün is a gift the visitor offers the host consisting of food or other items of frequent use in the home. 6 ‘Ruka’ is the Mapuche ancestral house (man and extended family). It has a round structure with reed roof, usually with mud walls, and two doors that represent daily lifecycle of the Mapuche person. The door facing the sunrise brings life and well-being and the door facing the sunset represents death, this is when the person’s soul travels to the ‘Lafken mapu’ (the land beyond the sea) where the person will start a new life. 7 Its botanical name is Senecio vulgaris, belonging to the family Asteraceae and is commonly known as common Senecio, yellow flower, yuyo, thistle. It is an annual plant of 5–40 cm. whose stem is hollow, fragile, erect, and branched. Its leaves are dentate and its external hemuligulated flowers and internal flowers are flosculate and hermaphrodite yellow. 8 Its botanical name is Juncus conglomeratuses. It is a native and marsh plant very abundant in humid meadows of central and southern Chile. Its common name is reed, piled rush, river junk, thin reed, sea rush. Its stems can reach up to 85 cm in height. 9 toasted flour is given different uses in the Mapuche culture and has a high frequency of consumption. It is prepared sweet, and it is a savoury drink for thirst. The wheat is toasted on a kallana (flat rectangular metal vessel hanging over the open fire) then it is ground on a round stone vessel and the husk of the wheat is separated. It is served with cold or hot water. 10 Kultrun is a religious musical instrument played by the machi. It represents the Mapuche worldview half of the universe or the world in its semi-spherical
Chronotopic Identities 37 form. In the patch, the four cardinal points are represented which are the omnipotent powers of Ngnechen, lord of the universe. They are represented by two lines in the way of a cross whose ends are branched into three more lines, representing the legs of the choike (ostrich). Within the spaces divided by the previously described lines, the four seasons of the year are drawn: pikun (north) and willi (South), and, finally, another imaginary transversal line represents the sun’s path: puel (east) to ngulu (west). 11 Ngillatun (ngilla = purchase and tun = act of) is the main Mapuche religious ceremony. It works as a plea for connection with the spiritual world to ask for well-being, strengthen the community union or thank for the benefits received. It takes place annually or bi-annually and lasts three or four days of the first months of the year. Its main actors are the machi, the piwichen, the nenpin, and the old women. The machi is the person in charge of building the rewe (sacred altar made up of shrubs and branches) where offerings and sacred are housed (flags, rattles, edible offerings, water). 12 Machi is the shaman or priest who organises the Ngillatun ceremony and is the principal religious counsellor and protective medical authority of the Mapuche people. The machi is in charge of directing the healing ceremonial (machitun). Becoming a machi requires that the Mapuche woman or man displays healing power, will, character, and courage, since initiation is long and painful. Usually, the person is selected during infancy and is taught and guided by an old machi. In the community, a machi is recognised through his/her frequent premonitory dreams and supernatural revelations. 13 Mapudungun (Mapu = earth, dungun = speech) is the language of the Mapuche. It is a polysynthetic language with nominal incorporation and radical composition. It has influenced the lexicon of Spanish in its distribution area and, in turn, it has incorporated words from Spanish and Quechua. It has not been classified satisfactorily and for the moment it is considered an isolated language. A distinction is made between 26 and 28 phonemes, 6 vowels, and between 20 and 22 consonants. 14 The spiritual characteristic of the Mapuche worldview involves daily contact with nature. Nature and mongen (everything that has life within it) represent the ‘essence’ of essential life so that the che (man) can live in balance with nature despite having migrated from the indigenous community to the city. This process is important because living in balance and harmony with nature is the basis of well-being and health. For the Mapuche, there is a natural relationship with the green which represents ‘life’ and enhances the person’s bond to nature in everyday life. 15 Ngütram is Mapuche’s main verbal type of interaction. It incorporates the meanings of words, conversation, narration, story, history, myth. The person who pronounces a ngütram is called an orator because he/she manages the ritual art of conversation. 16 It recreates the ancestral practice of gathering in a circle around the open fire (kütral) in the ruka (traditional Mapuche home). This drink is usually accompanied by ancestral foods like sopaipillas or tortillas. In this gathering, the family generates a moment of encounter and conversation characterised by an empathetic, affective, and relaxed interaction. 17 ‘Alrededor’ the matetun alludes to the family sitting around the open fire or the kitchen table in urban areas. 18 Mate is a hot quality dried grass drink sipped with a long straw. In the Mapuche culture, it is highly consumed by all age groups, taken as a digestive and to share with the family gathered while chatting. It helps strengthen emotional ties because it is prepared and served with affection.
38 Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson and Anna De Fina 19 Ñiwin kofke (Spanish ‘sopaipillas’) is a large flatbread fried in oil. It must be large enough to share it with other diners, unlike Chilean sopaipillas that are smaller and individual, and may incorporate mashed squash. Sharing sopaipillas convey esteem and affection. 20 Kofke is a large and bulky bread, large enough to be shared by all diners present. 21 Family conversation in a matetun revolves around their lineage: tuwün and küpan. Tuwün refers to knowledge of paternal and maternal ancestry associated with territory (‘lof’ of origin) and is related to family members either dead or alive. Küpan refers to the knowledge that is traced back to paternal and maternal ancestry and family lineage. Such knowledge allows us to distinguish between wecha küpan (bad type of family) or küme küpan (good family). 22 Newen /wecha newen. Newen means positive strength or energy which applies to all beings and areas of Mapuche cosmology. For example, Mapu newen means strength or energy of the earth, whereas wecha newen means energy or evil spirit. 23 Persona ojeada is a popular belief known as the ‘evil eye.’ It is widespread in many civilizations and is assumed to have been brought by the Spanish conquerors. According to this belief, a person has the ability to cause damage, misfortune, illness and even cause death to another just by looking at it (evil eye). It is said that the affected person “has been ojeada” referring to someone who gave him an “evil eye.” 24 Empacho is part of the folklore of Latin American culture, particularly Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Particularly babies and in minor number adults may suffer from undefined abdominal discomforts like pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, inappetence, headache. It is believed that the sick person has been ‘ojeada’ affected by the evil eye; however, Western medicine classifies it as indigestion. 25 Tirarle la cola al enfermo is one of the manoeuvres to cure the empacho. It consists of removing and evacuating foreign bodies attached to the walls of the stomach and intestine, which prevent the proper functioning of the digestive system. In the Mapuche medicine, this procedure is regularly applied by pinching the skin of the back to the sides of the spine to stimulate nerve innervations and accelerate stomach movement and expel the food bolus stuck in the stomach. 26 ‘Agüita’ or herbal infusions of various plants that are known as medicinal like mint, pennyroyal, chamomile, boldo, among others. 27 Hoja de canelo. Canelo (drimys winteri) or foye in mapudungun language is an evergreen tree that inhabits a large part of the Chilean territory and neighbouring areas of Argentina. It is the sacred tree of the Mapuche and, because of its high content of vitamin C, its bark has been used to combat scurvy. It is a tree of grey trunk little branched that can reach about 20 m height. Its leaves are lanceolate, of brilliant green by the beam and whitish by the underside and can measure about 20 cm. 28 Daily contact with the green is necessary so that the che (person) lives in balance with nature despite having migrated from the community space to the city. This process is important because in the Mapuche worldview balance and harmony with nature is the basis of well-being and health. 29 When a girl or boy carries a machi spirit is recognised by various symptoms. Repeated dreams, difficulty to concentrate, headaches, night visions which are frequently diagnosed as psychological (or psychiatric) in Western medicine. The young may concentrate deeply in listening to nature, the plants, or
Chronotopic Identities 39 may recognise various herbal medicines that inhabit trees and shrubs. In the Mapuche culture ignoring a young’s destiny as a machi and allowing him to grow in the Western way can bring him several diseases, such as difficulty in walking, breathing, and various ailments that may affect the heart. 30 Llellipun is a ceremony that seeks to fully prepare for an event or a specific action. It can take place in different spaces, and it is regularly sung or spoken or recited by a person who has prepared for it, and it is regularly accompanied by the kultrun. 31 Salutation in the Mapuche culture is gender differentiated. Lamngen (may mean sister or brother) and is used between women of the same age or when the woman greets a man, whereas the man uses peñi to salute a man. 32 Feley is an approval discursive connector which may mean ‘of course,’ that’s right, yes, okay. 33 Pewma is a premonitory dream that the dreamer must make it known to the members of the family or to a person who holds spiritual power (newen) inherited through family lineage. It has to be told before noon, so the dreamer can be oriented and be prepared for the forthcoming events (positive or negative ones) 34 ‘Cortar el lazo del ombligo’ (cut the navel loop) in the Mapuche culture may mean the unexpected death of a dear family member; whereas ‘keep the navel loop’ may mean that a Mapuche person keeps his culture and roots even he is far away from his indigenous community but will somehow return to his birthplace (lof mapu) to visit the family and keep his affective contact and cultural beliefs. 35 In Chilean society there is an underlying deep-seated prejudice regarding adult men who wear long hair. They are said to be ‘queers’ that project a dirty image, come from the low backgrounds, have low cultural education, or used as denostative word for homosexual). 36 In a Mapuche ngütram, the speaker does not go directly to the topic that interests him but must make a preamble of personal presentation providing facts about parental lineage, the reasons why he wants to discuss the topic, as well as a territorial contextualization of the meeting.
Credit This work was supported by CONICYT-FONDECYT Chile (National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research) under [1140500].
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2 Narrating Desire for Place: Chronotopes of Desire for the Portuguese Homeland Before and After “Return” Michele Koven 1. Introduction ‘I would like at least once in my life to feel Portuguese . . . I have always wanted to be Portuguese, but haven’t necessarily been . . . I have to go there [Portugal] . . . I have wanted my whole life to go there [Portugal].’ These were the words of Ana, the daughter of Portuguese migrants, raised and living in France during an interview in Paris in the spring of 1995. At that time, she told me how much she yearned to be in a place (Portugal) and to claim a place-linked identity (Portuguese). I met Ana again five years later in 2000, three years after she had ultimately moved to Portugal. At that later date, she said, ‘Now, I am Portuguese . . . inside I wanted to be Portuguese . . . and now I really am completely.’ In 2000, she thus re-articulated the same earlier desire as she had expressed in 1995 to change places (from France to Portugal) and place-associated identities (from French to Portuguese), but as a past and currently satisfied desire. Ana thus used different spatial and temporal markers to situate her desire for Portugal–active and present while in France longing to “go there,” fulfilled and past once in Portugal, ‘I wanted to be . . . now I really am.’ Through a comparative analysis of the 1995 and 2000 interviews, this chapter will shed light on the notion of place,1 not only as socially constructed but also as a target of “want” or “desire.” I examine Ana’s verbal displays of desire for place (Portugal) and place-associated identity (to be Portuguese) both before and after her move there—i.e., when these longings were active and unfulfilled versus when these lifelong desires were realised. As such, I examine constructions of desires for place across the space-times of two different communicative events (Wortham and Reyes 2015). I analyse how this participant uses particular combinations of indexical forms to signal unfulfilled and fulfilled longing for her parents’ homeland. In particular, I consider how Ana uses language to present her lifelong desire for Portugal not only as a general wish but also as a wish formulated relative to the space-time of the two interview interactions. In this way, this analysis will also show that places and participants’ desires
Narrating Desire for Place 43 for them must be examined as these emerge in the spaces and times of particular interactions.
2. Previous Discussions of Desire for Place 2.1. Place/Space as Social Construct The notion of desire for place/space first rests on the notion that places/ spaces are not simply objective, physical entities, a point of view argued by scholars across a number of fields, from cultural geography (Cresswell 2015), anthropology (Low, 2003, 2009, 2017), political economy (Lefebvre 1974), sociolinguistics (Johnstone 2013; Higgins 2017; Pennycook 2012; Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain 2013; Modan 2007), conversation analysis (Schegloff 1972), and linguistic anthropology (Basso 1996; Hanks 1990). These scholars argue that although places may manifest materially, analysts should attend to how social actors construct places through verbal and non-verbal semiotic practices. Similar to approaches in other fields such as cultural geography, language-focused research does not treat place, context, setting, or scale as a static, pre-existing container. It is instead a framing that social actors dynamically accomplish across levels of social life, whether in everyday, face-to-face interaction (Hanks 1990; Schegloff 1972) or relative to moral geographies in more broadly conceived socio-political, and institutional orders (Hill 1995; Modan 2007; Davidson 2007; Duranti 1997; Carr and Lempert 2016; Koven 2015). Language-focused scholarship has explored the construction of place by analysing how social actors construct the relevant, ever-shiftable “where” of location. These terms include “setting” (Goffman 1979), context(ualisation) (Blommaert 2015; Duranti and Goodwin 1992; Gumperz 1982), and more recently, scale (Carr and Lempert 2016). Participants’ connections to multiple spacetimes are thus similar to Goffman’s discussion of participants’ coordination and laminations of footings (see also Rodman 1992). Indeed, much social interaction is embedded in and productive of more than one place at a time, as participants can use language to signal links to the here-and-now of the current communicative event and to non-immediate there-and-then space-times. What has distinguished language-focused research from scholarship in other social sciences is its attention to how people construct space and time in interaction through the dynamic use of verbal form. Analysts attend to seemingly “small,” fleeting, indexical features of discourse, which can include, non-exhaustively, deictics of person (e.g., pronouns), time (e.g., verb tense and temporal adverbs), and place (locative and directional verbs and adverbs) and other forms, such as code selection(s). Fine-grained attention to these highly context-dependent and contextcreative forms (Silverstein 1976) shows how participants dynamically
44 Michele Koven construct and transform place in real time, within and across communicative events. 2.2. Desire for Place/Space This question of desire for socially constructed places/spaces, the topic of this chapter, has garnered attention largely outside of language-based scholarship, in particular in environmental psychology, cultural geography, cultural studies, and (in the specific case of the present study) Portuguese studies. For example, environmental psychologists and humanistic geographers (Altman and Low 1992; Tuan 1974) have captured people’s affective attachments and ambivalences towards places, with such terms as topophilia and topophobia respectively (Tuan 1974), literally love and/or fear of place. Similarly, scholars in cultural studies and geography have also discussed how diasporic populations long for or desire “home,” often imaginatively constructed as a shifting, and/or unattainable destination (Behar 2012; Brah 1996; Ahmed 1999). Of relevance to the current analysis, cultural geographers have discussed desire for place among “second generation” return migrants (King and Christou 2014; Sardinha 2014; Wessendorf 2013), who might long for and attempt to move to their parents’ countries of origin. Authors often cite affective factors in such counterdiasporic return projects (Sardinha 2014; King and Christou 2010; Wessendorf 2013). Specific to the Portuguese case, scholars have discussed saudade or nostalgia among Portuguese emigrants abroad who miss and long to return to Portugal (Brettell 2003; Klimt 2000; Sardinha 2011a, 2011b; Leal 2000; Lourenço 2003[1974]). Although saudade has been used in different ways in reference to constructions of Portuguese national identity since the 19th century (see Leal 2000 for a clear historical treatment of saudade as invented national tradition), the term has certainly been used to describe how Portuguese emigrants relate to Portugal. This broader sociohistorical framework for understanding “saudade” thus has meaning for many Portuguese abroad, such as Ana and her family, as they construct their desires for Portugal. Although scholarship across these fields has attended to the role of affective attachment to and desire for place, these scholars have paid scant attention to how people use language in discursive interaction to signal these affective orientations towards and desires for place. 2.3. Desire for Place/Space in Language-Based Scholarship On the other hand, despite an expanding literature on how social actors construct places and their relationships to them in language-based scholarship, desire has not figured prominently in language-based scholarship
Narrating Desire for Place 45 on place (though see Baynham 2017; Pennycook 2012). Despite research in applied linguistics that has sometimes addressed desire in language learning motivation and migration (Motha and Lin 2013; Piller and Takahashi 2006; Baynham 2017), relatively little discourse-based literature has engaged with participants’ desires for place. This chapter thus also contributes to literature on language and desire. As noted by Eckert (1999), Billig (2006), Motha and Lin (2013) and Cameron and Kulick (2003), many scholars in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology have shied away from analysing “desire,” when it is understood as a universal, psychological, internal phenomenon, best addressed by psychoanalysts (see Cameron and Kulick 2003 for an excellent review). Across a series of publications, these authors have argued against treatments of desire as merely internal and psychological, and proposed to view desire as semiotically and often linguistically signalled in interactional and cultural contexts (Cameron and Kulick 2003; Kulick 2008; Rumsey 2003; Piller and Takahashi 2006). Following these authors, I treat Ana’s desires for place and place-related identity as signalled in deictically situated, communicative events (Kockelman 2007). 2.4. Chronotopically Situated Desires for Place/Space More specifically, Ana’s desire for places and identities are themselves situated in spatial and temporal contexts or chronotopes. That is, social actors’ formulations of space, time, and personhood are often organised into configurations or “envelopes” which they mobilise in interaction (Bakhtin 1981; Silverstein 2005; Agha 2007). Indeed, the resurgent use of Bakhtin’s notion of chronotope has given scholars a very productive tool to examine place constructions and people’s orientations to those constructions (Basso 1996; Blommaert 2015; Dick 2010; Wirtz 2014; Karimzad 2016; Koven and Marques 2017; Woolard 2013), to include desires to be in or go to particular places. Most scholars agree that it is not useful to examine single chronotopes in isolation. One must consider the set of chronotopes participants evoke, combine, juxtapose, or laminate, sometimes called cross-chronotope alignment (Perrino 2007; Agha 2007; Silverstein 2005; Koven and Marques 2017; Lemon 2009). Cross-chronotope alignment has been used to see how participants link the space-time of a given interaction to other cultural space-times, drawing parallels between the two. For example, in storytelling, scholars have addressed the distinction and relationship between narrating and narrated events or chronotopes, so that the storyworld seems to come alive in the storytelling interaction (Bakhtin 1981; Jakobson 1957; Bauman 1986; Wortham 2001; Silverstein 1993; Koven 2007; Hanks 1990; Perrino 2007; Agha 2005, 2007). Scholars have also looked at how participants align the micro-social space-time of particular immediate interactions with broader space-times of wider sociocultural
46 Michele Koven significance, such as contrastive and morally fraught framings of nation states (Dick 2010) or political regimes (Davidson 2007). Chronotopic and cross-chronotopic analysis have allowed scholars to attend to how people index particular time-space envelopes with one another in interaction, as well as how people simultaneously index sociocultural entities positioned at broader scales.2 Of relevance to the current chapter, we might note the impact of the following set of chronotopes and their interrelations: the narrating chronotope of “here-and-now” interviews, the narrated chronotope of Ana’s lifelong desire to be in Portugal, and broader cultural chronotopes that posit Portugal as the real home for those in Diaspora. Although Bakhtin-inspired scholarship using the notion of chronotope and voicing has proved very productive for examining social actors’ performances of and alignments towards multi-voiced otherness and identity (Hill 1995; Rampton 1995; Agha 2005), it has not been used as much to explore questions of desire. In this chapter, I argue that desire can also be seen through a Bakhtinian lens. The notion of desire is implicit in earlier discussions to varying degrees. For example, one sees forms of desire or repulsion through the alignments social actors take towards the social types they quote, rendered, for example, as targets of desired identification or disdain. Beyond quotative strategies, we also see a Bakhtinian approach to desire in the work of Hilary Dick (2013), who discusses how Mexican migrants and nonmigrants talk longingly about unattainable future space-times. This talk positions social actors as always wanting in the present for an unattainable home, blocked by ‘an impassable barrier between present life and home’ that they situate discursively in a ‘distant past or remote future’ (2013: 414). We thus see discursive enactments of diasporic desire in how the participants in Dick’s research long for a type of life that they cannot readily fulfil. We will thus see how Ana signals desire for Portugal in and across multiple times and “spaces of desire” (Rumsey 2003: 194), linked inextricably to how she communicates “desires for place.” I consider how desire emerges relative to the narrating here-and-now chronotope and a narrated there- and–then chronotope. This will allow me to investigate how Ana narrates her desire for Portugal in two different contexts: in France pre-“return,” talking about Portugal from France, and post “return,”3 talking about her earlier desire to return to Portugal in Portugal. She narrates the “same” desire for “return” to Portugal in strikingly different ways: first as lived from France, as an intense, unfulfilled longing, and then as lived after her counter-diasporic “homecoming” as a longing that has been satisfied. In this way, places can simultaneously be explicit targets of desire, as well as spatiotemporal locations from which desire for those places are signalled. She evokes diasporic longing for a return to “homeland” from two different positions through the ways she aligns narrating and narrated chronotopes: as an unfulfilled emigrant in
Narrating Desire for Place 47 diaspora versus as a satisfied, successful return migrant. Ana thus presupposes and creates multiple places in interaction, i.e., how she “does” desire for place while positioned in place. To sum up, I extend a Bakhtinian perspective on chronotope to discuss not only how one participant constructs places, but how she also constructs and signals desires for places and identities in those places. We can thus consider desire for place through the concept of chronotope and the relationships between desires and places in both the interactional and narrated chronotopes. In this way, participants’ desires for place can be treated as forms of reflexive metasemiotic activity, broadly conceived.
3. Desire for Place in Language By moving away from individual and psychological notions, to examine instead how desire is signalled, constructed, and negotiated in interactional and cultural contexts (Kulick 2008; Rumsey 2003; Cameron and Kulick 2003; Piller and Takahashi 2006), scholars have focused on its display in a variety of contexts through different indexical forms. Rumsey (2003), for example, reminds us that “desire,” and more colloquially “want,” are frequently used mental state verbs (see also Kockelman 2007). They are not just abstract interior forces, but common lexical forms that can take a predicate: “I want” + to go on vacation, to eat chocolate, etc. (see Rumsey 2003; Kockelman 2007 for a full discussion). And utterances of complement-taking mental state verbs like “want” are inevitably parts of larger speech events. In this way, we need not treat explicit utterances of “desire” as referring to an abstract, internal, intangible, but instead analyse “desire talk” as part of the semiotic display of mental states in the context of communicative events. Next, I discuss how desire can be productively used in ways that are interactionally and verbally mediated, in order to analyse everyday discourse that signals ‘wanting’ to go to, or be in a place. Following a long tradition in linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics, I discuss desire, by focusing on the specific discursive forms through which people display or index so-called subjective phenomena (Benveniste 1971; Kulick 2008; Cameron and Kulick 2003; Kockelman 2007; Billig 2006; Irvine 1982; Ochs and Schieffelin 1986). Drawing from Benveniste (1971), Hanks (1990), and implicitly Silverstein (1976) and Jakobson (1957), Rumsey analyses the indexical language of desire by examining caregivers’ use of directives or imperatives to children. These activities communicate caregivers’ “desire,” because they involve participants wanting others to do something. To explore how people might signal desire and other “subjective” and “intersubjective” states, Rumsey thus argues for attention to a full range of indexical resources, including those that signal not only person but also mood, space, and time.
48 Michele Koven Following Rumsey, I examine the indexical forms which Ana uses to position herself and her desires in social and interactional space and time, i.e., the spatiotemporal origo from which she articulates desires for Portugal. Such origos are interactionally negotiated and emergent (Schegloff 1972; Hanks 1990). One can then ask in what space-time or from which origo participants situate a desire. From this perspective, “desire” can thus be understood as event-like (Kockelman 2007), attributable to specific persons (self and/or others) in different spatiotemporal contexts (here, now, there, then), allowing one to use a Bakhtin-inspired framework for examining relations of narrating and narrated chronotopes (Silverstein 2005; Perrino 2015). A speaker may use deictic forms of person, tense, aspect, etc. to communicate a desire as immediate (I want coffee!), or to displace the space, time, or personal perspective of a desire, for example, as attributed to someone else (she wants coffee), or as situated in a prior space and time of a there-and-then narrated event (I used to want coffee). Of relevance to this chapter, the utterance ‘I want to go to Portugal now,’ may signal Ana’s current here-and-now desire. On the other hand, ‘I wanted to go to Portugal when I was young’ locates the desire in a non-immediate, past space-time, attributed to Ana as a narrated figure, who may perhaps no longer want to go to Portugal, at the moment of speaking. Indeed, these two utterances, ‘I want to go to Portugal’ or ‘I wanted to go to Portugal’ are comprised of two parts. The first involves a mental state verb, in relation to the second part, the infinitive form, to go to Portugal.4 One can then examine Ana’s use of mental state expressions that explicitly refer to and declare desire, such as “want” and “feel like,” similarly to how we would analyse other mental states and or verbs of speaking (Lee 1997). This approach allows us to understand desire with tools for studying semiotically mediated interaction in sociocultural contexts. I will thus consider how Ana explicitly and implicitly indexes her desires for Portuguese homeland and the social types associated with it by looking at the indexical strategies she uses to create and juxtapose chronotopes in the 1995 and 2000 interviews with me. These strategies include verb tenses that signal her desire as current and unfulfilled as opposed to past and fulfilled. I first pay particular attention to how Ana displays desire through the verb tenses of mental state verbs that refer to desire (e.g., want, wanted) that implicitly signal whether her desire is current and unfulfilled versus past and fulfilled. They also include directional and locative expressions that tap into larger sets of enregistered deictics (Agha 2007; Davidson 2007; Haviland 2005), especially those linked to Portuguese emigration (Simões Marques and Koven 2017), that evoke someone’s positioning as either centred in diaspora or mainland Portugal. These include directional expressions, such as “come” “return” and “go.” Those in diaspora in France seek to “go” “there” to Portugal, while those in Portugal witness their “return,” “arrival,” or “coming”
Narrating Desire for Place 49 “here” to Portugal. Finally, I examine the voicing strategies through which Ana uses such strategies together to present and evoke particular desirable or undesirable figures of emigrant and nonmigrant personhood. Specifically, I examine her voicing of two recurrent figures–vacationing emigrants and nonmigrant Portuguese. She signals explicitly and implicitly her current and/or past desire to be or at least to pass as a nonmigrant Portuguese. To examine how she evokes and then displays desires to be like or unlike these two figures involves examining a range of voicing strategies (Wortham 2001; Koven 2007; Hill 1995), such as pronouns (we/they) and their associated verb forms, quotative strategies, etc. I thus examine how people construct places, but how they also relate the described places to the implicitly signalled space-time of the current interaction. As such, through attention to cross-chronotope alignments, we are reminded that places and participants’ desires for them are always constructed in spatiotemporally situated and constructed interactions. In this way, this chapter not only adds to scholarship on the sociolinguistic construction of place, by focusing on the notion of desire, sometimes also called affect (Low 2017) or place attachment (Tuan 1974; Altman and Low 1992). It also adds to scholarship on desire as interactively, and more specifically, spatiotemporally or chronotopically communicated. In this way, I examine the concept of place as the object of affectively mediated, reflexive metasemiotic activity.
4. Ethnographic Case Ana is the daughter of Portuguese migrants who moved to France in the late 1960s where she was born. Her family was part of the large wave of emigration when as much as 10% of Portugal left conditions of rural poverty under the Salazarist regime to seek a better life in France. As others have discussed, an ideology of return has loomed large for the Portuguese diaspora (Brettell 2003; Klimt 2000). Regardless of how settled emigrants and their descendants may have become in their host societies, many in Portugal and the diaspora expect Portuguese emigrants to remain attached to and nostalgic for Portugal (Klimt 2000; Noivo 2002; Lubkemann 2002). Such ideologies have most often been discussed for the first generation, who may declare that one day, after they have earned and saved enough, they want to “return” to Portugal. Such desires to “return” can become transgenerational. Many of the “second generation” who have been socialised and schooled in France may equally imagine and long for future lives in Portugal. And for a brief period during the mid-1990s to early 2000s, Portugal’s improved economy allowed a number of young people of Portuguese descent to realise these dreams, seeking and finding employment in Portugal (Sampaio 2014; Sardinha 2011a, 2011b. 2014). Ana is one such example. She grew up in a family where her parents regularly described Portugal as
50 Michele Koven their “real” home and France as a place where they were only temporary visitors. When Ana was in her early 20s, her parents finally did “return” to Portugal, leaving her behind in France. Although she initially looked for long-term employment in France, she ultimately found a good professional opportunity in Portugal in 1997, allowing her to satisfy national and family scripts for return. She and her husband, also a descendant of Portuguese migrants raised in France, moved permanently near the urban centre in her parents’ region. Ana’s desire for Portugal should thus be understood at the intersection of several space-times (Blommaert 2015; Woolard 2013): that of the interaction in which she may discuss her desires, that of her personal and familial life circumstances, and that of a broader sociohistorical scales, including constructions of Portuguese national identity around nostalgic longing, or saudade, considered emblematic of Portuguese identity and emigration (Costa Pereira Junior 2014; Dias et al. 2016; Klimt and Lubkemann 2002; Leal 2000; Lourenço 2003[1974]). Although Ana expresses desires that align with the Portuguese return ideologies of saudade, one should not assume that the interviews discussed in this chapter capture the sum total of Ana’s affective orientations towards Portugal. Ana may be more complexly positioned relative to France and Portugal than these two interviews belie. There are doubtless other moments when her relationships to France and Portugal may be more ambivalent.5 For example, Sardinha (2011a, 2011b, 2014) and Sampaio (2014) discuss the struggles many Luso-descendant “returnees” encounter upon moving to Portugal. Nonetheless, on at least some level, Ana’s decision to move and stay in Portugal, economic, and professional possibilities permitting, allowed her to act on lifelong, intense attachment to and longing for Portugal. Next, I compare key excerpts from Ana’s two interview-based interactions with me where we talked about her relationship to and desire for Portugal and Portuguese identity, pre-relocation in 1995 and post relocation in 2000. We largely spoke to each other in French, not Portuguese, shown in the transcribed excerpts. As mentioned earlier, I compare how Ana uses different voicing strategies to narrate her relationships towards and desire for Portugal. I attend to the indexical strategies through which she presents her desires to be in Portugal and be Portuguese as either current and unfulfilled pre-departure in 1995 and past and fulfilled postarrival in 2000. I make note of her use of present and past verb tenses of mental state expressions of desire (to want/vouloir, to feel like/avoir envie, I want/I wanted/je veux/je voulais), forms that show place and direction, (here and there/ici et là-bas, come and go/venir et aller) that position her as in the diaspora or in the Portuguese homeland. I also note how she uses discourse forms to identify with or distance herself from the two recurring narrated figures of migrant and nonmigrant Portuguese. We will see how
Narrating Desire for Place 51 she uses these strategies to position her desires for Portugal and (emigrant versus nonmigrant) Portuguese identities in communicative and cultural space and time. Following Wortham and Reyes (2015), this analysis lets us track “desire for place” across communicative events. Forms of particular interest have been italicised in the original and translation. Excerpts from different parts of the interview are separated by ellipses. 4.1. Comparison of 1995 and 2000 Discourse Forms
Example 1 Pre-departure 1995: Post-settlement 2000: In France In Portugal parce que l’idée de passer toute ma vie en France, non –ouais –j’ai envie, j’ai envie au moins une fois dans ma vie de me sentir portugaise –ouais –que je me, tu vois la nuance? –mm –parce que, comme, j’ai toujours voulu l’être et que je l’ai pas forcément été. . . .
Et moi j’ai toujours dit je- j’avais envie de faire (.) j’avais envie d’vivre comme une portugaise, au moins une fois dans ma vie. Ça faisait vraiment partie de mes souhaits, mes rêves (.) d’enfant. Même d’enfant. Je voulais au moins- je voulais sentir c’que sentait un portugais, dans la peau- dans le Portugal même (.) . . . Pace’qu’j’avais envie vraiment de vivre comme les portugais. Et qqquand j’ai dit que j’me suis retrouvée, oui j’me suis retrouvée par rapport à ça . . . le fait de- d’êt’e venue au portugal (.) ça m’a libérée, je pense. C’ est-à-dire qu’en fait j’me suis dit nan c’est bon. (.) j’ai plus à- (.) à essayer d- d’cacher quoi’ce soit. (.) Je fait un choix. . . . Pa’c’que maint’nant chuis Portuguaise. . . . . . . . –et y a j’avais un problème au niveau de de de mon identité et j’me r’trouvais pas par rapport à ça et j’avais vraiment besoin besoin besoin et en f- pa’c’que je savais que je voulais intérieurement êt’ Portuguaise pa’c’que c’était moi et maint’nant et ben je je je l’suis vraiment totalement –[d’accord –[maint’nant je peux pas dire que je je fais plus semblant maint’nant –mm
52 Michele Koven English Translation of 1995 excerpts
English Translation of 2000 excerpts
Because the idea of spending my whole life in France, no –yeah –I want, I want at least once in my life to feel Portuguese –yeah –that I, you see the difference? –mm –because. As I have always wanted to be it [Portuguese] and that I haven’t necessarily been it. . . .
And me, I have always said I- I wanted to make (.) I wanted to live like a Portuguese person, at least once in my life. That was really part of my wishes, my dreams (.) as a child, even as a child. I wanted at least—I wanted to feel what a Portuguese person felt, in the skin, in Portugal itself (.) Because I really wanted to live like Portuguese people. . . . the fact of of having come to Portugal (.) that freed me, I think. In other words that in fact I told myself, ‘No, that’s it (.) I no longer need to-(.) try to hide whatever. (.) I made a choice.’ . . . Because now I am Portuguese. . . . . . . –and there was a problem in terms of my identity, and I couldn’t find myself in relation to that, and I really needed needed needed and in f—because I knew that on the inside I wanted to be Portuguese because it was me and now and well I I I am it really completely –[okay –[now I can’t say that I I am no longer pretending now –mm
Ana expresses the temporality of her desire to be in Portugal and to be Portuguese very differently between these two moments in 1995 and 2000. There is a different deictic centering of her desire across these two interactions: the first involves here-and-now desire for a distant Portugal; the second attributes the desire to herself as a past narrated figure, the here-and-now moment is one of having attained Portugal as the country and Portuguese as an identity. In 1995, she actively longs for Portugal and to be Portuguese in her here-and-now speech to me in the interview; in 2000, she presents this as a previous and now-fulfilled desire, located in the narrated past. I discuss these differences between 1995 and 2000 in what follows. I first address the 1995 pre-departure interview, in which her use of deictics makes her current longing palpable. She narrates her desire with discursive expressions of a subjective state in the present and perfect tenses (j’ai envie/I feel like, j’ai toujours voulu/I have always wanted), that locate her wanting as starting before and extending to the time and place of our
Narrating Desire for Place 53 interaction. For Ana, again this is a lifelong wish that continues to the moment of speaking (j’ai toujours voulu l’être/I have always wanted to be it) where it has remained unfulfilled (que je l’ai pas forcément été/that I haven’t necessarily been it). Paralleling Lacanian psychoanalytic notions of desire, Ana’s current want comes from lack: a mismatch between her current (narrating) state (wanting) and her non-accomplished desired, narrated state (to live in Portugal and be Portuguese). The second parts of the clause include infinitives of verbs that refer to undesired or desired actions or states: staying her whole life in France versus feeling or being Portuguese. In this way, she posits her current desires in the here-and-now of her narrating interaction with me situated in France. Portugal and feeling or being Portuguese appear as projected in “theres and thens” as unrealised in the here-and-now. However, when I reinterviewed her in 2000, following her settlement in Portugal, this temporal marking of her desire was quite different. Although she uses almost the exact same lexical expressions (vouloir/ to want, avoir envie/to feel like), the imperfect verb tenses situate these wishes in a narrated past, “j’avais envie,” “je voulais.” She thus renarrated her same earlier intense desire to go to Portugal, but this time as displaced in a past time and distant space when she lived in France—i.e., as not currently active. The discursive here-and-now is one of fulfilment, “now I am Portuguese,” with a deictic origo centred in Portugal, talking about the desire she overcame through diasporic homecoming. These differences in deictic centering of desire co-occur with accompanying directional expressions such as “there,” “here,” “go,” and “come” that position her as inside or outside the discursively constructed space of the diasporic homeland she longs for, implicitly recognised by those in diaspora and Portugal (see also Marques and Koven 2017). Similar to Davidson’s discussion of registers of deictics used in the former East Germany (2007), how one uses these deictics has itself become an index of diasporic or nonmigrant positioning.
Example 2 Pre-departure 1995: In France
Post-settlement 2000: In Portugal
Il y a des moments dans l’année où je peux pas, il faut que j’y aille. –mh –j’ai besoin d’y aller, et quand je suis là-bas, je pleure, c’est-à-dire que j’aime tellement mon pays que je pleure . . . que je je j’ai vraiment toute ma vie voulu aller là-bas quoi
. . . En tout cas je dis souvent, je vou- je voulais faire cette expérience e:t y fallait vraiment que j’la fasse. Fallait vraiment que je je fasse cette expérience-là. De venir ici–de venir (ici?) au Portugal
54 Michele Koven There are times during the year when I can’t; I have to go there –mh –I need to go there, and when I am there, I cry, in other words, I love my country so much that I cry that I, I have really wanted my whole life to go there, you know.
. . . At any rate, I often say, I wa—I wanted to have this experience a:nd I really had to have it. I really had to have this experience. Of coming here of coming (here?) to Portugal
These directional expressions of coming and going position Ana as outside versus centred within the desired homeland. In 1995, she presented her desire for Portugal with the verb aller and distal adverbs là-bas, y. These forms co-occur with explicit lexical expressions of desire, need, and necessity (il faut que/it is necessary that, j’ai besoin de/I need to) in the present tense. As in the previous excerpts, she narrates her longing for Portugal with forms that make her desire for a distal “there” seem intensely alive in the French “here,” marked by her lack or absence from the desired Portuguese “there.” In contrast, in 2000, she renarrates her desires for Portugal as past, but uses differently centred directional verbs such as “come” rather than “go.” Post (re)settlement in Portugal, from a new here-and-now deictic origo of the attained homeland, Ana then narrates these same desires as situated in a different time (pre-return) and place (France). It is as if there is nothing more to want, now that she has “returned.” Similarly, this use of deictics reprises a more widely enregistered usage of going /coming to Portugal, recognised by those in the diaspora and in Portugal as emblematic of emigrant versus nonmigrant perspectives. 4.2. Desire to Be Like/Unlike Social Types One can also witness this shift in Ana’s perspective from an emigrant to a nonmigrant perspective in her discussion of desire for Portugal in how she voices and aligns with types of emplaced persons as targets of desired identification or disidentification. There are two such recurring social types in the two interviews: emigrants who live in France with whom she does not want to identify and “real” nonmigrant Portuguese in Portugal, with whom she does want to identify. The following two excerpts from the 1995 and 2000 interviews show how she voices these two types pre and post move.
Narrating Desire for Place 55
Example 3 includes an excerpt with these patterns. Pre-departure 1995: In France
Post-settlement 2000: In Portugal
- déjà là-bas on on me prenait pour j’ai envie d’me dire maint’nant si c’est une portugaise, jamais on m’a dit que pour ça j’veux dire i’ j’étais immigrée pourraient rester en –mm France nous on s’rait –et comme, quand je parlais, j’aime par nettement mieux ici (.) exemple, des fois, quand t’entends les on n’aurait moins d’ gens, quand les immigrés6 parlaient, ils (unintelligible Portu disaient tout de suite, t’entends, on voit que t’es immigrée, mais moi, non-mm guese expression) on –donc automatiquement, je me suis dit, ‘entendrait moins parler bon, ‘je peux, (.) me faire passer vraiment français-c’est vrai que pour une vraie portugaise,’ . . . je trouve que certains et après avec mes cousines, mes cousines émigrés sont bêtes (.) qui critiquaient beaucoup l’émigration i’ viennent en vacances alors, moi je, je critiquais moi-même pour s’enfermer dans –mh leur maison les immigrés, c’est–à-dire que quand j’étais là-bas, j’avais un autre, j’adoptais, en fait, plus ou moins une autre identité –mm –c’est–à-dire que moi je le vivais très mal. Moi je vivais très mal d’être une fille d’immigrés. J’avais honte –au Portugal?= –=donc, je mentais,= –=ouais –quand j’étais jeune, je me souviens, j’avais 17 ans, je mentais aux gens de là-bas, je leur disais que je vivais au Portugal –mh –je me faisais moi-même mon film, . . . English Translation of 1995 excerpts
English Translation of 2000 excerpts
–already over there they they would I feel like saying to myself take me for a Portuguese person, now, ‘if it’s for that never did they say that I was an reason, I mean, they emigrant could stay in France,
56 Michele Koven –mm we would be clearly –and like, when I would speak, I like better.’ We would have for example, sometimes when you fewer (unintelligible hear people, when emigrants would Portuguese expression). speak, they would say right away, We would hear less you hear, we can tell you are an French spoken- it’s true emigrant, but me, no that I find that certain –mm, emigrants are dumb (.) –so automatically, I told myself, okay, they come on vacation I can really pass for a real Portuguese to stay closed up in person, . . . their houses. And after with my cousins, my cousins who criticised emigration a lot, so I, I criticised –mh –emigrants, that means that when I was over there, I had another, I adopted, in fact, more or less, another identity –mm –in other words, I had a really hard time. I had a really hard time being an emigrants’ daughter. I was ashamed. –in Portugal?= –=so I lied,= –=yeah –when I was young, I remember, I lied to people over there, I told them that I lived in Portugal –mh –I made up quite a story . . .
She uses deictics quite differently in comparable excerpts from the two interviews to present nonmigrants’ criticism of emigrants, and to position herself relative to the recurring emigrant and nonmigrant figures. In 1995, nonmigrants are a third-person plural “they” who criticise emigrants. She then highlights her desire to “pass” as such a nonmigrant, in order not to be identified as an emigrant. In 2000, she actually speaks from the perspective of a Portuguese nonmigrant who herself criticises emigrants. She has implicitly become part of the nonmigrant Portuguese, in so far as she now includes herself in this group with a “we” who dislike when “they,” (“emigrants”) “come” to Portugal in the summer. “They” bother “us.” Ana then speaks quotatively and nonquotatively
Narrating Desire for Place 57 from the perspective of the type of nonmigrant Portuguese person she had previously sought to become. I have thus analysed a range of indexical forms through which Ana treated Portugal and Portugueseness as a highly desired place and placerelated identity in two interviews with me. These two communicative events were separated by five years and took place in two different countries, which framed her speaking positions as first one of diasporic longing and then one of satisfied, post-“homeland” return. Across these two interactions, we saw how she communicated her desires for place and place-related identities through lexical expressions of wanting, verb tenses, directional expressions, and strategies of evoking and aligning with widely known social types with whom she alternately sought and achieved (dis)identification. Ana’s longings for Portugal need not be treated as individual, psychological entities, but as discursively displayed in social interaction. One can then situate the displays relative to chronotopes of the two interview interactions, those of her personal life circumstances, and those of broader Portuguese cultural logics surrounding emigration, return, diaspora, and nostalgia. I focused on her relationship to these broader cultural logics of place and longing, for what they reveal about the complex relationships between events of talking about longing and the longing for place itself, as culturally validated, and personally experienced.
5. Conclusion I have suggested making desire more central to the discourse-based study of place. One could further consider how a discursively grounded approach to desire for place can become a framework for understanding the experiences of other diasporic or counter-diasporic populations, and the innumerable situations where people long for particular places, such as tourism, whether or not they undertake actual travel. For cultural geographers and environmental psychologists, this chapter has shown ways to approach “desire for place” with greater attention to how those desires are formulated in verbal interaction. I have thus treated “place attachment” (Tuan 1974; Altman and Low 1992) as a discursive phenomenon. Attention to highly context-dependent features of discourse, such as lexical expressions of desire, verb tenses, directional expressions, pronouns, and strategies of quotation yield insight into how Ana presents and then inhabits a diasporic position of unfulfilled desire towards Portugal and Portugueseness, followed by a homecoming position, where those desires were fulfilled. What do these materials tell us about desire for place, as a topic for discourse-based investigation? For language-based scholars, attention to desire is another way to analyse people’s discursive constructions of and orientations to places that addresses the affect in such constructions and
58 Michele Koven orientations. Following Cameron and Kulick (2003), Kockelman (2007), and Rumsey (2003), I have treated desire not as an abstract, psychologically interior phenomenon, but as communicatively displayed. Desire need not be any more immaterial than any other discursively displayable dimension of subjectivity. In this way, desire is not a free-flowing, force, but an experience that people can both describe and enact. I discussed Ana’s explicit expressions of desire, looking at her use of lexical expressions that encode mental states such as desire (“I want(ed).” I also considered her implicit signalling and situating of desire relative to space, time, and person, through deictics that present the desire as active and ongoing, or fulfilled and satisfied, those that present her as in diaspora versus in the homeland, and those that align her with desirable and undesirable figures of personhood (emigrants and nonmigrants). Through this relocation and its renarration, Ana transformed her ability to speak from the perspective of the kind of place-linked person she had always wanted to be (a Portuguese nonmigrant) about the kind of person she did not want to be (an emigrant). Desires for (to go to, to be in) a place are linked to forms of personhood imagined to dwell there. Treating desire as expressed in and across communicative events allows us to ask more precise questions about events of desire or “wanting”— who wants, what, where, when, i.e., what Rumsey (2003) called “spaces of desire” (2003: 194). I thus also considered renarrations of fulfilled desires, whose affective force is no longer current, but situated in a displaced past. We thus first saw how Ana longed for Portugal from France, as an unfulfilled here-and-now about a longed-for there-and-then. We then saw how she renarrated that longing for Portugal as a past mental state event, from a fulfilled here-and-now. Analysts can then specify in which space-time and to whom desire is attributed, such as to the current self, or to a narrated figure of oneself or someone else in a distal space and time. Desires for places are often not only individual but also culturally and ideologically mediated (Low 2003, 2009, 2017). Ana’s longings for Portugal were informed by convergent nationally and family-based ideologies of successful “homeland return.” Attention to desire for place need not replace but instead augment attention to socio-economic factors that push and pull people to and from different places (Baynham 2017). We can then ask how people experience ideologically shaped cultural chronotopes that make certain places more or less desirable, through the lens of linguistically displayed desires that may be fulfilled, unfulfilled, or unfulfillable. This chapter has thus followed recent discussions of chronotopes—i.e., discursively mobilisable formulations of space, time, and personhood that argue against examining single chronotopes in isolation. Instead, analysts should examine the relationships among relevant spatiotemporal envelopes, or cross-chronotope alignments (Agha 2005, 2007;
Narrating Desire for Place 59 Silverstein 1993, 2005; Perrino 2007; Lemon 2009). I did this by considering the relationship between wanting one place, while positioned in another, highlighting the distinction between space-times from which people narrate desire for place and the space-times of the desired place. Therefore, by distinguishing between and examining the links between narrating and narrated chronotopes of Ana’s talk about wanting to be in Portugal, I could then disentangle how she talked about longing for Portugal from the discursively formulated place and time in which she communicated that desire. We can then understand people’s desires for place at the intersection of multiple such chronotopes. Places and people’s longings for places, as present, past, remote, or near, belonging to them or attributed to others, are no more occult than any other semiotically enactable entity.
Acknowledgements This chapter was first presented as a conference paper at the American Association of Applied Linguistics in Portland, Oregon, in March of 2017. I would like to thank Erika Hoffman-Dilloway, Sarah Hillewaert, Chantal Tetreault, Jennifer Reynolds, Adrienne Lo, and Michael Baynham for very helpful remarks on earlier drafts. All remaining errors are my own.
Notes 1 There are numerous discussions about the distinction between place and space. See Cresswell (2015) for a review of this distinction. In this article, I use them interchangeably. 2 See Carr and Lempert (2016) for a contemporary discussion of scale. 3 I have added quotation marks to indicate that referring to such displacements as returns is itself a position formulated through a particular ideology of diaspora. 4 Kockelman distinguishes between sign event, mode event, and content event. For the sake of simplicity, I will (re) use the narrating and narrated distinction common in linguistic anthropology (Jakobson 1957; Bauman 1986; Wortham 2001; Silverstein 1993; Koven 2007). I discuss desire by linking to discussions of alignment (Stivers 2008; Dick 2010; Agha 2007) as a productive site for analysing desire for place. Such alignments are manifest in the co-occurring indexical forms used in immediate participant framework that show participants’ relationships towards the range of present and non-present space-times evoked. In addressing similar concerns as these previous authors, I argue for greater attention to how social actors “do” desire for place through language practices. 5 Compare Ana’s supposed fulfilment of the diasporic dream of return to Berlant’s (2011) discussion of how social actors’ desires for and attachments to ultimately ill-fated, unsatisfiable fantasies of “the good life.” A broader discussion of the less discussed disappointments and frustrations of Portuguese return migrants is beyond the scope of this chapter (see Sardinha 2011a, 2011b; Sampaio 2014). Thank you to Adrienne Lo for raising such questions. 6 In everyday speech, many of my participants would use the French words for immigrant and emigrant interchangeably.
60 Michele Koven
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3 Discourses of (Be)Longing: Later Life and the Politics of Nostalgia David Divita
1. Introduction1 On Tuesday afternoons at the Centro,2 a day centre for Spanish seniors in a suburb north of Paris, a group of its members gather to take part in a class called Lengua castellana, or “Spanish language.” While I was conducting ethnographic fieldwork at the Centro in 2007–2008, about 12 women, aged 65–81, attended the class regularly. Almost all of them were born into conditions of poverty around the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and had no more than four or five years of formal education. As young adults in the 1960s, they fled to Paris, shortly after Franco sanctioned such international migration as part of an economic stabilisation plan. Although they intended to return to Spain after a few years, many of them ultimately decided to remain in France, and they are still there today. The Centro (and many others like it throughout the country) were created and funded by the Spanish government to serve its ageing population abroad (see Veiga et al. 2000). Lengua castellana, one of the many activities that it offers with this population in mind, aims to help its members improve rudimentary literacy skills in their native language that they never acquired to their satisfaction. The women in the Lengua castellana class refer to it affectionately as “la escuela,” or primary school. Week after week, they practice reading and writing in Spanish; they memorise and recite poems and, on occasion, they write brief compositions. For one such assignment, their instructor Pablo,3 a 27-year-old graduate student who was studying drama, asked them to write a description of their pueblos—the villages or towns in Spain where they had been born and raised. As he explained to the class, he hoped that some of his students would be willing to read their compositions aloud during the Centro’s upcoming celebration of International Book Day (El día del libro), which included public theatre and music performances in the Centro’s multi-purpose room. In this chapter, I focus on the texts that the women produced for this assignment, as well as on the conversational interaction that it provoked among them as they reflected in the classroom on the process of doing it. Although the
Discourses of (Be)Longing 65 women hailed from a diverse array of municipalities—that is, villages or towns with populations ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand inhabitants in Andalucía, Galicia, Castilla, and Valencia—most of them represented their pueblos in similar ways, employing formal features and evaluative language that, altogether, work to create a similar feeling: nostalgia. Signifying a point of origin in Spain, the term “pueblo” conjured a place and time in the past associated with simplicity, family, and nature, standing in contrast with the modern, urban present of its articulation. Through discourse analysis of their texts and talk, I aim to show how nostalgia operates among individuals who share a common history: not only can it bind them together into forms of community, but it may also become the object of oppositional stances that signal distinctions within those communities. For my study’s participants, who find themselves in a liminal phase of the life course, nostalgia can function as a kind of discursive salve. As economic immigrants, they spent decades performing menial jobs and saving money; now retired from the workforce they must negotiate alternative identities while inhabiting a spatiotemporal phase “betwixt and between” (Turner 1967: 93). As Cohen (1994: 145) writes, alluding to Turner, their liminality is not “ritually created” but rather constitutes the “existential condition of old age.” Engaging in semiotic practices that entail the past helps them to make sense of the present.
2. Nostalgia as a Mode of Engagement With the Past Nostalgia is commonly understood as a ‘longing for what is lacking in a changed present . . . a yearning for what is now unattainable, simply because of the irreversibility of time’ (Pickering and Keightley 2006: 920). A mode of engagement with the past, nostalgia has proven to be a versatile analytic tool in the fields of psychoanalysis, history, literary criticism, and postcolonial studies; anthropological deployments of the concept, with which I engage here, have emphasised how its emergence in particular times and places ‘says a lot more about contemporary social configurations than about the past itself’ (Angé and Berliner 2015: 5). Recent scholarship has argued that nostalgia is ‘discursively and historically linked to estrangement, to being out of place and far from home’ (Bissell 2005: 225), and that it can operate as a means of “cultivating intimacy through shared expression” among individuals affiliated with a common past (Boyer 2012: 20). Among people who are spatially and temporally marginalised such as those I feature here—dislocated from their place of origin, occupying one end of the life course—the evocation of nostalgia for the past may enable them to negotiate belonging in the present. Associated with the experience of rupture—then from now, there from here—nostalgia has been invoked in discussions of modernity and the particular dispositions it enables. Boym (2007: 1), for instance, has
66 David Divita described nostalgia as “uncannily contemporary”—the spatiotemporal symptom of an epoch that has been shaped by new forms of connectivity, as well as increased fragmentation and uncertainty. As she writes (2007): ‘Nostalgia appears to be a longing for a place but it is actually a yearning for a different time’ (p. 2). The act of nostalgic yearning thus entails a conflation of space with time; it generates social meaning through a relation of contrast with the spatiotemporal coordinates—the here-andnow—in which this act takes place, as well as other, non-sentimental modes of engaging with the past that are similarly intelligible in a given sociocultural milieu. Indeed, nostalgia is not only comprised of “multiple strands” of memory with regard to the object of longing, but it also coincides with other practices of recollection altogether (see Bissell 2005, 2015; Boyer 2012). What one remembers, and how one remembers it, become resources for creating social meaning in the present. An analysis of nostalgia and its various functions in social life invites consideration of the chronotope (Bakhtin 1981)—that is, in its broadest sense, a representational configuration of time, space, and personhood that is mobilised in social interaction. Although Bakhtin first developed the concept to describe a constitutive feature of novelistic discourse, the chronotope has proven useful among linguists and anthropologists investigating the spatiotemporal configurations of oral narrative and, in particular, the sociolinguistic dimension of migration and diaspora (Baynham 2015; Blommaert and De Fina 2016; De Fina and Georgakopoulou 2015; Dick 2010, 2011; Divita 2014; Eisenlohr 2004; Koven 2013a, 2013b; Perrino 2007, 2015; Wirtz 2014). Importantly, a chronotope functions through a relation of contrast, without which it represents little more than one possible world among others (see Agha 2007). Approaching talk about the past through the analytic of the chronotope can shed light on the various ways in which other realms—be they recollected or imagined, past or future—come to bear on the interactional present. Chronotopic calibration enables ‘virtual space-time “movement” and “travel” ’ (Lempert and Perrino 2007: 207) that generate various affective states, of which nostalgia serves as an example par excellence. The chronotope is thus ripe for mobilisation in the analysis of nostalgic discourse—in particular, that which is generated by those inhabiting a liminal phase of the life course. By and large, the adult students in the Lengua castellana class invoked at least passingly a chronotope of nostalgia when writing about their pueblos. Next, I perform close textual analysis on one of the students’ compositions as a means of illuminating the formal characteristics of their nostalgic discourse. I situate this composition within a broader corpus of texts, highlighting the commonalities among them to suggest at least a tacit understanding among students of how a pueblo—and the past with which it is associated—should be represented. In the second part of the chapter, I present a few conversational interactions that were
Discourses of (Be)Longing 67 recorded over the six weeks that students worked on the assignment, basing my analysis of their thematic content and social dynamics on the larger ethnographic study in which they emerged, which included lifestory interviews with my informants. These informal interactions manifest other, non-nostalgic—even “anti-nostalgic” (Bissell 2015)—modes of recollection, thus pointing to the normative expectations that circulated at the Centro with regard to talk about the past. Outside the parameter of the written assignment—that is, in the side conversations that it inspired—students negotiated solidarity and belonging through means other than the expression of nostalgia; indeed, some of them rejected nostalgia altogether.
3. Nostalgia for the Pueblo The excerpts that follow are drawn from the corpus of 11 student compositions and the audio recordings that I made and transcribed weekly of each Lengua castellana class. For the duration of the six-week assignment, the women practiced reading their texts aloud and then revised them based on feedback from Pablo and their peers. As Pablo explained in class, he designed the assignment as a means of encouraging students to write coherent paragraphs about something that they knew intimately and valued deeply. For the most part, the compositions reflected the students’ limited experience with formal writing. Their paragraphs comprised simple sentences that were tethered paratactically, lists of descriptive details, and anecdotal recollections that reflected their personal experience of small-town life in Spain. As I mention earlier, all of the students were born and raised in conditions of poverty around the time of the Civil War; with regard to a majority of them, their presence now in Paris attests to the trying conditions of their childhoods—that is, they migrated to France as young adults to escape the destitution wrought by the war and Franco’s regime. And yet, their compositions largely comprise idyllic descriptions of rural landscapes that include details about animals and vegetation, as well as fond recollections of the activities that these landscapes facilitated. Marisol, who was born near Toledo in 1943 and migrated to Paris 21 years later, wrote a description of her pueblo that illustrates many of the features, both formal and thematic, that appeared throughout the 11 compositions that I analysed. I present it here in its entirety4: (1) I was born in Navalcán, in the province of Toledo. Back then my pueblo was small, and we all knew one another. Today everything is different. Now it is bigger. I feel a bit lost. When I was small, I was always in the street. Back then, the streets were full of mud. And when it rained, trails of water would form all around the pueblo. I used to collect espadrille soles and iron, and in exchange, they
68 David Divita would give me comic strips, which I liked to read a lot. I also used to like to go out to the meadows, to collect seasonal things, especially in spring, when everything is prettier. My pueblo doesn’t have museums or cathedrals, but for me, when I’m in it, I feel as though I’m in the best paradise that I’ve ever set foot in. Yo nací en Navalcán, en la provincia de Toledo. Entonces mi pueblo era pequeño, y todos nos conocíamos. Hoy todo es diferente. Ahora es más grande. Yo me siento un poco perdida. Cuando yo era pequeña, siempre estaba en la calle. Entonces, las calles estaban llenas de barro. Y cuando llovía, bajaban los regueros por todo el pueblo. Yo recogía suelas de alpargatas y hierros, y a cambio, me daban teveos, que me gustaban mucho leer. También me gustaba mucho ir al campo, a recoger cosas de la temporada, sobre todo en primavera, que todo es más bonito. Mi pueblo no tiene museos ni catedrales, pero para mí, cuando en él estoy, me siento en el mejor paraíso que mis pies hayan pisado. Like many of her classmates, Marisol begins her composition by naming the town in which she was born and locating it within Spain’s regional geography: Navalcán, in the province of Toledo, is about 100 miles south-west of Madrid. In this brief paragraph, Marisol repeats the word “pueblo” three times. Her modification of this term with the possessive adjective “my” (“mi pueblo”)—something that appeared throughout the seniors’ compositions, as well as in conversations with other members of the Centro—reflects the deeply personal affiliation that she and her peers feel with their places of origin. Although their pueblos vary, reflecting in part the different regions where they are situated, the students nevertheless share a relationship to, and an identification with, the spatiotemporal origin that this term signifies, as well as its associated characteristics. In her description, Marisol includes references to the outdoors and natural elements, mentioning the meadows as well as the streets, which were often “full of mud.” She also invokes the changes wrought upon the pueblo’s landscape by the seasons, associating a surge of natural “prettiness” with springtime. Such recollections of pastoral beauty and the effects of seasonal cycles appeared throughout the compositions. As Nuria wrote about her pueblo, which is 40 miles east of Marisol’s: In the house in winter it was really cold. We used to warm ourselves with the stove that we also used to make food . . . In summer at night time we used to go outside into the street for some cool air. (En la casa en el invierno hacía mucho frío. Nos calentábamos con la lumbre que al mismo tiempo servía para hacer la comida . . . En el verano por las noches salíamos al fresco a la calle.)
Discourses of (Be)Longing 69 Similarly, Carolina, whose pueblo is about 30 miles northwest of Valencia, wrote the following: ‘I remember the countryside of my pueblo from when I was a child. In springtime the flowering almond trees are truly marvellous!’ (‘Yo recuerdo cuando era niña la campiña de mi pueblo. Los almendros floridos en la primavera es algo maravilloso!’) Students’ recollections of such rural details, which spanned plant and animal life associated with agricultural sustenance, were often evaluated in positive affective terms such as this: “marvellous!” At the beginning of her composition, Marisol activates a chronotopic contrast through the use of temporal deictics that situate her pueblo as it was then in relation to how it is now. As she writes, ‘Back then, my pueblo was small, and we all knew one another. Today everything is different. Now it is bigger. I feel a bit lost.’ Marisol juxtaposes “back then” with “today,” associating the former with the pueblo’s small size, which facilitated a provincial kind of familiarity among its inhabitants—‘we all knew one another’—that she seems to value. She goes on to invoke an explicit disjuncture between that moment and today; Navalcán has grown bigger and become unfamiliar to Marisol, who describes herself feeling “a bit lost” when she returns. This representation of her pueblo recalls the perceived nature of other urban centres—namely, Paris, where she now resides—whose cold modernity may repel any impulse for nostalgic expression. Bringing these chronotopes into relation with one another, Marisol articulates a stance on the differences that this juxtaposition highlights: the pueblo that she recollects from the past is a more hospitable place than it is now. María, in her composition, voiced a similar observation: ‘In my pueblo, everything was pretty . . . How much of all that remains, I don’t know. 48 years have passed since then.’ (‘En mi pueblo, todo era bonito . . . Cuanto queda de todo eso, no lo sé. Han pasado de todo aquello 48 años.’) Employing the past tense, she writes with certainty about the beauty of her pueblo as she recalls it; in the present, however, she expresses uncertainty about the state of “all that”—a distal deictic that conflates space and time—which, she implies, has most likely changed for the worse since she left it 48 years earlier. Other characteristics in Marisol’s composition echo those of her classmates—namely, her use of pronominal and verbal forms. In the first few sentences of her text, for example, she conflates first- and third-person pronouns, suggesting a clear perception of her relationship to a broader community at the time that she lived in her pueblo: ‘I was born in Navalcán, in the province of Toledo. Back then . . . we all knew one another.’ Such comforting familiarity contrasts with the fragmentation that she and her peers associate with their pueblos now. Similarly, in a poem that Lina wrote about changes in her small Galician town, she lamented that ‘everyone goes their own way, thus closing the door to friendship’
70 David Divita (‘cada uno va a lo suyo, cerrando así la puerta a la amistad’). Throughout the compositions there is also a preponderance of the imperfective aspect—see, for example, Marisol’s use earlier of ‘era . . . estaba . . . llovía . . . recogía . . . me gustaba’—denoting actions or states of mind that were habitual, continuous, or recurring in the past and thus lack precise temporal boundaries. Given its articulation of meaning from within an action or state, and thus, possibly, from a more subjective stance (see Fleischman 1995), the imperfective aspect plays a large part in the expression of nostalgia. In the last sentence of her composition, though, Marisol shifts to the present tense, invoking as she did at the beginning a description of her pueblo today: ‘My pueblo doesn’t have museums or cathedrals, but for me, when I’m in it, I feel as though I’m in the best paradise that I’ve ever set foot in.’ Most likely alluding here to Paris, Marisol puts forth a contrast between her pueblo as it is now and larger cosmopolitan centres, which are often associated with grandiose architectural structures and cultural institutions. Even though she acknowledges that Navalcán has changed, and that she sometimes feels lost there when she returns, Marisol nevertheless punctuates her composition with a starkly positive evaluation of it as the “best paradise” that she has ever known, casting the recollections that have preceded it in a nostalgic light. Her statement here echoes remarks from her classmates that describe their past lives in Spain in equally rosy terms. Remembering her pueblo in Andalucía, for example, Ana wrote the following: ‘We weren’t rich, but we were so happy—the whole family, my grandmothers, my grandfathers, my siblings, my aunts and uncles, and my neighbours’ (‘no éramos ricos, pero qué felices éramos—toda la familia, mis abuelas, mis abuelos, mis hermanos, tíos y vecinos’). As such declarations suggest, in the recollected pueblo material wealth matters little given the tightly knit structures of kinship that characterise it. Although these structures have altered over time, the pueblos that contained them, as Marisol’s composition attests, remain objects of nostalgic recollection. The yearning for place enfolds a recollection of the social relationships that once sustained it; space, time, and personhood are again conflated. Marisol’s text comprises a very particular representation of the past— one that softens, excludes, or simply ignores its negative or painful dimensions. As I learned through a life-story interview with her, Marisol was born into an impoverished family with five children; her mother died when she was three years old. She attended school until the age of 12, at which point she left in search of menial labour, like many other women at the time. In 1967, with virtually no possibilities of social mobility in Spain, she decided to migrate to France, where she lived with her sister’s family for two years in a bidonville, or shantytown, just north of Paris. Marisol’s composition thus constitutes a selective engagement with
Discourses of (Be)Longing 71 the past; including certain details and omitting others, she mobilises a chronotope of nostalgia. This mode of remembering dominated her classmates’ texts as well; they, too, displayed a largely sentimental perspective on the facts of their biographical trajectories and the historical circumstances in which they unfolded—at least within the bounds of the written assignment. In conversations about the assignment that occurred in the classroom, however, students engaged with other forms of memory altogether.
4. Other Modes of Engaging With the Past Over the course of six weeks, Marisol read her composition out loud to the class a few times. As Pablo explained, this activity was an important part of the assignment and served as preparation for those students who would be participating in the upcoming Día del libro celebration. Before they read out loud, Pablo reminded students to speak clearly and to project their voices; even though they were reading texts that they themselves had written, many of them had difficulty doing this with fluency. Oftentimes before they began, students would claim that they were nervous or that they had not rehearsed enough at home. Yet, no matter how they performed, their classmates would respond with hearty applause and congratulations for having accomplished what was seen as a challenging exercise. Pablo, for his part, was usually more critical, pointing out how the women could improve their written texts, as well as their recitation: they could verify that each sentence had a verb, for example; they could also increase their volume or vary their intonation. The students of Lengua castellana had thus written their compositions knowing that they would be presented and evaluated in public; from the very beginning, Pablo had made evident the performative dimension of the assignment, and the students revealed their orientation to it as such. This awareness seems to have affected the formal and thematic shape that their compositions took; the patterns that emerged among them suggest that their approach was governed by a sense that the past should be publicly represented in a particular way—that is, through a chronotope of nostalgia that highlighted certain details and proscribed others. And yet, as side conversations in the classroom revealed, these women could also access other, unsentimental modes of engaging with the past in order to negotiate the social terrain of the present. For example, after Elena read her composition out loud during the second week of the exercise, Pablo illustrated how to divide it more clearly into small paragraphs by outlining each of its main ideas on a large easel pad that served as the classroom’s blackboard. In order to make her text more engaging, he explained, Elena should expand upon each of these
72 David Divita ideas with personal details. The following exchange begins as Pablo helps Elena imagine how to augment the first sentence of her composition, which concerned her early childhood: (2) 1. Pablo: you’re not going to leave this in just one paragraph, you’re going to fill it out no lo vas a dejar así en un solo párrafo, lo vas a redondear 2. Elena: okay de acuerdo 3. Pablo: you need to say more about this te falta decir más sobre eso 4. Elena: yes yes because there isn’t much there sí sí porque hay pocas cosas 5. Pablo: patience (directed to another student) paciencia 6. Elena: I could tell you about when I was 4—listen—the Spanish war started te cuento de cuando tenía 4 años—fíjate—que empezó la guerra de España 7. Pablo: it would be really nice if you said that sería muy bonito que dijeras eso 8. Elena: oh là là we had to run when the planes came to bomb, the Germans, we had to run and hide in a shelter oh là là teníamos que correr cuando venían a bombardear los aviones, que eran los alemanes, teníamos que correr a escondernos en los refugios 9. Pablo: it would be really interesting if you said that ah sería muy interesante que hablaras de eso 10. Elena: I remember this—listen—when Franco had arrived and all that, I remember that my mother used to give me a hairstyle with a net with a red tie, and they came—the falangistas—and said to my mother— me acuerdo de eso—fíjate—cuando ya entró Franco y todo eso, que me acuerdo que me hacía mi madre una peina con un chinchorro con un lazo rojo, y vinieron los de—los falanjistas—y a mi madre la— 11. Carm.: I remember too yo me lo acuerdo también
Discourses of (Be)Longing 73 12. Elena: they said to her, ‘hey, please take that bow out of the girl’s hair’ la dijeron, ‘oiga al favor de quitarle ese lazo a la niña’ 13. Benita: because it was red porque era rojo 14. Elena: because it was red, yes ma’am porque era rojo, sí señora 15. Nuria: oh well that would be really nice ay pues eso sería muy bonito 16. Elena: and afterward later my father was—well, if I tell you every- thing I’d have a book y luego después mi padre fue—bueno si le cuento todo tengo un libro At the beginning of this exchange, Pablo advises Elena on how to approach a revision of her draft—that is, by “filling out” (line 1) the brief paragraphs suggested by the sequence of ideas that she has included. After acknowledging that “there isn’t much there” (line 4), Elena goes on to recollect an episode from her childhood that occurred during the Civil War. Sketching the background of the incident, she employs a series of verbs in the imperfective form—‘we had to . . .’ (‘teníamos que . . .’)—to describe the actions that she and her family were obligated to take in order to protect themselves from German bombardments. (Again, this verbal form casts past actions in a subjective light, blurring as it does their temporal parameters, although here it is mobilised in amatter-of-fact, non-nostalgic discourse.) As Elena recounts in lines 10, 12, and 14, on one occasion a member of the Falange (a political party affiliated with the Francoist state) asked her mother to remove a red bow from her hair, presumably because that colour was associated with counter-state insurgents. The incident that Elena describes draws reactions from her classmates, who corroborate the details of her anecdote either explicitly—'I remember too’ (line 11)—or through their anticipation of its punchline (Benita, line 13). Elena’s brief narrative illustrates the fraught nature of the time period in which it is set: bombs fall, and families must run for cover; a girl’s red bow becomes a sign of sedition. Although she recounts this memory rather matter-of-factly, Elena nevertheless seems aware of its affective charge, imploring her classmates twice to pay attention through the imperative form “listen!” (lines 6 and 10) and uttering an evaluative discourse marker in French—“oh là là!” (line 8). When she begins her narrative, she no more than mentions the war when Pablo jumps in to encourage her to write about it (line 6)—a sentiment that he repeats after she reveals details about German bombardments: ‘It would be really
74 David Divita interesting if you spoke about that’ (line 9). Indeed, Pablo often encouraged students to engage in such mnemonic activity, detailing their personal experiences of traumatic historical events; as he told me during a one-on-one interview, he hoped that their participation in the language and theatre workshops would encourage them to express such “intimate” feelings—that is, in his words, feelings that “touchent l’intimité” (“touch intimacy”). He even told students that they did not have to read their pueblo compositions out loud if these triggered an uncomfortable emotional response. But frank, open discussions about war and its aftermath were rare among members at the Centro. As the student compositions suggest, this community of expatriates, at least publicly, tended to represent shared places and times of the past within a frame of nostalgic recollection. In this informal interaction, however, Elena evokes the past without any sentimental longing. She brings up the war, Franco, and his political affiliates, as well as their deleterious effects on her family’s everyday life; this account of the past seems to excite Pablo, given its inclusion of such sensitive topics. But Elena’s openness about these experiences is only momentary. When she returned with a revision the following week, she had extended the paragraph about her childhood by including just one additional sentence. Using the third-person, she wrote simply: ‘Elena had a very difficult childhood because of the war’ (‘Elena pasó su niñez con mucha dificultad a causa de la guerra’). Given my observations of how individuals at the Centro often spoke about the past, it is not surprising that Elena decided to omit specific details about her “difficult childhood” in the final version of her composition. In a similar fashion, Carolina, whom I mention earlier, finished her paragraph about a pueblo in Valencia by writing the following: ‘Its flowering honeysuckle along the pathway’s edges were a pleasure to see, and I remember everything with a bit of nostalgia’ (‘Sus madreselvas floridas a la orilla de los caminos eran un gozo verlas y yo recuerdo todo con un poco de nostalgia’). During an interview outside of the Lengua castellana class, Carolina spoke affectionately about her pueblo and how she and her husband returned there regularly from Paris. She was an avid participant in the Centro’s many activities and spoke with pride about her Spanish identity. And yet, similar to Elena, Carolina exhibited other modes of remembering the past outside of the parameters of the assignment. Towards the end of the same class in which Elena read her composition, Pablo left momentarily to retrieve some photocopies that he had forgotten in the main office. At this point, Carolina began to recite a lengthy poem from memory that the students had studied in class—“El hada azul” (“The blue fairy”). Known for her memorisation skills, Carolina often performed such recitations to the enjoyment of her classmates, explaining that she practiced them at home in order to keep her mind sharp. When the end of her recitation incited student
Discourses of (Be)Longing 75 applause, Carolina boasted that she could easily declaim from memory another lengthy poem that she attributed to her father. As she said, ‘My father had one, too, because he was in prison for so many years.’ Without any prodding, Carolina began to recite “Vuela, vuela, golondrina” (“Fly away, fly away, swallow”), a melancholy poem written from the perspective of a prisoner who sees a small bird beyond the bars of his cell and entreats it to fly to his family members so that it may bring them kisses and song. Students were immediately rapt as Carolina intoned the text. After five or six stanzas, her voice broke; overcome with emotion, her eyes welling with tears, she stopped speaking and the room filled with silence. At this point, Elena spoke up softly: ‘Bad memories. Of course, calm down, calm down. Don’t recite any further, and you can say it another day’ (‘Recuerdos malos. Mais oui, cálmate, cálmate. No sigas más y lo dirás otro día’). Carolina took a deep breath and began reciting the poem where she left off; when she finished, students applauded avidly and told her that it was lovely. María then asked if the poem had indeed come from Carolina’s father, to which she responded affirmatively5: ‘It’s from my father. I used to have the paper, and he wrote it down for his children . . . It’s weird that this is happening to me, you know?’ (‘Esa es de mi padre. Yo tenía el papel, y la ha escrito para sus hijos . . . Es raro que me pase esto, ¿sabes?’). Carolina seemed surprised by the surge of emotion that her recitation caused, suggesting at the very least that she does not experience such surges regularly—perhaps with regard to the public setting in which it occurred here or to the particular poem that incited it. “Vuela, vuela golondrina” evokes the time and place of Carolina’s childhood—that is, the Civil War and its painful consequences for her family; Carolina’s father, who had fought for the Republicans, spent years in prison near their town in Valencia. These are, of course, the same spatiotemporal coordinates that animate Carolina’s description of her pueblo; the engagement with the past that this poem mediates, however, generates a different kind of affect—sorrow rather than nostalgia. Carolina’s poignant animation of a poem that she associates with painful aspects of her childhood occurs in the same setting—the Lengua castellana class—in which she describes the pleasant flowering honeysuckle that lined the pathways of her pueblo. The upsetting recollection, however, emerges on the perimeter of the class’s main activity. In this instance, the session has nearly ended and the instructor, Pablo, has left the room momentarily; the students gather their papers and notebooks as they wait for his return. Carolina begins to flaunt her memorisation skills and finds herself overtaken with emotion as she begins to recite a poem from her father. As such an occurrence implies, in this classroom and at the Centro more generally, the most normative mode of public engagement with the past is through a chronotope of nostalgia. Beyond the institutional gaze, however—that is, in this case, once Pablo steps outside—a different kind of remembering occurs, in which the representation of past times and
76 David Divita places is not characterised by longing but rather desolation; the expression of grief supplants the longing to return. The composition assignment, which included public recitation, hindered such expression, despite Pablo’s intentions. For this group of women with little formal education and limited literacy skills, the written word was valued as an authoritative mode of communication. While conducting fieldwork I observed them photocopy and circulate handwritten texts—books, newspaper articles, poems, literary passages from Lengua castellana—on multiple occasions. These texts were not valued for the information that they conveyed—indeed, they were far too difficult for the seniors to read in any meaningful way—but rather for the symbolic meaning that they conveyed: one’s value of literacy. The production and performance of written texts seemed to be associated with institutional authority just as much as everyday practice— authority that was manifested in their instructor Pablo, the Lengua castellana classroom, and the Centro itself. Texts about the past should thus reflect communal norms for remembering—and indeed they did through their animation of nostalgia. On the side lines of institutionally sanctioned activities, though, other forms of mnemonic discourse tended to surface or were censored altogether, as the following example illustrates. On the day of the Día del libro performance, Consuela, an active member at the Centro who had volunteered to host the event, told the audience that she and the other members constituted a family (“somos una familia”); she then went on to solicit contributions to read out loud on the spot. A wizened man in the front row whom I had not seen before proffered a poem that he had written about his adolescence in Spain. It began with vivid imagery of blood and tears, invoking the “suffering of an immigrant.” Consuela read the first five or six verses to the audience before stopping to declare that it was too serious for the day’s events. She then asked the man if he had anything else to offer, at which point he handed her a second poem about a romantic marriage proposal that occurred in the Spanish countryside. Deeming this acceptable, Consuela read it to the crowd. As these actions suggest, maintaining a sense of “family” at the Centro required a calculated balance of revelation and omission. 4.1 Anti-Nostalgia and Processes of Social Distinction Blatant acts of censorship such as Consuela’s were uncommon, perhaps in part because explicit invocations of past trauma or desolation rarely occurred in public. When I asked the Centro’s activities director, Josep, a 38-year-old Spaniard, why its members seemed inclined to recall the past in nostalgic terms, he replied that any negative narrative about the past is “forbidden” (“prohibida”), alluding to broadly circulating discourses
Discourses of (Be)Longing 77 among older Spaniards that advocated collective forgetting in the wake of Spain’s transition to democracy. He went on to describe how such mnemonic practices continue to operate within his own family, who has never left Spain: My father doesn’t talk about the war. My grandparents either. It was really hard in Spain, eh? People don’t want to talk about it . . . [Those at the Centro] talk a lot about the past as though it were something idealized and nostalgic and everything, when they had a really crappy childhood. It doesn’t surprise me that they talk about the past. But the fact that they idealize it amazes me. (Mi padre no habla de la guerra. Mis abuelos tampoco. En España fue muy duro, eh? La gente no quiere hablar . . . Se habla mucho del pasado como si fuera algo nostálgico idealizado y tal y cual cuando tuvieron una juventud de mierda. Que hablan del pasado no me extraña. Que hablan del pasado idealizándolo me deja alucinado.) Josep’s social and administrative positions—that is, his age and his institutional role—afforded him a unique perspective on practices of remembering at the Centro. He could understand the decision not to speak about things in the past that were “really hard,” but he was flummoxed by the act of representing those things in “idealized and nostalgic” terms—a viewpoint that he shared with some of the Centro’s most peripheral members. Indeed, not only does the chronotope of nostalgia function as a means of tying a community together; it may also be summoned by individuals who want to differentiate themselves from other participants in that community. This practice was most apparent among those who were affiliated in some way with the Centro, but who, because of certain biographical details, could claim a marginal position with respect to it. Two of the women who regularly attended the Lengua castellana class, Paola and Benita, occupied such a position with respect to their peers. Paola, the oldest woman in the class, was born in 1930 and migrated to France as a political refugee at the end of the war, nine years later. Thus, unlike her classmates, she had spent half of her childhood outside of Spain, and today she prefers to speak French rather than Spanish. Her composition comprised a matter-of-fact description of the landscape and livestock of her pueblo in Aragón. One day after class, I ran in to Paola on the platform of the train station, as we were both heading back into Paris. During the brief ride, we sat together and chatted. Paola revealed to me her frustration with some of her classmates and their tendency towards nostalgic recollections of the past, as I recorded in my fieldnotes later that day. ‘I don’t understand them,’ she said. ‘If Spain is so much better, then why don’t they just go live there?’ Disavowing the chronotope of nostalgia, Paola assumed an oppositional stance on the common practice of
78 David Divita remembering that she observed in the Lengua castellana class as a means of distinguishing herself from her peers. Benita, for her part, had also experienced a different trajectory than most of her classmates. Her father had been a successful agriculturist, employing a number of local labourers, and her mother had been a schoolteacher. Thus, she enjoyed a privileged social status relative to the economic immigrants with whom she interacts at the Centro. During her adolescence, she fell in love with a man who had immigrated to France with his parents during the Civil War but returned to her pueblo every summer. After they married in 1968, Benita joined him in Paris, where he was employed as a manager in a factory. Unlike her classmates, Benita never worked outside of the home. Although she is strongly affiliated with the Centro and the history that it represents, Benita frequently invokes the particularities of her experience to explain the fundamental differences that she identifies between herself and other members. A week after the Día del libro performance, Pablo asked students in the Lengua castellana class to discuss the experience of writing and performing their texts. This incited a broader critique of the activities that Pablo had assigned and the ways in which students had performed them. During this conversation Benita said the following: (3) Benita: I don’t have any nostalgia for Spain. When I go, I go and I enjoy it. And when I come back here, I come back and I enjoy it. I don’t have any problem with—but the thing is I never worked. I don’t have the same situation. I’ve always liked to go to the movies, the theatre, and to museums. And I’ve kept doing that all along—yo no tengo ninguna nostalgia de España. Cuando voy, voy y me la gozo. Y cuando vengo aquí, vengo y ma la gozo. Y no tengo ningún problema de—pero el caso es que no he trabajado. No tengo la misma situación. Siempre me ha gustado ir al cine, al teatro, a los museos. Y a todo lo he seguido haciendo— Carol.: Wow—we all liked that. But you needed to have this to go (makes a gesture with her thumb and forefinger to indicate money) Toma—a todas nos ha gustado. Pero hacía falta tener esto para ir Like Paola, Benita distinguishes herself from the other women in the Lengua castellana class by explicitly dissociating herself from their expression of nostalgia. Claiming that she herself does not have such a “problem,” she describes her experience of transnationalism in matter-of-fact terms. As she says, her situation is different, primarily because, unlike her peers, she “hasn’t worked” and so would not be considered an economic migrant. Benita goes on to associate the expression of nostalgia with a lack of the cultural interests that she claims to have, due to the good fortune of her
Discourses of (Be)Longing 79 upbringing; romanticised recollections of the past, she suggests, remain the preserve of expatriates who fled conditions of poverty with little education and no cultural capital. Taking issue with these remarks, Carolina responds by affirming what this group of migrants shares with Benita, as well as what renders them distinct; it is not that they are uninterested in cultural experiences and institutions, but rather that they have never had the financial means to enjoy them. Like Paola, Benita articulates a negative stance on the practice of nostalgic remembering, associating it with a lack of modernity and sophistication—qualities in this setting that nostalgia casts in a soothing light.
5. Conclusion Benita’s invocation of difference among her peers’ points towards a broader commonality: how they engage with the past is informed by their histories of migration, as well as their situation now in later life. As Nuria stated one afternoon, provoking vigorous nods among her classmates: ‘There are lots of memories. I also think that we’re getting older, and we think about the life we had in Spain . . . We’re more lost than the ones who stayed there. There’s something lacking inside us.’ (‘Hay muchos recuerdos. Yo pienso también que vamos siendo mayor, y pensamos en la vida que hemos tenido en España . . . Estamos más perdidas nosotras que los que han quedado allí. Hay algo que nos falta al interior.’) The experience of this lack can generate the kind of yearning that characterises nostalgic discourse—yearning that surfaces long after a significant rupture. As Atia and Davies (2010) write, Whatever its object, nostalgia serves as a negotiation between continuity and discontinuity; it insists on the bond between our present selves and a fragment of the past, but also on the force of our separation from what we have lost. (p. 184) The loss that occurs after migration entails spatiotemporal distinctions— there and here, then and now—that may be subsequently recruited in projects of personal and community identity formation—projects that entail chronotopic calibration such as the kind seen in Marisol’s text. Unlike other practices of remembrance, nostalgia functions by emphasising “distance and disjuncture” rather than commonality (Bissell 2005: 216). As my data show, the feeling of loss may bind a community together through the halcyon recollections that it engenders—a process that often involves partial revelation or even outright censorship. In her research on the national foundation6 that oversees the Centro and others like it throughout France, Ribert (2015) identifies a similar impulse to silence accounts of the past that might motivate discord among association
80 David Divita members. For the people of the Lengua castellana class—and at the Centro more generally—nostalgia most often materialised in discursive acts that were associated in some way with institutional authority—an assignment, a teacher, a class, a performance; as Ribert (2015) suggests, such nostalgic expression facilitates “associational coexistence” (“convivencia asociativa”) (p. 34). Nostalgia may thus operate as a regime of remembering, prescribing not only what may be remembered but also how it is remembered. Alongside this dominant form of memory, though, other modes of engagement with the past circulate among members of a community. The choice of one or another of these modes may create social meaning—indexing, for example, affiliation or distance. When Carolina’s recitation causes her a deep emotional reaction, for example, Elena assuages her by acknowledging the pain of remembering certain things before suggesting that she say the poem another day. Her gesture here aims to establish solidarity through the recognition of sorrow and an invitation to express it. Various mnemonic practices—and their differentiation—are thus available to individuals as resources for making sense of their participation in the communal formations with which certain memories are associated. This is perhaps especially germane to transnational migrants in later life who, far away from their places of origin, remain displaced in space and time—in particular, those who have retired from the workforce and now find themselves occupying what might be thought of as a liminal phase of the life course. The experience—and recollection—of loss may enable them to create new forms of attachment in the present.
Notes 1 I presented aspects of this work at the Symposium about Language in Society, Austin (SALSA) in April 2018 at the University of Texas and would like to thank the audience there for its helpful input. I would also like to thank Cécile Evers. Additionally, I am grateful to Roberta Piazza for inviting me to contribute to this volume and for giving me valuable feedback. Any remaining flaws are my own. 2 Most of my informants referred to the centre as “El Centro” (“The center” in Spanish), and so I use that term there. 3 All of the names in this chapter are pseudonyms. 4 Unfortunately, I do not have written copies of all of the students’ compositions. In some cases (such as Marisol’s) I must rely on audio recordings that I made of the Lengua castellana class. I have thus chosen to represent all excerpts from the compositions in standard orthographic and written form, using diacritics and punctuation that students may have omitted. 5 I discovered later that this poem was not written by Carolina’s father, as she believed, but rather Eleuterio Pérez Cornejo, a writer and political prisoner during the Civil War. Perceptions of authorship such as this invite analysis, but they lie beyond the scope of this chapter. 6 This is called the FACEEF, Federación de Asociaciones y Centros de Españoles Emigrantes en Francia.
Discourses of (Be)Longing 81
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4 A Space of Your Own: Transforming Roma Heritage Practices and Identity in Contexts of Economic and Social Precarity Mike Baynham 1. Introduction The data on which this chapter is based was collected as part of the Leeds component of the Translation and Translanguaging TLANG Project (Creese et al.). This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, as a Large Grant in the Translating Cultures theme, ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’ (AH/L007096/1). The project, which studied multilingual interaction in superdiverse contexts, consisted of four phases, with a successive focus on Business, Heritage, Sport, and Law. The first two phases focused on the Czech/Slovak Roma settled in Leeds, the Sports phase focused on a Portuguese speaking capoeira and basketball player, while the Law phase centres on a more diverse range of clients in a community-based immigration advice session. In each phase, a key participant (KP) was identified and the multilingual nature of their day-to-day interactions at home and work was investigated. In the first phase the goal of which was to investigate business activity in multilingual contexts, our KP was Klára a self-employed community interpreter (Czech/English) and through extensive observations of her interpreting work, we came to understand a great deal about the life situation of the newly settled Czech and Slovak speaking Roma community in Harehills, in the main reliant on precarious zero hour contracts or casual work. We came to see economic and social precarity as crucial factors in our analysis, given that even Klára herself, though relatively comfortably off, was earning a living through her precarious hourly paid part-time work. In the project’s second research heritage phase, we initially struggled to identify a link between heritage and the Roma, since as a newly arrived community, there seemed to be few visible structures in place around which to focus our research. Crucial to this was an absence of space to develop cultural activities, with the consequent need to borrow space to do so. So, for example, at the start of our fieldwork, a Roma social
84 Mike Baynham evening with music was held in a local primary school, until complaints about noise levels from nearby households led to the permission to hold the parties being revoked. As a consequence this absence of a space to engage in Roma-related cultural activities began to inform our thinking until our focus on heritage in the study became not the investigation of pre-existing organisations and structures, but a future-oriented desire to find a space to carry out Roma-related cultural activities, what we call in this chapter “a space of your own.” We were helped in conceptualising this by the UNESCO definition of heritage which distinguishes between tangible/visible and intangible/invisible heritage: Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artefacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Tangible heritage includes buildings and historic places, monuments, artefacts, etc., which are considered worthy of preservation for the future. These include objects significant to the archaeology, architecture, science or technology of a specific culture. (UNESCO Cairo, n.d.) The absence of a space for cultural activities created a kind of invisibility for Roma heritage activities. So our choice of KP turned to someone who was invested in making things happen in the community, Monika [a pseudonym]. During her time as our KP, the activities with which Monika was directly involved were the Roma Voice meetings and the Women’s Group. Roma Voice was designed to bring together Roma people with local organisations to create a dialogue and identify needs. At the time of our fieldwork, Monika was the worker for Roma Voice with a brief to develop participation of Roma people at the meetings. Drawing upon her knowledge of social interaction among the Roma people, Monika advertised the meetings on Facebook, distributed leaflets translated into Slovak at schools and other places which her community frequented, and worked on spreading the information by word of mouth. The Women’s Group had been set up to address issues relating to health and domestic violence. Knowing that these topics cannot be addressed directly, Monika was trying to attract the women with activities she thought they might enjoy (such as nail painting) before introducing more serious topics. Through her contacts with Roma people and the organisations working with them, Monika was aware that most activities provided to Roma in Harehills are linked to advocacy and health. She identified a gap in terms of activities reflecting the cultural heritage of the Roma people. As Monika said: Many kids are talented, they want to dance, they want to sing, they have nowhere to rehearse, there
A Space of Your Own 85 is no-one to stand by them. Many mums stop me, please set up an arts school for us (LeeHerAud_20150611_JH_022). Through her contacts in the Leeds City Council, Monika started exploring the possibility of obtaining funding to provide arts and dancerelated activities for the Harehills-based Roma in Leeds. How could she turn her ideas about supporting Roma cultural heritage in Leeds into a viable and sustainable venture? Monika’s endeavours to formulate and clarify her ideas about the services and activities she should offer, and to secure the funding to do so, became a central focus of our observations, and an important part of our analysis. Monika’s ideas about where she could make a positive contribution to the cultural and social life of the Roma were many—from arts and music activities for children and adults to English language classes and provision of advocacy—but were also at times rather vague. We observed how support from Leeds City Council and other agencies helped Monika develop her ideas in a structured way. Two people—Parmi, who organises Leeds City Council’s Bright Ideas fund, and Sharon, from Integrity Endeavour, an agency supporting the development of small businesses— played key roles in helping Monika. During our observation period, she was advised that her ideas could be shaped into a social enterprise. To apply for funding to initiate the enterprise, she had to complete a business plan pro forma. In this process, as we shall see, the original ideas about providing activities relating to cultural heritage were narrowed, and somewhat re-oriented towards the provision of advocacy. Moreover, the business plan pro forma had to be completed in writing, and although Monika had developed good presentation skills, she did not feel confident to fill in the application on her own. We will show next how she gained assistance to complete the form. We pay particular attention to the involvement of Sharon and Parmi, and also to how Monika cooperated with Jolana, the researcher on the TLANG project, over drafting the form’s content and language. This was a crucial stage in Monika’s search to set up heritage activities for the Roma since the business plan could lead to getting funding for the activities. In their book on the German diaspora in Canada, Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain (2013) describe an interesting phenomenon: within less than a generation the regional varieties of German brought to Canada by migrants had levelled out and Standard German was characteristic of speakers originating from all regions of Germany. However, regional variation—which could be understood as heritage—was maintained through social clubs, dance and music groups and cuisines. What is more, a North German could find himself gravitating towards a South German dance group. So for the German diaspora in Canada, heritage was in place, or we could say in places, in long-established venues and meeting places. Yet for a recently arrived group like the Roma in Leeds, there is no such sense of settled space or place to locate, identify, and build an idea
86 Mike Baynham of heritage. The spaces which actually do emerge are borrowed, transitory. A hall in a primary school is used for Roma parties until permission to use it is withdrawn due to too much noise. A pub is a focus for Roma musical events until it is closed down for infringing the licencing laws. Roma cultural activities, therefore, take place in notably impermanent spaces. As we looked around we did identify places where the borrowed space has become semi-permanent, places such as the Thornbury Centre in Bradford, where a committed worker had built up links with local Roma families and networks leading to the sustained use of the building. We found nothing like this in Harehills. Additionally, as we carried out our fieldwork, we found, ironically, that many arts, cultural and community organisations would love to work with the Roma, but did not have the relevant contacts to do so. The consequence was that on one hand the Roma community desperately wants space for activities, while on the other, organisations— including ‘heritage’ organisations like museums and art galleries as well as community arts groups—have spaces and are longing to fulfil their diversity remit by working with the Roma, but are faltering in their efforts to do so. So we strove, with a certain amount of initial anxiety, to identify the heritage dimension of the research. It appeared to us that there was literally nothing there, except aspirations, plans and dreams, those of both Monika and her brother Ivan. And gradually it dawned on us that it was precisely these plans and dreams, the wish to make something happen and for a place to do it, that were—for Monika and for us—the heritage focus.
2. Monika’s Dream My biggest dream to have something like castle, where I can have children who abandoned, and I can give them life, grow them like care home. Second part of my life is still support other people like I do now. (Monika)
Monika grew up in Southern Slovakia, a region with a significant Hungarian minority. Monika’s family is Roma. Her mother (but not her father) identifies as a Vlax Roma, the second-largest group in the common classification of the Roma people of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. At the age of 4, Monika was placed in a children’s home, along with some of her siblings. Although Monika once described the circumstances of being taken from her parents as somewhat traumatic, she characteristically speaks about the time in the children’s home in very positive terms, claiming she has made many friends there with whom she is in contact even today. Monika says she especially liked the environment where all
A Space of Your Own 87 the children, Roma or not, were treated equally, the sense of mutual support in the home, as well as the sports activities and trips the home organised for the children. The fact that she was placed in care, however, did not mean that Monika lost contact with her Roma family and Roma heritage altogether. She mentions that during the holidays she would occasionally visit her father, who worked as a caretaker and taught her some cooking. She had little or no contact with her mother through her childhood, however. Monika lived in the children’s home until the age of 18, in 2006. When she had to leave, she was given a sum of money. Once she had spent this, wondering what to do next, she decided to move to Leeds with her thenpartner, to live with her biological mother. She lived with her mother for only a short time before finding her own place. It was around this time that Monika’s sons Philippe and Christian were born. In the following years, some of Monika’s siblings moved to Leeds as well: her brother Ivan and sisters Margita, Lenka, and Milena. Monika then started working as a volunteer and later as an employee at Migration Counsel, and moved to a house just outside Harehills, where, at the time of the study, she was living with her Afghani heritage partner Amir and her two sons. We can see from her life history that Monika’s dream is clearly influenced by her experiences of being taken into care at a young age, to create a space where she can care for and support people. But it is also influenced by her Roma heritage and identity. With regard to these, she is in something of a liminal position because of her upbringing away from the Roma community. She is at once inside but also outside it and this is clearly reflected in the ways she talks about herself in relation to the Roma:
Extract 1 JH hele ale mě přišlo děsně zajímavý jak řikala včera tá . . . za Zoe, ten ten klub pro ty mladý. M uh-uh. Jenže nevim jestli naši by išli k druhým. Já som to zkúšela ich tlačit na zumbu, nejdú.
JH look I found it really interesting like yesterday she was saying . . . Zoe, that club for young people M uh-uh. But I don’t know if our [people] would go to other people. I’ve tried to push them to go to zumba, they won’t go.
In a short stretch of talk, Monika constructs herself both as an insider (“our people”) and an outsider looking in (“they”). Let us say that these identities, as Roma insider and as outsider with a bigger view, formed by her experiences in care, intersect to pinpoint her ambition to create a space to realise her dream. However it is not just the past that shapes her
88 Mike Baynham identities, what she has “brought along” (cf. Zimmerman 1998; Baynham 2016) from her upbringing in the Czech Republic, but also the present circumstances of her precarious life in Leeds: a mother bringing up two children she needs to find a means of earning a living. So another dimension of her identity work is the economic need, which leads her to seek ways to transform her cultural capital into something that will be useful for the Roma community in the here and now and will also earn her a living. Monika’s positioning as both inside and outside the Roma community, feeling comfortable in both Roma and non-Roma environment, puts her in a place where she can act as a cultural broker between the Roma and the British organisations who want to work with them. Roma are considered a ‘hard-to-reach community’ according to Parmi, whose job for Leeds City Council is to support migrants: there are not, she feels, enough people to facilitate contact between them and British organisations. Parmi mentions specifically speaking the language and knowing about services: by this she means Monika’s fluency in both Slovak and English as well as her professional network and knowledge of available support services for the Roma make her stand out in her community. P: Because I every service knows about problems with engaging with this community [Roma] and we need a lot more Monikas who speak the language and know about services. Leeds City Council recognises the importance of working with individuals from within the community they wish to address, and its strategy is to actively look out for people who could act as cultural brokers between their community and the Council. The in-between-ness of her identities is Monika’s starting point, and one of her options to break out of the cycle of low pay precarious work is to make this work for her and develop, as Klara did, her skills as a cultural broker and interpreter. However, during our fieldwork, we were also able to observe and document another process, as she is coached and mentored to reconceptualise her dream into a possible project, through making an application for funding to set up a social enterprise. What we have here is a kind of identity transformation in which Monika is coached and encouraged to reformulate her dream as a project that can be recast as a business plan eligible for social enterprise funding. Monika interactively learns to think of herself as a different kind of person, a business person.
3. Ivan’s Dream Like his sister Monika, Ivan intends to initiate a heritage-related enterprise and is also looking for funding. His primary business idea involves
A Space of Your Own 89 establishing a Roma café based in Harehills serving coffee and light snacks, as well as more substantial dishes and desserts. The second focus of Ivan’s business is music; he would like to give local musicians the possibility of a space where they could rehearse; he also wants to host breakdancing classes. He is further interested in the idea of organising musical events in the area in the future. Unlike Monika, Ivan never talks explicitly about the important social function of food and music for Roma people; nonetheless, both food and music are clearly central elements for him in imagining his Roma-oriented business ventures. Ivan is planning to use music for business in two ways. Firstly, as a part of the activities, he would like to offer in his Roma café to young people; he wants to offer breakdance classes and a space for young musicians to rehearse. Ivan is also thinking of organising concerts. While they should include Roma music or Roma heritage artists (Ivan mentions Anička Oláhová, Chorus Maťo, and Martina Balogova, among others), the concerts should also be profitable, or at least sustainable. He has seen that similar events are already successfully happening in the region (e.g., a concert by the Slovak rapper Rytmus in Bradford, concerts organised by the Harehills-based rapper Ekoo, both of whom are prominent on Monika’s Facebook pages). The price the artist would set for their performance cannot be too high, which means that Ivan plans to invite local artists and emerging artists rather than big stars. TV talent shows such as Superstar or X-Factor are often mentioned in conversation; this is how many Roma singers have become known and famous, entered the mainstream music industry and media, and are collectively seen as success stories. In the extract that follows, a conversation between Ivan and Jolana, many of these aspects become relevant. It starts with Ivan speaking about a singer he knows from Slovakia through personal contacts, who could potentially be invited to perform and who would do it for free just to be able to have the opportunity to perform in England:
Extract 2 1. Ivan:
2. Jolana: 3. I: 4. J: 5. I:
Ale zase ona by mi prišla, ona vetšinou anglicky Spievá Ahá a ona jako že má pár piesniček čo má naspievané Nó a že kvoli mně by sa naučila i ňáké dve tri romské, akože by to [. . .]
but then she would come, she sings mostly in English Aha and she has a few songs rehearsed Yea and that because of me she would learn also two or three in Romani, like it [. . .]
90 Mike Baynham 6. J: 7. I:
8. J: 9. I:
10. J: 11. I:
no, no, no ale vetšinou anglické, akože celkom dobre. Neni perfekt ale zase je dobrá v tom. A zadarmo, vieš, to je to Jasně a o-, ohlásil som už pár spievačok, lenže oni už sú že taká postúpila do superstar alebo X Factor vyhrála v Rakúsku jedna, dobrá spievačka, cigánka, lenže ona chce už, sama keby prišla, lietenku a šest sto libier. To už je moc za vystoupení? hej, lebo ona už je akože hviezda bo vyhrála, X Factor vyhrála. Takže, v Rakúsku
yea yea yea but mostly in English, like quite good. She’s not perfect but she’s good at it. And for free, you know, that’s it Sure and con-, I’ve contacted a few singers but they are like one of them qualified in Superstar or one of them won the X Factor in Austria, a good singer, a gypsy, but she wants, if she came by herself, air ticket and 600 pounds. That is too much. for performing? yes, because she’s like a star, she has won, she has won the X Factor. So, in Austria
Here, similar to Monika’s wide-ranging planning, we can see the openness and future orientation of Ivan’s plans, expressed in conditionals “would . . . would,” an element of wishful thinking in the idea of getting singers to perform for free, something that needs to be turned into a feasible, thought through project. To turn your dreams into reality: a business plan.
4. Turning Your Dream into a Project: The Business Plan We have established that a key feature of both Monika and Ivan’s dream is a space in which to develop their cultural heritage activities. Space as we have noted in the Harehills area of Leeds, is in short supply and comes at a cost. Space requires funding, and in this section, we examine how Monika pursues the possibility of social enterprise funding, working first with two organisations which support social enterprise applications in the local community. In order to apply for funding, Monika has to reconceptualise her idea into a fundable project within the constraints of available funding sources, such as Social Enterprise and complete a business plan to gain seedcorn funding for it. (For another treatment of this data from the perspective of translanguaging cf. Simpson and Bradley (forthcoming).) This process is initiated for Monika when she engages with two particular individuals, Parmi (Bright Ideas fund of Leeds City Council) and Sharon (Integrity Endeavour), who both help shape what Monika does, and specifically how she subsequently completes the business plan form. We also
A Space of Your Own 91 documented the process by which Monika completed the business plan form, helped by Jolana. How can we understand this process? Clearly, Monika is engaging with a new and unfamiliar genre, that of the business plan. There are also features of register, the language of business, “gap in the market,” “cash flow projection,” “products and services,” “pricing structure.” But there is something more: we see how Monika, both in interaction with Parmi and Sharon then later with Jolana, but also in interaction with the business plan form itself, is being obliged to reconfigure herself as a business person. She is taking on the discourse and with the discourse a new identity as a business person, so in that sense filling in the business plan pro forma is something transformational. This transformational writing of yourself into a role has obvious identity consequences, which have been well understood in another context, that of academic writing, where researchers such as Ivanič (1998) and Lillis (2001) have investigated the kind of identity work that arises when novice writers apprentice themselves into new forms of writing, as Ivanič (1998) puts it, involving the discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Through the act of filling in the business plan, Monika is constructing herself as a different kind of person. So we have discourses, genres, and registers in play, and we have established that negotiating these new forms has identity implications. Let us now examine in a little more detail the process that Monika goes through to recontextualise her initial idea of a place of her own to put on Roma cultural heritage activities into something that is potentially fundable. The Bright Ideas Fund itself is conceptualised as an initial point of access for people who would probably have little or no business experience. It provides a kind of bridge into the discourse of the business world. This bridge or access point character can be seen in the text of the online business plan pro forma itself, illustrated here (See the appendix). Its interactive and conversational tone is quite literally bridging the space between the ordinary every day and the specialised language of business in which it is suggested Monika must become fluent if she is to get funding and realise her dream of a place of her own. (The blank box is where the applicant, here Monika, fills in the details specific to her business plan My Pricing Structure.
This is a tough one. You must consider your pricing carefully if you want to get into the market. You will need to know your costs before you can arrive at the correct sales price. Your prices need to be keen but don’t fall into the trap of being too cheap. Do your homework and borrow a few prices from the competition and adjust to give you the edge. This will show whether or not you can deliver at a price that is suitable for all concerned. (DON’T SELL FOR MEDALS)
92 Mike Baynham One of the key theoretical influences on our analysis in the TLANG project has been the concept of translanguaging understood as a way of capturing the expanded complex practices of speakers who could not avoid having had languages inscribed in their body, and yet live between different societal and semiotic contexts as they interact with a complex array of speakers. (García and Li Wei 2014: 18) Translanguaging always involves a selection from available resources in a speaker/writer’s repertoire, indeed this is how we can define translanguaging (Baynham and Lee forthcoming). Typically translanguaging is characterised as a feature of the multilingual repertoire, but we argue, adapting Jakobson’s translation typology (Jakobson 1959 in Venuti (ed.) 2000), that it should be extended to encompass translanguaging across registers (intralingual translanguaging), translanguaging across semiotic orders, such as visual verbal (intersemiotic translanguaging). We also extend Jakobson’s typology by considering interdiscursive translanguaging, translanguaging where there are discursive shifts in play. Monika is being apprenticed not just into a particular genre and register (the language of business and of the business plan) but into a new discourse. It is useful to think of this in terms of Althusser’s notion of interpellation or hailing: Monika is being interpellated into the discourse of business with its characteristic registers and genres. There is thus interdiscursivity at work. As a front-end funding scheme providing relatively small amounts of money to develop a full proposal, the Bright Ideas Fund has some innovative ways of encouraging applicants into the process. For example, the application process involves not a written application but an oral presentation. We can see traces of this approach in the text of the business plan draws both on everyday informal colloquial language (for example, the consistent addressing of the reader as “you,” creating a conversational and dialogic tone and specifically business terms “pricing,” “market,” “competition,” “edge.” It is clear that the business plan pro forma is itself a translanguaged text, strategically creating a conversation with the reader to draw them into the discourse. We would argue that as well as translanguaging register it also involves discourse crossing, it is interdiscursive. So where is Monika in this, identity-wise? We will see how at times she resists the interpellatory pull into the discourse of the business plan, while at other times acceding to it, also that acceding to the requirements of the business plan can be seen as a kind of process of disciplining and subjection to a discourse. Ivanic, Lillis, and others have identified quite similar processes in students becoming academic writers.
A Space of Your Own 93
5. Coming Up With ‘the Big Idea’ In this initial meeting, Monika and Parmi start to work on her idea for funding. Monika’s ‘biggest idea’ for self-employment is to open a dance school. But for that I don’t have money, she says (laughing), arguably to pre-empt Parmi’s response. Parmi encourages Monika to limit herself to one idea. Monika is unable to do this. From the dance school she moves on to brainstorm quite a bewildering range of possible activities, ranging from arts/cultural heritage activities, ESOL classes to advocacy support: some office where I can support clients with my advocacy do some parties people will come to me and I can help them call job seekers I will do like drop-ins my job’s gonna be get them some ESOL classes zumba classes carnival advising them take them somewhere support them to go GP to be their hand In her current work for a third sector provider of bilingual advocacy, Migration Counsel—previously paid, now voluntary—Monika has been frustrated by the restrictions placed on her, restrictions which prevent her from addressing what she sees as the real and immediate needs of her clients. Two years and I—. There seems to do nothing; i.e., no progress has been made, nothing achieved. Because they sometimes need the person and I always tell them, ‘This is not my job. I cannot go with you.’ And then they feel like abandoned. Monika’s dream is to provide a kind of total support for clients, holistic, unrestricted by bureaucratic or financial considerations. Moreover, she is disinclined to subject herself to such restrictions. I don’t wanna do every day same. It’s just boring, she laughs. When necessary she plays her trump card: Because I have contacts so I can, you know—. So we see quite a strongly articulated resistance on Monika’s part to the notion crucial to the business plan of there being one big idea. Parmi responds by articulating the discourse of the business plan: Start with one small idea. Look at one thing at a time You’re not getting paid You need the money You can’t start your own business unless you’ve got some money and are gonna make some profit, or you’re gonna put it back into the [business] Monitoring. Looking at how many people you’re visiting Gathering that evidence and being able to say that actually we’ve saved this organisation this much money because otherwise interpreting would have cost this much
94 Mike Baynham The discussion moves on to the question of space for Monika’s proposed activities. Here Parmi is pressing the idea of sharing space, a common position in council discourse about community-based activities in times of austerity and funding restrictions. Monika is holding out for her dream, a place of her own.
Extract 3 Monika: (0:10:13.8) My little office like this something. Little computer, one phone. You know whaddi mean? [And I— ] Parmi: [And and what] what if you have Migration Counsel on the day that it was free, for example? Monika: But I don’t wanna be same office because they will think still I’m same and I don’t wanna give them same service. [I wanna give them better—] Parmi: [Well you can you can call your—] you can give you can give your— You can say that you’re working for the same organisation but I’ve got two different roles. On this day, this day, this day ((tapping desk three times)) advocate. Monika: But they [are there] every day.] Parmi: [Look at—] Margita: [Ludia tam už nechcú ] chodiť Monika: People don’t wanna go anymore in that office, and they open every day. [Just they don’t have advocacy] every day. Margita: [Jak povíš sťažuje, sťažují si] ((to JH)) Jolana: People complain. Parmi: People want the advocacy. Margita: Yeh, každý si sťažuje ako na toto že oni tam veľa nepomáhaj, ludia tam nejsú Parmi: English. Margita: Oh, sorry ((laughs)) ((laughs)) Parmi: Margita: People—too much people complain with Advocacy, because comin’ no (.) [(no her come)—] Monika: [No interpreter] Margita: [no interpreter] Parmi: [They they want] somebody to [go with them], yeh? Monike starts with her dream of a space of her own: ‘My little office like this something. Little computer, one phone,’ which is countered by Parmi’s reality check, suggesting the possibility of sharing space: what if you have Migration Counsel on the day that it was free, for example? The exchange develops into a lively discussion with Monika holding out for a place of her own.
A Space of Your Own 95
6. Meeting With Sharon Monika’s development of her business plan brings her into contact with a range of support organisations and their representatives. Here we look at a meeting which took place a month after the one with Parmi, this time with Sharon, Monika’s designated contact at Integrity Endeavour, a Harehills-based agency, which among other things aims to ‘[i]ncrease employment opportunities and promote social inclusion through the provision of help and advice for getting a job and the provision of assistance in launching a business.’ (from its website). In these extracts, we again see, as with Parmi, how Sharon’s support is directed towards modifying the ways Monika thinks and talks about her project. Later we will discuss how these attempts at modification influence Monika’s completion of the business plan form when she writes it up with Jolana. The meeting takes place in Sharon’s office in Harehills. In the interaction, Sharon coaches Monika and deploys a number of discourse strategies that aim to focus her thinking about what her business plan will look like, and at the same time outline and clarify the support which she can offer. We give examples of these from Sharon’s talk, and then present one of her extended turns, where they are also evident. 6.1. Questions Sharon uses a questioning technique to test Monika’s responses and to force her to think more deeply about an issue. Through the use of questioning, Sharon pushes Monika to thinking in a more focused way about how her enterprise will be funded.
Extract 4 P: The question is who’s gonna pay for it M: Lottery S: but this is the point I’ve made, when that money is finished, where is the next batch of money gonna come from? You see what I mean 6.2. Directives As well as questions, Sharon uses directives, saying I want you to and you’re gonna to command Monika to behave in particular ways and to do particular things. She appears to be taking control of Monika and of how Monika will develop her plans. Here are two examples:
Extract 5 those are the things I want to, on your business plan template that I’m gonna send you, I want you to be very clear on is that one pound
96 Mike Baynham donation gonna be enough to do your rent, your rates, your electricity, your staffing. Because this is what burns us out in the UK but what you’re gonna say to the GP is, what you’re gonna say to the GP is, if you buy from me I will cut down the amount of time this person comes. Because each time they go it’s costing the GP 6.3. Probing To further test the logic of Monika’s responses, Sharon probes them by bringing up further points for Monika to think about.
Extract 6 M: mostly I would get voluntary, I will apply for voluntary staff from job seekers or something S: again, let me, let me, I’m gonna be, I’m being honest with you so you know, you know, what happens with volunteers is, they will do and do and do but volunteers have to live as well. M: yea, sure S: they have to eat, they have to drink. So after a while volunteers they go. You see what I mean. So you’re constantly having to find volunteers. So [. . .]
6.4. The Development of a Hypothetical Example We can see the use of questions and probing in the following extract. But this long turn is most notable for the development of a hypothetical narrative about a package that Monika will create, based on the idea of an advocacy service, which she will then sell to GPs, ultimately to save them money.
Extract 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
you’ll need to find the wages so the point I’m gonna make to you is I hear exactly what you’re saying but what I’m gonna the point I’m gonna make to you is that advocacy service what I’m I’m gonna help you to do is package it in such a way that for example you’re gonna tie it into the benefits benefits agencies you’re gonna say to them
A Space of Your Own 97 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
I’ve got a package here cause they’re struggling and they want to get people off benefits and you’re gonna say to them look at this amazing package I’ve got here if you refer people to me I can get people off benefits by doing a, b, c, d, e you see what I mean or you package or have a package here because the GPs are struggling because people from our communities and your communities they keep on going for antidepressants they can’t sleep they this and that so the GPs are spending a lot of money on GP visits if you go to the GP and say with the package you’ve got here
Sharon builds up a hypothetical narrative, the story of what Monika is going to do and what she is going to say in order to persuade potential users such as GPs or benefits agencies and in doing so is coaching her in how she might approach the task of selling what she has to offer. This kind of coaching is integral to the transformative identity work Monika is undertaking in order to become a potential small business person.
7. Talking up the Business Plan With Jolana Another phase of this talking up a new identity occurs during a visit to Monika’s home, Monika and Jolana start to talk about the office space and the business plan.
Extract 8 Monika: funding že tam je, a ona ho chce spustit mě, těch 6,000. (. . .) JH: a to je Parmi anebo Sharon? M: Sharon. Na vykopnutí, víš? Či jak to mám povedať.
Monika: there is a funding, and she wants to release it for me, those 6,000. JH: and that’s Parmi or Sharon? M: Sharon. For kick start, you know? Or how should I say it?
98 Mike Baynham Here we can see how Monika is beginning to assimilate some of the lexis of the business plan, using the term “Vykopnutí” [Kick start]
Extract 9 Monika: Ale ona povedala že hlavně nechť vypišem svoj napad, víš, toto a hlavně nápad do toho. A zvyšok ona už může dát ňák do kopy. JH: Hmm. Hmm, ale víš co je dobrý, přijít tam prostě s něčim, a něco jakoby upravit než to prostě Monika: právě, lenže já som aj skúšela toto ňák vyplňovat, já nevim . . . nevim jak to dát do kopy, jak sa vyjadriť abysom neopakovala to isté furt.
Monika: But she said I should describe most importantly my idea, you know, this and primarily the idea in it. And the rest she can somehow put together. JH: Hmm. Hmm, but you know, it’s good to go there with something, and then adapt it than just Monika: that’s right, but I was trying to fill this in somehow, I don’t know . . . I don’t know how to put it together, how to express myself so that I’m not repeating the same thing all the time.
She has also taken on the concept of “one idea” which has been forcefully proposed to her by both Parmi and Sharon. We can see Monika being interpellated into (Cf Althusser 2000) the business plan discourse and from that into the discourse and practices of Third Sector Business. Stuart Hall has written dynamically of this construction of identity position in relation to dominant discourses in terms of identification and suturing: Identities are thus points of temporary attachments to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for us . . . They are the result of a successful articulation or ‘chaining’ of the subject into the flow of the discourse, what Stephen Heath, in his pathbreaking essay on ‘Suture’ called ‘an intersection’ (1981:106) ‘A theory of ideology must begin not from the subject but as an account of suturing effects, the effecting of the join of the subject in structures of meaning’ (Hall 2000: 19) We can see here how Monika is starting to take on the business identity position, while all the while protesting that she doesn’t feel able to
A Space of Your Own 99 express herself well. As it turns out the writing of the business plan is interactionally scaffolded with Monika and scribed by Jolana.
8. Writing the Business Plan With Jolana At a later stage, Monika and Jolana meet to work on the business plan, the writing of which is considerably scaffolded by the interaction with Jolana who also scribes on her laptop.
Extract 10 M I believe that my support . . . jak to dám do kopy JH já bych dala I believe that if they get support M from someone from . . . JH jo, přesně (both laugh) M nevim to ňák zkomolit dokopy, už tolko papierov, tolko [. . .] JH [typing] [. . .] they will . . . M willing JH (typing) they will be willing M willing to get help JH jo, to get help M and give help, lebo ako to mam dať JH že oni M že dostanú pomoc ale aj otočia to zpatky
M I believe that my support . . . how do I put it together JH I would put I believe that if they get support JH yea, exactly (both laugh) M I don’t know how to put it all together, [I have written?] so many papers, so many [. . .]
JH yea, to get help M and give help, or how should I say JH that they M that they will get help and return it back
Monika describes her idea as she and Jolana work together to transform the idea into a text that fits the format of the business plan. Here she is questioning Monika about the name of her proposed business.
Extract 11 JH: prosimtě jak se ti to jmenuje, tan tvůj byznys
JH: how is that your business called, please
Monika: Vision Advocacy and Employment CIC [kik] (JH types it, CIC as kick) Monika: CIC [kik] ako CIC [síMonika: CIC [kik] like CIC [C-I-C] aj-sí] JH: jo ja sem . . . takhle? JH: well I have . . . like this?
100 Mike Baynham JH: prosimtě jak se ti to JH: how is that your business jmenuje, tan tvůj byznys called, please Monika: to je zkratka, to je Monika: it’s an abbreviation, it’s Community Ins . . . čo to bolo? Community Ins . . . what was it? JH: nevim (laughs) JH: I don’t know (laughs) Monika: community interest . . . company? JH: asi jo. Jo jo jo. JH: perhaps so. Yea yea yea. Here Jolana and Monika are working on the personal aims and objectives section of the online business plan pro forma. My Personal Aims and Objectives
You should give a little background on you and what you wish to achieve by starting your own business—i.e., to prove your capabilities, provide security for your family, or something you have wanted to do for a long time but just not had a chance. People like to see that you have enthusiasm and commitment. Their working method is oral discussion with Monika presenting her ideas, which Jolana then reformulates then scribes.
Extract 12 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
JH
MS
JH MS
Ok erm my personal aims and objectives erm (.) jo tak tady v těch v tom vysvětlení pod tim like to prove your capabilities provide security for your family or something you have wanted to do for a long time but just not had the chance so it’s like what you want to get out of it
tak erm hm how to say it hm I want to people stand sbe same as me change their future
I want I don’t know how to say it ((Monika’s partner laughs))
A Space of Your Own 101 An ironical indication of how far Monika is progressing in discursively constructing the employer mindset occurs when Jolana presses her on the idea that she could use voluntary interpreters. Monika expands her idea by proposing employing interpreters on zero-hours contracts and paying travel expenses, exactly the employment category from which she herself is trying to escape.
Extract 13 LeeHerAud_20150529_JH_008) JH hele takže já co tady píšu, JH look so what I am writing here, space, activities, erm, Monika space, activities, erm, Monika . . . . . . erm providing advocacy, yea? erm providing advocacy, jo? (Philippe, Monika’s son, speaking in English in the background) JH Jo takže advocacy, k tomu JH yea so advocacy, for that you budeš potřebovat will need M interpretov voluntary môžme M voluntary interpreters we can Zohnat Get JH jó? JH yes? M akože né voluntary M like not voluntary JH Hele, ty sama to nechceš JH look, you yourself don’t want dělat to do it M like not voluntary, but like M jako né voluntary, ale akože I will apply for funding and give já [. . .] požádám funding o to them zero hours contract so that že bysom jim dala zero hours contract čiže bysom preplatila I would pay them like travel costs, ako keby cestovné, na fundingu from the funding JH [. . .] JH [. . .] M to je ako to robí Damian M that’s how Damian does it
9. Discussion In this chapter, we have described how Monika and her brother Ivan dreamed of a place of their own to engage in Roma-related cultural heritage activities and advocacy support. This led them into a process of seeking funding to set up a social enterprise to pursue their aims, a process we followed closely in the case of Monika. The logic of the process is as follows: to set up activities you need a space, to obtain a space you need money, to obtain money you need funding, to obtain funding you need to insert yourself into the available funding mechanisms, in the case of Monika and Ivan, the Bright Ideas Seedcorn funding. Obtaining Seedcorn funding meant working on a business idea and developing a business plan.
102 Mike Baynham So what resources did Monika and Ivan bring to this process and what did they lack? Their “brought along” resources were particular skills and commitments which emerge from their life histories, for Monika the experience of being in care, for Ivan his interest and ability in cooking and interest in promoting msucal events. What they are brought up against when they start the search for funding involves unfamiliar discourses, registers, and genres. We see Monika engaged with Parmi and Sharon in interdiscursive translanguaging, with the aim of transforming Monika’s repertoire to include the discourse of small business. This is instantiated in the business plan genre and the discussions within which Monika through completing it talks her project into being. In doing so she has to give up a particular holistic, unboundaried way of conceptualising her dream, connecting with the requirements of third sector small business, which we have understood as a form of interpellation or hailing. Despite her resistance along the way, Monika is hailed by this discourse. We see, ironically, evidence of successful hailing when Monika contemplates employing interpreters on zero hours contracts, a system she herself has suffered under. She seems to be internalising an employer’s mindset. Yet it is not enough to absorb the mindset, you also need to do the business in terms of cooking up a credible business plan, a process where, as we have seen, Monika needs considerable support. The Bright Ideas process and indeed the business plan itself provides a kind of bridge between the everyday understanding of potential applicants and the discourses and practices of business, albeit small third sector business. Sessions with Sharon and with Jolana further scaffold her progress towards a credible business plan and her interpellation into the discourse. So where is identity in all this? We saw that both Monika and Ivan have brought along identities, formed by their life experiences. In Monika’s case, due to her years in care, she is both an insider and outside in the Roma community, which informs her thinking as she plans her big idea. Additionally, Ivan has a professional identity as a chef, which informs his dream of a café with musical events. These identities they bring along. A crucial identity in their life in Harehills is that of a low income, marginalised, precariously employed persons with an urgent need to earn their living. These identities intersect in the form of a dream of a place of their own to do something creative that would sustain them. What then follows is the discovery that there are sources of funding available but that these funding sources come at a cost: that of being disciplined into the discourse of the funding source and beyond that the discourse and practices of small third sector business. We have thought of this in terms of interpellation and hailing, with identity positions emerging as a kind of identificatory suturing to the categories and requirements of the funding source, as expressed in the business plan. Monika resists this process in favour of a more holistic, less boundaried conceptualisation of her activity. She also resists the idea of space sharing, a concept much favoured by service providers in the current climate of austerity, holding out for a place of her own.
Appendix 1 Monika’s Business Plan Form
My Business Plan Name. Business Name. Private Address. Postcode. Tel. No. Mobile. Email. My Business Idea
Before starting any business it’s important to have a clear understanding of what exactly your business will do. Many people have an idea for a new product or service but when it comes down to it, it just isn’t viable. You must differentiate your idea from all the others out there. Will it fill a genuine gap in the market, building on its Unique Selling Point (USP)? This is where you let people know just what your business activities will be. Don’t be too restrictive in your idea. My Business Aims and Objectives
104 Mike Baynham Most people, when asked why they go into business, will reply, ‘To make money of course.’ But you must have some other Aims and Objectives. ‘To take control of my life,’ or, ‘to achieve something I have always wanted.’ My Personal Aims and Objectives
You should give a little background on you and what you wish to achieve by starting your own business—i.e., to prove your capabilities, provide security for your family, or something you have wanted to do for a long time but just not had a chance. People like to see that you have enthusiasm and commitment. Key Personnel
Who will be involved with the business and why, what will be their roles? It is a good idea to look to the future also if you are considering employing anyone. Don’t forget to include these in your Cash Flow Projection. My Personal/Business Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats
Don’t confuse this with your Personal Aims & Objectives. This section covers just what it says on the tin. So just focus on your own S. W. O. Ts that you will bring to your business or what you may need help with to make your business successful. It might help if you invite someone to help you with this, someone who will be honest with you. The Businesses Products and Services
A Space of Your Own 105 This should be clear and concise. Are you providing a service or buying and selling products? Price lists, menus, brochures will be a great help to people you are looking for help from. My Pricing Structure
This is a tough one. You must consider your pricing carefully if you want to get into the market. You will need to know your costs before you can arrive at the correct sales price. Your prices need to be keen but don’t fall into the trap of being too cheap. Do your homework and borrow a few prices from the competition and adjust to give you the edge. This will show whether or not you can deliver at a price that is suitable for all concerned. (DON’T SELL FOR MEDALS) My Market Research
No-one should consider starting a business unless they have done their Market Research relating to their product or service. This should cover the market size, the competition, the area you will cover, the customers you will be dealing with and how you will deal with them. Remember Richard Branson did not invent airlines, he just made them better. Don’t forget there are lots of people out there offering the same as you, so how will yours be better? My Marketing
How will you get your business known? That is, mail shots, Internet, posters, yellow pages, and even just word of mouth. Is the marketplace ready for your product or service? It’s no good thinking about this after you have started. By that time it’s too late. A good business will have an action plan based over several months rather than a scatter gun approach.
106 Mike Baynham Your Competitors Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths
Weaknesses
If you have done your market research correctly you will know this and will have decided how to deal with it. Don’t look upon the competition as enemies; you may have to use or work with them one day. The Business Premises
Decide where you are going to work from. If it’s the back bedroom remember your heating and lighting bills will increase. You can run a business from home but you need permission to do so. Commercial premises can be expensive and involve other costs such as rates and services charges so check and remember to put this in your cash flow projections. Funding Required For
List all the equipment you need to start with and any that you will need as the business expands over say 12 months with realistic costs and don’t forget VAT, where applicable. All estimates should be included. (See Excel workbook to aid with the following using the tabs along the bottom) Personal Expenditure Very few businesses make much money in the first year. Use the attached form to work out how much you and your family need to survive over the first 12 months. These are the funds you need to keep you and your family going while your business gets off the ground or worse still if it stalls. So be practical. You will still need to keep a roof over your head— i.e., holidays, birthdays, the odd drink. You will be surprised when you add them all up.
A Space of Your Own 107 Sales Forecast On the back of the market research, you have undertaken you should now be in a position to estimate your level of sales and hence the amount of income you will generate. The attached table will help you think about the number of units you think you will sell on a monthly basis across your product range at your chosen price.
Cash Flow Forecast (Two Years) Understanding how cash will move in your business is very important. Using your sales forecast for the income side you now need to estimate the costs that you will incur on a monthly basis when running the business. If you have costs which are directly related to each sale (e.g., purchase of stock) these should have been included within the sales forecast and you should bring the figure forward from there. Personal Profile Please take the time to tell us about yourself and what makes you tick and how this will benefit your business. This will help us in our assessment of your business plan. Remember the more information you can give the better for us all. If you need help just ask.
References Althusser, L. 2000. Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects. In P. du Gay, J. Evans and P. Redman, eds., Identity: A reader. London: Sage. Baynham, M., Bradley, J., Callaghan, J., Hanusova, J., Moore, E. and Simpson, J. 2016. Heritage with no fixed abode: Transforming cultural heritage for migrant communities in inner-city Leeds. TLANG Working Papers, University of Birmingham. Baynham, M. and Lee, T. K. 2019. Translation and translanguaging. London: Routledge. García, O. and Li Wei 2014. Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hall, S. 2000. Who needs identity? In P. du Gay, J. Evans and P. Redman, eds., Identity: A reader. London: Sage. Heath, S. 1981. Question of Cinema. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Ivanič, R. 1998. Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
108 Mike Baynham Jakobson, R. 1959. On linguistic aspects of translation. Reprinted in L. Venuti, ed. 2000. The translation studies reader. London: Routledge. Liebscher, G. and Dailey O’Cain, J. 2013. Language, space and identity in migration. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Lillis, T. M. 2001. Student writing: Access, regulation and desire. London: Routledge. Simpson, J. and Bradley, J. (forthcoming). Negative translanguaging space: Mobility and immobility in inner-city Leeds. www.unesco.org/services/documentation/ archives/multimedia/?id_pag e=13. UNESCO. n.d. Definition of intangible heritage. UNESCO Cairo. n.d. Tangible cultural heritage. www.unesco.org/new/en/cairo/ culture/tangible-cultural-heritage. Zimmerman, D. 1998. Identity, context and interaction. In C. Antaki and G. Widdicombe, eds., Identities in talk. London: Sage, pp. 87–106.
5 With and Without Zanzibar: Liminal Diaspora Voices and the Memory of the Revolution Roberta Piazza
1. Introduction1 This chapter explores the narratives that ten individuals who have a special relationship with the African island of Zanzibar produced during a series of interviews. The aim is to trace the identity, understood as the ‘social positioning of self and other’ (Bucholtz and Hall 2009: 18) expressed through language that they negotiated while remembering their past on the island and explaining their association with it. The approach taken is interactional (cf. Lindström 2009; De Fina and Georgakopoulou 2012), and the overall objective is to describe ‘linguistic structures and meanings as they serve social goals’ (Lindström 2009: 96) in talk in interaction. The attention, therefore, is in particular to the textual choices the speakers make and the sequential organisation of turns during the specific context of the interview in which a negotiation takes place between the two interlocutors about the topic in hand. The study’s context is the East African diaspora (Georgiou 2006; Manger and Assal 2006 among others) as these people were all born in Zanzibar, but either left for good or spent a long period elsewhere after which they decided to return to their birthplace. The term ‘diaspora’ refers to groups of people who reside in a country other than their homeland and who are transnational in that their social, cultural, and economic existences go beyond the boundaries of one single nation. The physical and emotional distance from the island, whether still ongoing or relegated to their past, has a strong impact on the identities they construct during the exchange with the interviewer and on the positionings—in terms of the ‘relation to one another that traditionally have been defined as roles’ (Bamberg 1997: 336)—they take when explaining the various motifs in their existence. Notions of diaspora and identity are brought together and the study establishes points of contact between the two concepts and areas of investigation. It is suggested that contemporary interpretation of diasporic identity or identities as emerging from the discourse of the interviewees can encourage our understanding of the dynamic liminality (van Gennep 1909; Turner 1969, 1974, and, more recently, Derrida 1983) that
110 Roberta Piazza characterises individuals who have left or have returned to their homeland and are still suspended between places. Within this framework, the objective of the study is to identify the discursive patterns indexing the different identities that the interviewees construct and the roles they take when talking about their lives in relation to Zanzibar. It was expected that the two groups of individuals who left Zanzibar never to go back and the counter-diasporic ones who returned would display different perspectives on the historical events and they would also construct very distinct identities. However, the data yielded a considerably richer variety of positioning and suggested that the simple dichotomous distinction between returnees/diasporic and non-returnees/counter-diasporic was a super-imposed construct, which was not particularly helpful in revealing the complexities of diaspora identities as both dynamic and situated. The chapter, therefore, discusses the many identity roles that, irrespective of their condition, the participants constructed during the interviews. The article opens with a discussion of the core constructs on which the analysis is based, in particular the notion of diaspora and the concept of liminality. After a discussion of the methodology of the study, the analysis of the narratives engages with the speakers’ different ‘positioning’ (Bamberg 1997)—as an indication of their alignment and evaluation vis-à-vis a social situation, topic and story-world, objects or actors, the interviewer—and their discursive identities.
2. The Geo-historical Context Consisting of Unguja, the main island, Pemba, and a few other small islands, the Zanzibar archipelago in the Indian Ocean is a couple of hours ferry ride or a 15-minute flight from Dar Es Salaam on the Tanzanian mainland. Zanzibar is part of the United Republic of Tanzania although ‘constantly at loggerheads with the Union Government on Mainland Tanzania’ (Lodhi 2014) and still fighting for equal representation in all sectors of political life. The historic centre of Zanzibar, Stone Town, on Unguja island is a World Heritage site and tourism is the main source of income. The islands were a key conduit for the international slave trade from Africa and Asia, which attracted a variety of people. As a result, Zanzibar is ethnically diverse, the main ethnic groups being Shirazi Africans 56%, mainland Africans 19%, Arabs 17% (Omanis, Yemenis, mixed Arab-African-Indian origins), and Indians 6 % (Lodhi 2014). Zanzibar has a dramatic colonial past. The Omani Arabs who occupied the islands in 1698 may have raised the living standards of the indigenous population, but did so through the creation of a highly exploitative feudal system. In an attempt to end the slave trade, Zanzibar was incorporated into the British Empire (with protectorate status) in 1890. As elsewhere, British colonialism accentuated the country’s major ethnic
With and Without Zanzibar 111 divisions with an administration that preserved and encouraged the existing racial divisions. Fearing a leftist insurgency, the British temporarily transferred power to the Arabs in 1963 (Wilson 2013) and, with national elections planned later that year, it was expected that an African-majority government would finally take control of a newly created independent state.2 However, the elections reinstated the status quo; the main political parties were banned and newspapers closed down by the government. According to Lofchie, ‘This was the immediate cause of the revolution (. . .) because there no longer seemed to be any way to create an African state by constitutional means’ (1965: 257). The 1964 Revolution was ‘conceived, planned and implemented entirely by the unemployed, frustrated urban youth of the ASP [AfroShirazi Party], who were angered by the weakness of their own party leadership and by what they perceived as an improperly conducted election that had robbed them of their rightful victory’ (Babu 1991: 239). The uprising began on the night of 12 January 1964 when a group of 300 African insurgents led by John Okello, overthrew the ZNP [Zanzibar People’s Party]/ZPPP [Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party] government and ‘installed a Revolutionary Council headed by [the] ASP’ (Lofchie 1965: 257) under the leadership of Aman Karume. ‘[M]ass arrest and internment of thousands of Arabs and the confiscation or destruction of considerable Arab property’ (ibid.) were the first acts of the new regime. However, the strong popular support for the Revolution partly reduced the bloodshed and the inter-racial violence. This is evident in the narratives examined in this study that make reference to a degree of respect by the African revolutionaries for the people who, while belonging to the ruling class, were an integral part of the island population and not recent colonisers. The Revolution greatly exacerbated race/ethnic-class divisions and led to chronic economic stagnation, which fuelled the exodus of mainly Zanzibari Arabs and Indians overseas. For those who went to more advanced countries (Oman, Canada, the UK, France, the United States), the diaspora provided an opportunity to attain high levels of education and professional training. From the late 1990s onwards, the Zanzibar government has become more inclusive and increasingly acknowledged the contribution of the diaspora to the island’s identity and economic development (principally through financial remittances sent to the island by some of the people who were working abroad).3 Recently the government has established a Diaspora Unit, which promotes the engagement of diaspora Zanzibaris in the economic and intellectual development of the islands by transferring resources and knowledge and promoting the exchange of ideas. The exact size of the Zanzibar diaspora is not known; the most recent (2001) Census reports 32,630 individuals of Tanzanian descent living in the UK with similar numbers in Canada and Scandinavia.
112 Roberta Piazza This, then, is the context of the present study that argues that these diasporic and counter-diasporic individuals appear suspended in a hybrid liminality (Turner 1969) within which their identities are constantly reconstructed. Besides Zanzibar, the Revolution is an inevitable protagonist of their oral narratives; not only is it crucial to an understanding of the cultural and political situation,it also seems to hover as a ghost over the memories of the people and impact their self-construction in their narratives.
3. Diaspora and Liminal Identities The notion of diaspora, and African diaspora in particular, first appears in the 1960s as an attempt to re-establish the connection of expatriates to Africa. As Manning (2003: 490) notes, ‘[t]he originality of the notion lay in its emphasis on historically created populations rather than racial essences or regional continuities.’ The concept of diaspora, coming from Greek and indicating ‘migration’ (Adamson 2008), has recently undergone a radical re-examination. In the past, diaspora conjured up ideas of fractured and displaced identities of uprooted individuals constantly dreaming of returning to their original homeland. Such an essentialist interpretation of diaspora that ‘reif[ies] notions of belonging’ (Sökefeld 2006) and enforces ‘the old, the imperializing, the hegemonizing form of “ethnicity” ’ (Hall 1990: 235) positioned diasporic individuals in eternal relation to their roots and reinforced notions of nation states and fixed boundaries. More recent conceptualisations of diaspora are, on the contrary, dynamic and ‘synonymous with celebrations of “travelling” or nomadic, identities and living “in-between” spaces and cultures [. . .] and [. . .] seen as disrupting the homogeneity of the nation-state’ (Mavroudi 2007: 7). According to Vertovec (1997), diaspora can be understood as a ‘social form,’ a ‘type of consciousness,’ and a ‘mode of cultural production.’ The term ‘social form’ denotes an uprooted group scattered in different places, collectively identifiable in ethnic terms, relating to the new country of residence, but still associated with their birthplace. Diaspora as ‘consciousness’ is a state of mind involving a tension between the feeling of discrimination that migrants suffer in the host country mixed with the positive sense of sharing the same historical and cultural heritage with their compatriots; such consciousness favours a sense of connectivity with the migrants’ countries. Finally, in the sense of ‘mode of cultural production’, diaspora is associated with globalisation and ‘described as involving the production and reproduction of transnational social and cultural phenomena’ (Vertovec, 1997: 289 original emphasis). From a post-modern perspective, diaspora is conceived as a complex process that determines collective entities unified by their similar existential experience across time and place as well as individual subjectivities that are different, fluid and in constant relation to a variety of geo-cultural
With and Without Zanzibar 113 contexts. For Mavroudi (2007), such a process is in opposition to older conceptualisations of diaspora as both ‘bounded’ homogeneous groups of uprooted people and ‘unbounded’ dynamic entities in persistent movement occupying an ‘in-between’ physical and cultural space. In diaspora as a process, ‘space, place and time can be seen as bounded and unbounded within constructions of identity, community and the nation state’ (2007: 9). Mavroudi’s approach fuses various interpretations of diaspora and, while acknowledging that the term is synonymous with movement across space and time, it understands it as mainly provisional and heavily dependent on the specific circumstances in which it occurs. This more dynamic and fluid conceptualisation of diaspora also challenges the related concept of displacement as an uprooting phenomenon that brings with it fragmentation, dispersal, and isolation. Tsagarousianou (2004) emphasises the connectivity inherent in the modern diasporic condition and the transnational linkages that individuals and groups establish and maintain. The present study demonstrates how such connectivity emerges in the interviewees’ narratives in terms of their ongoing relationship with the other diasporic individuals as well as their engagement with the island’s past. The post-modern conceptualisation of diaspora is central to the discussion of self-narratives in the present study, since it is consonant with a non-essentialist interpretation of identity and self-conceptualisation as shaped through language. The study, therefore, emphasises ‘the locally occasioned, fluid and ever-changing nature of identity claims’ (De Fina et al. 2006: 3). Hall’s (1990) seminal paper on cultural identity and diaspora precisely captures this concept: Far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past. (1990: 225) Identities and diasporic identities, in particular, are therefore not fixed and permanently ‘lying unchanged outside history and culture’ (Hall 1990: 226). The diasporic and counter-diasporic individuals in this study are constantly involved in a dialogue with their place and time through narrative memory and imagination. The identities they construct in the interviews are the result of a positioning vis-à-vis their first-hand experience of the Revolution as well as the master narratives or ‘big D’ Discourses (De Mieroop et al. 2017: 181) in other words the ‘accepted ways of thinking about how the world works’ (Kiesling 2006: 266) that have been divulged around that historical event. These, in particular, refer to the island’s multiple ethnicities or the social and political inequalities
114 Roberta Piazza between the various groups as the main causes of the Revolution as well as the vision of Zanzibar as governed by untrained poorly educated and inefficient elite. The speakers’ local narratives therefore connect to bigger narratives (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou 2008: 392). In the course of the analysis, it will be shown that, even within the same group of interviewees, the stance towards the revolutionary events varies greatly. The concept of liminality and liminal identities seems heuristically rewarding (Eksner and Orellana 2005) to characterise the life experiences of this study’s participants. Originally conceptualised by van Gennep (1909), liminality was finally brought to scholars’ attention by Victor Turner (Thomassen 2009; Eksner and Orellana 2005) who, by that term, described the phase through which people pass in processes of transition. Later revisited by Derrida (1983), liminality refers to individuals or entities that are ‘neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony’ (Turner 1969: 95). Liminal individuals stay on the limen (Latin for ‘threshold’), ‘stripped off their ordinary identities, roles, and positions’ (Eksner and Orellana 2005: 2) that associate them with their fellow human beings; thus they temporarily live in the cracks or interstices of society, where they have a heightened perception of themselves. As a result, by contrast to socially structured communities, these individuals construct spontaneous and non-institutionalised communitas that can act as a resistant force or support nucleus for liminals. Following Eksner and Orellana (2005), this study associates liminality with issues of power and the multiplicity of identity processes. In conclusion, the multifaceted approach to diaspora adopted in this study in its association with that of liminal identities makes is possible to understand how these Zanzibari diaspora individuals construct themselves as they construct their place (Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain 2013: 15–16).
4. Methodology The data presented here come from a larger body of interviews (25 in total) with counter-diasporic Zanzibaris who, having left the island for various reasons, established themselves back on it. For the present study, however, ten interviews have been selected. These are conversations with five individuals who left Zanzibar and never returned, and five with people who, after a long period in other countries, went back to the island. At the time of the fieldwork, these people were in their mid-60s and early ’70s, therefore old enough to have been young witnesses of the Revolution. The returnees’ interviews were conducted in Zanzibar in FebruaryMarch 2014 and were followed two years later by skype interviews with other Zanzibar-born people who established themselves in a number of countries (mainly Canada, Sweden, and the UK) and never (or only
With and Without Zanzibar 115 for short periods) returned to their original birthplace. The interviews were semi-structured and generally aimed to elicit the reasons why the interviewees left Zanzibar, which generally triggered a life narrative and an account of what the island meant for them. Written (for the Zanzibar interviews) and oral (for those interviewed on skype) consent was obtained from all participants. The selected ten interviews are admittedly gender-imbalanced as they comprise nine men and a woman. This was not deliberate but, unfortunately, more men than women were available and willing to be interviewed; this may also reflect the island’s social reality and its conservative attitude towards women.4 The study’s participants, both in Zanzibar and abroad (for the skype interviews) were identified through two diasporic Zanzibaris and were those who responded positively to the invitation.5 The language of the interviews is English, as all participants spoke that language proficiently both as a second language in Zanzibar or as the language of the country where they migrated. The in-person interviews were recorded on an ordinary MP3, while for the skype interviews the Evaer system was used and occasionally it was possible to ask the interviewees at a later time for some clarification on their accounts, which they provided by email. While these interviewees belong to different groups (Indians, Omanis, Comorians), they can be considered ‘hegemonic’ (Gramsci 1971) in that they were all part of the elite class before the uprising, although they had not necessarily felt powerful nor did they ‘dominate’ anyone (Kiesling 2006: 261). Consequently, they offer an understanding of history from the side of the ‘losers’ in that they fell from a position of supremacy to one of dispossession and subordination. In light of this, the speakers’ identities interpreted as ‘situated accomplishments’ (Schubert et al. 2009: 501) engage in a direct negotiation with the master narrative of Zanzibar in ways that will be discussed. It is a widely accepted assumption that narrative and self are inseparable (Ochs and Capps 1996: 20); in this sense, these individuals talk about themselves against the backdrop of the Revolution to achieve particular interpersonal effects. The selection of events that they report is in itself an indication of their positioning and the identity they want to construct discursively since ‘[a] life narrative might consist of facts but the individual chooses which facts to highlight and which to exclude’ (Sala and De La Mata Benitez 2016: 109). For a qualitative analysis like the present, the interview is the most common and effective method (Dornyei 2007: 132; also see Rapley 2001). The conversational interviews aimed to establish a comfortable and informal atmosphere; the interviewees were involved in a semistructured conversational exchange during which they were asked when and why they had left Zanzibar as a loose prompt to stimulate their selfnarrative. During the conversations, therefore, they received the occasional back channelling as a natural way on my part as the researcher
116 Roberta Piazza to show interest and empathy with their stories. All the interviewees responded to the invitations to talk with great enthusiasm, both in the case of the Zanzibar interviews and the subsequent skype conversations. They are anonymised and referred to as R and NR followed by a number for the returnees and non-returnees respectively; in some cases, pseudonyms are used in their narratives and some other elements that would make the participants recognisable have also been changed. However, during the general discussion that, as pointed out, looks into further patterns other than this division between the participants, the reader is directed to pay attention to the different speakers’ positionings through the successively numbered excerpts. The analysis focuses on the micro-level of the individual’s stylistic choices as well as the macro-level of the topics the participants choose to focus on and the recurring thematic patterns. In particular, the linguistic identity indicators can be categorised into three levels of lexis, pragmatic, textuality, within the interaction (De Fina 2003: 23). Particular attention is, therefore, laid on the choice of words, the ‘textual logical and argumentative relationships, both explicit and implicit’ (De Mieroop 2011: 571) and the negotiation between the interviewer and interviewee as reflected through positioning and stance.
5. The Narratives This section identifies in the interviews the general discursive patterns in the individuals’ talk emerging in their narratives that instead of ‘rendering [. . .] some pre-existing social reality’ construct a particular one (Benwell and Stokoe 2006: 309). The proposed categorisation of interviewees’ responses is an attempt to characterise the different identities and roles that, beyond their specific existence in or out of Zanzibar, these diasporic individuals adopt in the interviews. The analysis will show how the speakers ‘situate themselves and their accounts not just in social and geographical space, but also in relation to history, and in time’ (Kramer 2014: 1) and how, through this process, they construct their multiple identities. 5.1. Hegemonic Identities as Zanzibar Historians The stories the interviewees offer are ‘first order narratives’ (Elliot 2005 cited in Harling Stalker 2009: 222) or ‘life stories’ (Linde 1993) as they recount their personal experiences of the Revolution mainly during their teenage years. It is important to bear in mind that, given that they belonged to the ruling elite prior to the Revolution, their narratives are likely to be a hegemonic version of the actual events. As mentioned earlier, ‘hegemonic’ only refers to their privileged status in Zanzibar society prior to the Revolution vis-à-vis the downtrodden
With and Without Zanzibar 117 indigenous African population, but does not suggest that these people were or felt powerful (Kiesling 2006: 261). Even after 60 years, these people’s memories are still vivid, which contributes to their wellrehearsed personal script in which specific details legitimise them (van Leeuwen 2008) as trustworthy narrators and witnesses of the Revolution (R7: ‘I left Zanzibar on 17 January 1964, it was five days after the Revolution’ R9 ‘I left Zanzibar on January 1967 [. . .] three days after the Revolution’). This section discusses the narratives of participants who never returned permanently to Zanzibar; in them, the personal is interspersed with a collective recollection of the dramatic events of 1964 as the speakers talk about themselves and their family against the backdrop of public events and spaces. A good example is the following excerpt in which the domestic and circumscribed history of NR1, who was 15 years old at the time, systematically alternates with historical considerations. (1) NR1. Basically, I was born in Zanzibar. And, my education was in Zanzibar. We are third generation Omanis of Arab origin. And, after the revolution, there was a massacre of Omanis and Indians and anyone who was associated with the government which was overthrown. And, I was about to do my Cambridge School Certificate at that time. So my parents decided I should go to England and complete my education there. So that’s one of the reasons why I left. But, then, subsequently, life was very difficult for the Arabs and [people of] Omani origin. And, my parents and the family left and went to Dar Es Salaam. And, after a few years, they (.) when Sultan Qaboos came to power in Oman, he asked all the Arab Omanis to go back because he knew he had people with human capital, well educated, previous civil service technocrats. And, the whole family and all in relation to everybody in the Arab community came back to Oman to build Oman from 1970. [. . .] So, we don’t get involved in the politics. We are bystanders as far as we are concerned. Int. Yeah. NR1. We may have an opinion, this or that, but they’re all coming to Oman now and we are helping them building mosques, building health system, scholarships. Quite a lot.6 In this narrative, the crude account of the post-Revolution violence converges with the interviewee’s long family history of belonging to the island for generations, which validates (van Leeuwen 2008) him as a true Zanzibari. The morpho-lexical choices in the narrative point to the particular diasporic context of the Revolution exiles from Zanzibar through which we understand what is relevant to the speaker. Following Kiesling (2006) and Fetzer (2007), context is understood as the social and interactional environment in which the interview is produced;
118 Roberta Piazza hence, it refers both to the category to which the speaker belongs (gender, class etc.) as well as the relationship to the interviewer. Context, however, is also the talk surrounding a particular narrative segment as well as the type of exchange in which it occurs (conversational/loosely structured interview in this case). In this light, the speaker’s emphasis on education and his need to complete the academic training that opens this narrative are echoed in the subsequent self-promoting reference to the Omani group as ‘people with human capital, well educated’ and able to build the country’s infrastructure. The switch from a personal pronoun (I was about) to the general Omani group situation (Sultan Qaboos [. . .] asked all the Arab Omanis to go back) signals the speaker’s positioning vis-à-vis the other non-Arab Zanzibaris and the vision of himself as an upper-class person with superior potentials, which later proved to be true as he claims he contributed and still is contributing to the rebuilding of another nation state (Oman). Later in the interview (excerpt 2), this speaker concedes that his past experience is inscribed in Zanzibar’s situation under British control (Okay, I went to an elite school) and insists on the intellectual superiority of his group, a tangible indicator of which is the then women’s position probably vis-à-vis their present situation on the island. (2) NR1. Zanzibar had a number of people educated over the years. It was under the British protect [sic], the educational system was of a high quality [. . .] They [the British] had women in the high positions such as lawyers, doctors, engineers. The hospitals were self-supporting [. . .] Okay, I went to an elite school, it was partly British teachers and partly Indian, partly Zanzibari teachers, all that produced individuals who could go to Oxford and Cambridge and other places. The relevance this speaker attributes to education naturally reinforces his liminal positioning. In his narrative, he was, even before the Revolution, caught between the certainty of having a socially high status and the aspiration to reach a level worthy of Cambridge and Oxford. It is in the way he sees himself as slipping in the interstitial space between the foreign colonisers and the locals that his liminality materialises. In (3), a Gujarati Indian non-returnee (NR2) also admits to having lived in a ‘sheltered’ condition with African servants and helpers, a situation in which only the distant echo of the political unrest reached him. Through the use of the pronoun ‘you’ the speaker tries to generalise his situation to that of others and possibly involve the interlocutor. (3) NR2. We lived together and until, until such time, for a large part of that time my, my grandparents, other children lived together so we
With and Without Zanzibar 119 lived in a joined family. [. . .] being well looked after. Ah, you were sheltered from all the goings on in the, in the, ah, in Zanzibar at that time including the, the political upheaval that started taking place in around 1956/57. [. . .] Ah, let me give you an example, Int. Mhm NR2. we had, ah, house helpers, ah, at home an African house helper male and an African house helper female, and ah, while they were, they were very courteous, calm, and, ah, and fairly congenial, ah, we somehow felt that um, when the political upheaval ah, will, will take place, and the African dominance in, on, on the island will take place, the same people that were so, ah, (1.0) er, I mean [. . .] The same people that, who were very cordial to us [. . .] We always feared that their loyalty would switch, and, in fact, it did. What characterises this narrative is the oscillation between the historical reconstruction that traces the uprising back to 1956/57, which allows the speaker’s self-construction as a well-documented historian, and the domestic history centring on the helpers’ changed attitude at the time of the Revolution; an example produced after this speaker has assured the interviewer’s attention with the instructive phrase ‘let me give you an example.’ For participant NR2, Zanzibar is a place historically dominated by the Arabs and Indians as he shows in (4), where he appropriates Zanzibar (‘my forefathers emigrated to East Africa’). By so doing, this participant attempts to deny his liminal condition as an individual who lives between places and events and, instead, stresses his long-standing membership in Zanzibar society. Such positioning is reinforced by a show of agency (Duranti 2004) when he describes Zanzibar as a chosen space to migrate to and later on as a place to ‘abandon’ in the 1960s. (4) NR2. I (.) my forefathers emigrated to East Africa, to Zanzibar to be specific, in about, in around 18-, late 1860s, and this is from the records that I’ve been able to trace back. [. . .] We emigrated from, from India in the 1860s and after living in Zanzibar for almost a century, ah, we abandoned Zanzibar. In the narratives of these ‘historian’ interviewees, the memories of the Revolution are generally associated with violent imagery and even sensory memory of the events (the smell of tear gas in excerpt 5). This legitimises their testimony as a first-hand report of the events, but also often accompanies the admission that they were among the lucky people who escaped tragedy. This point is crucial as it explains the reason behind the speaker’s persisting emotional attachment to Zanzibar, in
120 Roberta Piazza opposition to those unlucky ones who have excised Zanzibar from their mind (6). (5) NR2. I was very young in that time in 1961. I was only 11 years old. Int. Mhm NR2 But that had a profound effect on me. Int. Mm NR2. Ah, that was the first time I smelt, ah, the tear gas which was, ah, which was ah, used by the, the GUS General Unit, General Service Unit GSU that had been flown from, ah, from I believe Kenya to restore peace. (6) NR1. The people who are tortured or subjected to all sorts of things don’t want any association with Zanzibar. We were lucky in the sense that nothing happened to our family other than imprisonment. But they all came out. None of them were killed. Int. All right. NR1. So, we were a bit isolated. I remember having to give my father’s guns to the revolutionary people. And I remember going on a bicycle, sending food to the prison for my father. But, apart from that, there was not really a lot of harassment. But, because of where we lived, so the people who lived with the revolutionaries then, they were subjected to all sorts of tortures. Excerpt 6 is particularly meaningful in that it reveals how after the initial bout of violence, the ethnic and racial hatred slightly subsided due to the general support for the Revolution (NR1 remembers how he helped by procuring guns to the revolutionaries). These memories talk of a degree of tolerance between members of the dominant group and the revolutionaries, and in spite of the diffused fear, the acknowledgement that nothing more severe than imprisonment occurred to anyone of Indian heritage. Importantly, this narrator dichotomises between his group of people who were treated with some respect and those others (probably high ranking Omanis) who were tortured. By such antonymous opposition (Davies 2012), he constructs himself as belonging once again to a privileged and lucky section of society, while at the same time, his membership in the group of those for whom torture and death were spared, connotes him as a liminal suspended, at the time of the uprising, between the African Shirazi revolutionaries and the Omani dominant ruling class. The insistence on ‘I remember’ is a reminder that the aim of story-telling is often that of mediating between a private self and the outer world (Bruner 1987; Capps and Ochs 1995). Often these speakers take pride in constructing a self that allows them to assess retrospectively the historical and political situation of Zanzibar. In this case, a pedagogical attitude to the
With and Without Zanzibar 121 researcher emerges that is not exclusive to this specific group, but probably typical of narratives by individuals reporting a similar experience of exclusion (see Piazza and Rubino 2014 for the case of Jewish witnesses of the anti-Semitic persecutions). Such a stance—already present in speaker two (in excerpt 3 NR2: ‘Ah, let me give you an example’)—is illustrated in the two excerpts that follow. In (7), the speaker promises some illustrative ‘snippets,’ while, in (8), he validates his account by making reference to a book as authoritative documentation (van Leeuwen 2008). (7) NR2. Let me, let me give you some snippets of ah it was January 12th, ah, I recall, ah, it happened to be my 14th birthday, ah, and ah, and we woke to the sound of gunfire. Ah, things had taken place at night that we were unaware of, ah, but from where we lived we could see a police station (8) NR2. And ah, and I recall an incident, ah, for our community where a member of the revolutionary council just burst into a prayer call one evening and shot dead . . . Int. (gasp) NR2 . . . ah, four people, five people, including, ah, two children and three adults and and and and that was something that ah, that never happened Int. (gasp) terrible, well why? Why? Why? Yeah, but why? What was the reason? [. . .] For the shooting? NR2. I mean the reason was ah, first of all I mean the reason was given at that was was that ah, the prayer call was used surreptitiously as a venue to plot for the, for the overthrow of the government Int. Oh right, yeah [. . .] NR2 It’s, it’s quite a, a tragic episode . . . Int. Mhm NR2 . . . in the, in the life of Zanzibar. Ah, and I think, you know this is something that I think if you get a chance you might want to read . . . Int. Mm NR2 . . . a book by M. G. Vassanji Int. Mhm NR2 You’ve heard of his name? Int. No, no, I don’t think so, no. what is it, what is the book, er, called? NR2. The book is called “And Home Was Kariakoo.” The speaker’s pedagogical positioning towards the interviewer (or audience, Bamberg 1997: 337) is realised through the suggestion to read historical sources about the Revolution, and followed by a precise indication of a useful text. Besides, the excerpt shows an emphasis on the established
122 Roberta Piazza master narrative (De Mieroop 2011) of the Revolution as the watershed event that forever changed the history of the island (NR2 . . . riots took place in Zanzibar in 1961 (sic), ah, as a result ah, of the African majority feeling that they were disenfranchised . . . R. Mm, yeah. NR2 and the election didn’t represent proportional representation). For NR1, this is mixed with the need to clarify his personal positioning towards those events (I regret) and highlight his understanding of the political situation (If they had done that, they wouldn’t have a revolution).7 The opening of the dramatic narrative that is responded to by the interviewer’s gasp (see Lambrou 2014 on the ‘ethnographer’s paradox) is marked by yet another token of pedagogic stance as the speaker stresses the significance of his recollection of the terrible incident (‘And ah, and I recall an incident’). The speaker’s accommodation to the interviewer is indexed by the switch from ‘slaughtered’ to ‘butchered,’ which, especially from the perspective of interactional sociolinguistics that informs this study, highlights how interviews involve a negotiation between the parties and how the interviewees’ identities as the result of an ‘intersubjective interaction’ (Llamas and Watt 2009: 3), are situated and context-driven (De Fina and Perrino 2011). (9) NR1. Well, I regret for the people who are killed, who are innocent. Of course, I do. Yeah. So, a lot of Arabs of Omani origin who were slaughtered. Int. Butchered, yeah. NR1. And the Indians were butchered and Africans. It’s not just us. Africans as well. I have regret for that, respect. But they were the majority, quite honestly. At the end of the day, it was a problem that the rulers at that time didn’t form a coalition government to sort of build a nation. If they had done that, they wouldn’t have a revolution. These two first interviewees’ narratives seem to conform to the Revolution’s master narrative that highlights the long-lasting ethnic and economic inequalities which the majority African population, as the principal victim, suffered. At the same time, by positioning themselves between the indigenous Africans and the colonialist Arabs, these Indian narrators accept their historical status as liminals who occupied the social interstices and the cracks emerging in a society exacerbated by inequality. At times these narrators do not refrain from expressing their strong emotional engagement, which is often indexed by their choice to ‘animate’ (Goffman 1990) and ‘voice’ (Bakhtin 1981) the revolutionaries (‘you Asians and your Arab ah, Arab masters [. . .] will now see who are the rulers’) as in excerpt (10). Here, besides the memory of the sound of the gunfire, the speaker creates a performative recollection of the events by resorting to the use of a direct quote, which ‘add[s] verisimilitude to
With and Without Zanzibar 123 the narrated event’ (Moita-Lopes 2006: 301 in De Mieroop 2011: 580). In terms of the speaker’s positioning towards the reported events (Bamberg 1997), this narrative offers an interesting switch as the speaker’s animation collapses both Asians and Arabs together under the label of ‘masters’ as the enemies of the African revolutionaries, who are portrayed by the generic (van Leeuwen 2008: 35) label of a ‘hoard’ of unprincipled looters exploiting the dramatic situation. By so doing, the speaker constructs himself and his group as ‘helplessly at the mercy of outside [. . .] forces’ (p. 337), an image that is strengthened by the ‘huddling together’ in a safe place away from ‘stray bullets.’ (10) NR2 . . . [we could hear] the rattle of the gunfire from time to time, from one end aiming to the to the to the Malindi police station [. . .]. And ah, and that was a frightening experience because we’d never experienced it. Int. Mm NR2. Now, that was at the back of the house, whereas at the front of the house, (.) ah, a hoard of ah, of ah, looters appeared. Int. Yes NR2. These were predominantly Africans [. . .] they were making comments like ah, “you Asians and your Arab ah, Arab masters Int. Mm NR2. will now see who are the rulers” Int. Mhm, mhm NR2. And ah, and that was frightening, ah, (.) my parents, we siblings, and our grandparents we huddled together away from the windows because we feared that, ah, ah, ah, ah stray bullet= Int. = Mhm NR2. might make its way into the house, ah, so we were waiting on what’s the next thing that would happen ah, then when we turned on the radios, I mean obviously we heard the foreign sounding accent of somebody called John Okello,8 ah, who was um, who was making ah, all sorts of vociferous statements and that led us to believe that this is the beginning of an end [. . .] Ah, and when he asked them where we’d be taken, ah, somebody rather in a cavalier fashion was saying ‘you will all be taken (.) to be shot dead.’ And then here I am a 14-year-old, every word that they uttered registered in my mind and it created fear in us, and, and our lips were trembling and we were whispering prayers, in silence While this narrative is interspersed with tokens of evaluation (for example, the distancing phrase ‘somebody called John Okello,’ and the dismissive qualifier ‘vociferous’ that conjures up the chaotic vehemence of the Revolution), one distinctive feature is the dramatic switch to the present tense. Rather than reflecting a temporal or aspectual function
124 Roberta Piazza (Fludernik 2003: 119), such tense change (‘And here I am a 14-yearold’) introduces the speaker’s evaluation and foregrounds his attempt to conjure up what he felt at the time towards the event he is recalling. This discourse choice also realises the speaker’s new positioning vis-à-vis the interlocutor as he draws attention to his identity at that time as a young easily scared teenager. Prior to the tense switch, the direct speech in the quote (‘you will . . . be shot dead’) dramatises the scene and justifies the speaker’s following evaluative comment in the historical present. 5.2. Historians Challenging Hegemony In the earlier narratives, the interviewees appropriate Zanzibar as a space and its history and, by so doing, acquire credibility and authority in the eyes of the others (Ochs and Capps 1996). As was discussed earlier, they fully accept that they were part of a privileged group for which good schools and jobs were reserved. Their identity construction as historians of the 1964 events, therefore, shows understanding of the prevailing political dynamics and, especially, the failure of the elite of which they were an integral part, to relinquish their dominant social and political position. In these speakers’ narratives, it is possible to identify a somewhat confessional style when they recognise their own lack of awareness of the imminent change (NR2 ‘I think looking back now we were somewhat oblivious to the impending change’). Their narratives contain moments of regret for the comfort they lost in the uprising and the disappointment they felt when the delicate equilibrium on the island was shattered (NR2 again talking about his family’s helpers ‘We always feared that their loyalty would switch, and, in fact, it did’ in excerpt (3)). Belonging to the Arab or Asian group is not, however, directly synonymous with the construction of a monolithic hegemonic identity since these interviewees show varying degrees of leniency towards the revolutionary forces. Within the Asian middle-class group, a non-returnee interviewee positions himself critically towards his own ethnicity and class and, in his narrative, highlights how his reconstruction of the events departs from the official hegemonic narrative and thus is more reliable than any others.’ Mavroudi (2007: 7) points out that in recent conceptualisations of diaspora, ‘feelings of home and belonging are increasingly being seen as affected by the processes of migration and globalisation.’ Home, therefore, is no longer an uncontested concept but ‘an arena where differing interests struggle to define their own spaces’ in relation to people’s identities (Rapport and Dawson 1998: 17 in Mavroudi 2007: 7–8). As in many other cases, in (11), the speaker’s insistence on depicting Zanzibar as his then only home is plausibly intended to lessen his liminality as a person who, originally from India, settled in Zanzibar, although the feeling of
With and Without Zanzibar 125 non-belonging and being in-between spaces resurfaces at the moment of the India-Pakistan split. (11) NR3. And ah, (clears throat) in Zanzibar particularly, ah it became a home to us, ah, people of, Indian origin (.) whose parents migrated to Zanzibar, (.) ah, we didn’t have any other home. Int. Mm NR3. It was our home, if you will, ah even though ah, my forefathers hailed from India I don’t know anybody in India, I have no . . . Int. Mhm NR3 . . . we have no (.) relative that I know of or could recognise Int. Mm NR3. Ah and after India partition, er ah, India was divided between India and Pakistan, I don’t know where I really belong so . . . In (12), following the militaristic sounding choice of ‘serve the people of Zanzibar’ suggesting the speaker’s dedication to cause for equality and justice, the admission of racial and social inequality appears immediately without any mitigation thus acquiring salience due to the primary positioning vis-à-vis the reported events. Noticeable is the choice of the singular in ‘indigenous black man/white man’ suggesting a stylistic switch from a narrative to a more analytical register. (12) NR3. I was gonna go to school, come back and serve the people of Zanzibar, the community of Zanzibar because it was my home. However, ah, Zanzibar was ah, ah, unfortunately, divided along racial grounds. Int. Hm NR3. The, the indigenous black man, ah was at the bottom of the economic scale (.) whereas the white man who was basically British . . . Int. Mm NR3 . . . was at the top of the food chain Int. Mhm NR3 And between those two extremes were the Arabs who were the landlords Int. Mm NR3. And then the Indians like my parents and myself, if you can call me Indian today, ah, were the professional (.) and the business class Int. Mm, hm, hm NR3. And um (clears throat) because the Arabs and the Indians, ah, because of their professional class and their business class, they concentrated on accumulating wealth Int. Mhm
126 Roberta Piazza NR3. And they, leads to, end up being the have class versus the have not class the indigenous people Through the explanations provided, NR3 constructs himself as a sympathetic and reliable witness of the uprising whose narrative expresses his moral stance towards the events (Ochs and Capps 1996). Through his clear analysis of class division and the tripartite division between the landlords, the professionals, and the untrained indigenous people, NR3 construct his identity as an expert of the socio-economic nature of Zanzibar society. His focus on the ‘unfortunate’ lack of education of the black people shows he has sufficient information to state that, while the privileges of the hegemonic groups may not have been enormous compared to those in other countries, they were still notable for the indigenous Africans. Of note is the use of the adverb ‘unfortunately’ prefacing his evaluation of the locals’ unsuitability to run the country after decades of dispossession. Still portraying himself as a historian, therefore, this speaker is defying the hegemonic master narrative and taking some responsibility for the uprising. (13) NR3. The blacks were discriminated, they didn’t get good jobs, they didn’t have very good schools, ah, in the villages and suddenly the power was in the same, in the hands of the same people, who are unfortunately uneducated and ill-prepared to lead ah the country at that time, um, and ah they (1.0) wittingly or unwittingly ah brought a lot of, ah, damage caused a lot of damage on the island in terms of this infrastructure. Although he belonged to the same elite group as the other speakers, in (14) NR3 critically ‘others’ them (Riggins 1997) by pluralising a proper common Asian name (‘I was more political than, than, than the Umeshes of the world’) and making it into the category of privileged people lacking sensitivity to the events. Such different positioning vis-à-vis his own ethnic and social group adds to his identity as ‘liminal persona.’ In other words, RN3 does not just hang between spaces that are part of his life history, his memoir locates his past identity in the liminal interstice between a membership of a hegemonic group and loyalty to the oppressed community of Zanzibari Africans. Excerpt (14) clarifies this point further. Note the recurring use of the singular in ‘the plight of the black man’ echoing such historical phrases as ‘the white man’s burden’ and aiming to reduce the social distance between the speaker and the local disenfranchised Africans (‘we were born in a poor area’). (14) NR3. I was a little bit more, ah, political than the majority of my, ah, my classmates. I, ah, sympathised with the plight of the black man. I understood their, (.) their, their, their, sense of being
With and Without Zanzibar 127 undermined in, in their own country if you will, and I sympathised with them a lot. So even though I was of the lighter skin. Int. Mhm NR3 I was a lot more progressive, I can use that that word and a lot more socialistic than those people who came from the half-class however little money my parents had we were born in a poor area of town and I related to the poor people a lot more than Umesh9 for instance (.) Int. Mhm NR3 who was born, who was brought up in, in the rich area of town he was totally, ah, unfamiliar and oblivious of the condition under which the black man lived Int. Mm NR3. To, to him, ah, black man was a servant in his shop or in his house or wherever, ah, whereas I played ah and and played football with these guys and and understood a lot more. So I was more political than, than, than the Umeshes of the world. The earlier excerpt does not just attest to NR3’s political stance; through the reference to other individuals the speaker knows (a lot more than Umesh, for instance), it also points to the network of relations that exists within the diaspora, which, on the one hand, reifies the speakers’ status as migrants while, on the other, grants them membership in a ‘spontaneous, immediate, concrete’ (Turner 1969: 127) communitas that sustains their identity. Through his linguistic practices (for instance, his pluralisation of the middle-class individuals who were insensitive to the African cause), NR3 discursively undermines the communitas of Zanzibari witnesses of the Revolution and ideally aligns himself with others who are more ‘socialistic’ and more understanding of the Black Man’s plight. A similar supportive positioning towards the Revolution and its main actors is at times constructed through the recall of the roles the speakers fulfilled during the upheaval and their participation in it as volunteers. This is the case of the following non-returnee in (15) whose account (offered to me in a clarification email, following the skype interview) is marked by the precision of the details provided and the clear insistence on his personal contribution to local history. (15) NR10 During 62–64 I was much involved in student politics in Zanzibar—[I was] Secretary and later Chairman of The All Zanzibar Students’ Union (AZSU)/Umoja wa Wanafunzi wa Znz, Vice Chairman of the Zanzibar UN Student Commission (with UNESCO in Dar El Salam) and also Secretary of the Unguja & Pemba Student Council (to promote secondary education in Pemba which had no secondary schools until 1962).
128 Roberta Piazza I took part in the Revolution from the third day, helping the authorities collecting dead bodies and burying them. After all the political parties (except for the Afro-Shirazi Party/ASP and its Women’s/Student/Youth/Trade Union wings), youth and student bodies, communal associations and clubs and sports teams etc. were dissolved following the Revolution, I was appointed Secretary of Student Affairs in the ASP Vijana (Youth League). Similar to the other interviewees, the speaker in (16) constructs himself as a reliable, ‘validated’ (van Leeuwen 2008) historian by lamenting his lack of ‘documentary evidence or conclusive evidence’ for other possible causes of the Revolution. This is strengthened by the specificity of the naming he provides both in terms of political parties and ethnic groups. He also claims an identity as supporter or at least sympathiser of the Revolution with which he soon became involved and for which he fulfilled important roles. (16) NR3. And, ah, the British government I think, I don’t have documentary evidence or conclusive evidence, sided with the Arabs ah in that the elections were consistently won by the Arabs and ah, (1.0) the Arab affiliated parties called the Zanzibar and Pemba Peoples’ Party which was ah headed by a Shirazi it was the collusion of the British with [. . .] the Shirazis are as you know the descendants of the first Persians who arrived in Zanzibar [. . .] So, when ah the Arabs conti- continuously won the er er er elections even though the popular vote was only always ah, ah, ah, always belonged to the indigenous African party called The Afro-Shirazi Party, um, (clears throat) the minority ah formed the government because they were, they won the right number of seats and ah, formed a coalition where it was necessary to form the government. That, in turn, created a lot of resentment on part of ah Zanzibar Africans . . . In what appears an attempt to distinguish themselves from the oppressors, other speakers explain the root of the rupture between Africans and Arabs on historical grounds (‘I suppose it was because of the slavery and the slave past that was the main issue of the Revolution really’) and make clear that the Shirazi Africans’ enemies were the Omanis, not the Indians (‘for more than three years after the Revolution, we didn’t experience any problem whatsoever’). The following non-returnee NR9 does not deny his elite status. His father was a highly respected head teacher, the family owned two houses and he could afford a trip to East Africa after his senior Cambridge Certificate. Instead of accepting the government’s demand to teach ‘in primary schools and do six months of military training,’ he decided to follow his father’s advice: ‘Look, it’d be wise for you not to come back to
With and Without Zanzibar 129 Zanzibar and instead to proceed to England.’ In an email correspondence following the interview, NR9 clears Indian Zanzibaris of any political responsibility and constructs them as occupying an unfortunate and difficult position (being ‘scapegoats’). This speaker’s attempt to historicise the uprising in the context of Cold War attributes to it a much broader character. (17) NR9 The population of Indian origin had initially come over as traders or professionals. They just became scapegoats. Most of the traders were resented as they were seen as exploiters of the poor masses. This phenomenon is universal rather than just pertaining to Zanzibar. [. . .] The local indigenous population was instigated by forces from the mainland to think of revenge for the slavery issue. This was an ideal opportunity for the new scramble for Africa between the rising US expansionist policies replacing the weakening Britain against the fear of the Soviet Union and Chinese prominence. Do remember this was during the peak of the so-called Cold War when the US was trying to establish its supremacy clout by every possible means. The earlier interviews are with those Zanzibaris who left the island soon after the uprising. The protagonist of their narratives is the life-changing experience of the Revolution with clear differences in its portrayal that depend on the speakers’ political stance rather than their decision to stay away from the island or attempt a return. The 1964 Revolution, therefore, seems the most direct way of reconnecting to the island through the construction of identities of more or less politically engaged historians. The desire to appear well-documented and to show the in-depth understanding of the complex ethnic and social composition of Zanzibar as well as the decision to focus on the historical events contribute to a selfconstruction of the interviewees as individuals who made an informed existential choice. 5.3. Zanzibar as a Search for Identity In contrast to those speakers who defined their identities in relation to the Revolution as historians and as testimonies challenging the hegemonic master narrative, in the narratives of those members of the Zanzibari diaspora who, for various reasons, returned to the island whether permanently or for a period, references to the Revolution are either absent or obscured by an emphasis on the reasons behind their decision to return to Zanzibar. In these cases, therefore, the economic and political explanations of the events that changed the island’s history gives way to a more personal account in which the interviewees take the opportunity to analyse their own history and explicitly reflect on their identity. What marks
130 Roberta Piazza the following (18) is the speaker’s clear-mindedness about the reasons for his move to Zanzibar. His precise and honest dissection of what started to greatly disturb him in the UK, the desire to be more than a black man from an unspecified country or mistaken for what he was not (‘I ceased to be in London I ceased to be an African’) is accompanied by a stylistic choice of vivid metaphors (‘my freedom bells started ringing’) that signal the moment of his decision. (18) nt. What made you come back here? R4. um I think it could well be a question of identity Int. mhmm R4. because just before I left London I was invited to do a fashion show in New York with all the African fashion designers (1.0) and on the catalogue all the designers were from Senegal (.) Zambia (.) Nigeria (.) Ghana and then this (he refers to his own name) UK Int. ah R4: and that’s how I think you know my freedom bells started ringing (.) I thought this is not right and the next morning I got a few orders and people assumed that I was Pakistani (.) they said you speak very good English for a Pakistani heh heheh (.) and I thought ‘there’s something wrong here’ (.) so I remained in New York for few months (.) then I went back to London (.) umm I looked around my flat and I thought ‘right if I don’t move out of here now I will end up with my Zimmer frame in this pokey little flat’ [. . .] um but I think it was a question of identity because I ceased to be in London I ceased to be an African Int. mhmm R4. I was a black Londoner and I think inside something worked in me and I think my clients would sometimes ask me ‘oh Mr (interviewee’s name) have you been to Africa?’ Because I specialise in African textiles and African wear (.) and I thought maybe I was losing an ID. In contrast to the other speakers’ insistence on Zanzibar as home, this man who left the island more or less at the same age as the others (‘very young yeah I was 14’), but returned to it, distances himself from the island, which for him is not ‘home’ but only the place of birth (‘it’s not my home it’s where I was born’). Most notable is his repeated admission that he chose Zanzibar again for very personal reasons and as a cure for his lost or damaged identity. In reporting about his many moves and his decision to try and live in Zanzibar many years later, he does not disguise his disappointment at discovering a much-changed place, which he constructs through a clear ‘then and now’ opposition. In spite of the expected trope of idealisation of a locale in one’s memory, the choice of the strong term ‘horrified’ in association with the
With and Without Zanzibar 131 line about someone playing a trick on the island indexes the speaker’s utmost consternation. (19) R4. so I came here and literally I was horrified Int. really? R4. because I left here ’68 (.) no I [. . .] London in ’68 (.) I left here in 1966 (1.0) and um when I came back I couldn’t relate to anything or anyone Int. why? R4. I actually thought someone played a trick I felt that I wasn’t from here Int. yeah what tell me more (.) in what way? R4. everything had changed Int. mhmm R4. um the buildings have changed Int. mhmm R4. um people have changed [. . .] I didn’t have any friends (.) all my friends were gone back to wherever they had gone or died (.) the houses had changed (.) you know what I remember this house the door was there and now it’s here (.) this streets (.) you know it was very confusing and um things were moving slowly and you know I was frustrated (.) I did not like it the first time I came here (1.0) I really didn’t like it The most striking difference between the previous speakers and R4 lies in his admission that returning to Zanzibar was mainly in response to personal identity issues—i.e., the sudden realisation that he was just another black African in London or a person even challenged in his African identity. In the following excerpt (20) the pressing desire to escape other people’s ethnic categorisations is immediately visible. (20) R4. and they were asking what race are you and I refused to say what am I African because they would say well of course you’re not African look at my skin I am African you are not African (..) see African is not to do with the colour (.) you know I am African it’s only when they insists and I say actually no I am British heh heheh and they went ho ho ho ho Int. mm R4. I hate that you know when they (..) even in England I hated it when they put in a box are you black African (.) are you Asian African (.) are you (.) why does it matter? R4 constructs Zanzibar as the land where he was received enthusiastically and where his creativity triumphed. Geographical Zanzibar, therefore, loses any tangible spatial physiognomy to be moulded into an extension
132 Roberta Piazza of R4’s personality that he uses to talk about his own life and his existential choices (Shoshana 2014; Korpela 1989; Baynham 2009); therefore, from an event-centred narrative, this speaker moves to a tale centred on consciousness (Bruner 1987). Liminals are ‘neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony’ (Turner 1969: 95). As argued earlier, these interviewees construct themselves discursively as liminals in a variety of ways. As diasporic individuals, they belong to hybrid communitas, which albeit devoid of institutionalised rules (or exactly because of that), create cohesion in an immediate and spontaneous way. The historical narratives of the Revolution, the recollection of the emotions experienced in 1964, the reflections on their positioning vis-à-vis the events and the people who triggered them all contribute to creating such diasporic communitas. In addition, these individuals discursively construct further aggregations when they distance themselves from their contemporaries and compatriots as a consequence of their different political views. NR3 (excerpts 11–14), in particular, is an example of such further liminality as he detaches himself from the diasporic communitas to create yet another, which ideally includes socialist sympathisers of the African Shirazis. If this seems to be the condition describing the non-returnees, the counter-diasporic Zanzibaris seem to experience a further level of liminality. In the following excerpt, R4 admits to not feeling part of the island’s present community to the extent that he cannot have a normal exchange with the locals with whom relationships are generally dictated by instrumental purposes. (21) R4 you see there is a problem here I think for coming back (.) I think you are [. . .] like to be quite honest (.) um these are people but sometimes you realise you have nothing in common (1.0) absolutely nothing in common [. . .] and it’s very sad (.) the only people local (.) the only time they approach you is if they want money (..) visa to go to England (..) that’s all (1.0) you can’t have a decent conversation (.) you can’t discuss (.) you just can’t (.) it’s very frustrating. In narratives like R4’s with a clear emphasis on personal identity issues (‘I didn’t want to be because I wasn’t a colour I was a person/ I was suddenly put in a box’) behind the choice to return to Zanzibar, the analysis of the personal motivations blends in with the awareness that being back on the island does not automatically mean integration. Having been away for a long time and being a gay man in Zanzibar (R4 ‘I’m gay and I don’t hide it and it’s not their idea of a gay man (.) their idea of a gay man is to be like grotesque caricature of a woman’), R4 is now a foreigner in his own land. The use of the term mzungu, meaning ‘white man’ in Swahili and hence extraneous or foreign to Africa, is used by him to define who he is and how his people see him after his return to his own land.
With and Without Zanzibar 133 This is a crucial point in his personal narrative as the moment where he acknowledges his situation of liminal suspension between a prior life as a ‘black man in a box’ and another as a gay foreigner in his own place. Such suspension, however, is not necessarily accompanied by regret or sadness. The liminality that R4 represents is a situation of comfort that allows him enough freedom to justify his unconventional behaviour in an otherwise traditional Muslim place (‘said okay if they treat me like a mzungu then I’ll behave like one’). (22) R4. yeah when I first came I realised what mixed race people feel like in England (.) you don’t belong here (.) you don’t belong there (.) you are just (2.0) Int. so you keep on being suspended because you left England because you were on the verge of becoming a black Londoner R4. well exactly and I didn’t want to be because I wasn’t a colour I was a person Int. yes R4. and I was suddenly put in a box like black Londoner and I thought I have my own people I have my own country I have my own land but not colour (..) coming here you are mzungu Int. yes you are mzungu R4. you have to accept it (..) like the first time I came here I was struggling and telling people that I am local but they insisted that I was mzungu (..) and said okay if they treat me like a mzungu then I’ll behave like one (1.0) and you live happily ever after you know Int. so you accepted— R4. yeah Int. yeah you accepted how you mzungu R4. yes you accept that you aren’t from here but you are from here While R4 seems to have gladly accepted his liminal position of mzungu, other returnees admit to having a difficult relationship with the locals both in terms of the people who overturned the asymmetrical power on the island as well as those who lost their status due to the Revolution. Like many others, R5 left Zanzibar in 1964 with his family (‘soon after the Revolution maybe a month or two I can’t remember but probably a month or two after the Revolution [. . .] I think it was April 1964’) starting a long journey through East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh), Kenya, India and often encountering further political unrest in those destinations. Often the grief about what was lost through the uprising emerges in his narrative (‘I wasn’t very happy we were not in good financial state you know we had to leave everything behind’). Married in France, R5 continued his pilgrimage in Europe before deciding to go back to Zanzibar and open a restaurant in Stone Town with his brother, a choice that at times he perceives as constraining (R5: ‘I said we were stuck. Int: yeah
134 Roberta Piazza yeah you got stuck yes because it’s doing so well you don’t want to move. R5: yep. Int: would you move if you could? R5: probably’) In (23), R5 constructs Zanzibar as a place that allured him but with which he engages in a complex love-hate relationship. For him, the island is a liminal place where he occupies the cracks of a Muslim society to which he now feels extraneous and whose social pressure, of which he is still well aware, he strongly resists (by never going to the mosque). (23) R5. I think my mental is much different from uh a real Zanzibari Int. Why? R5. I’m not religious (.) I don’t believe in religion or follow a religion (.) and I like to be more [. . .] which you can’t be in Zanzibar Int. No R5. express too much of yourself and you could get in trouble Int. Really? What politically? Religiously? R5. No religiously (.) socially [. . .] so [. . .] I keep quiet Int. So, do you go to the mosque every now and again or not? R5. No Int. No not even (.) no no (1.5) well that’s quite commendable of you because you don’t accept compromises in a way R5. Yeah I don’t know that’s one of the drawbacks of me living in a place which (.) where my outlook towards life is different from most people here (.) that’s the difficult part for me Due to his liminality, therefore, by a sequence of negatively connoted statements (highlighted below), this speaker denies his assimilation to local Zanzibaris and expresses the need to develop an identity within a context of non-belongingness (‘so it’s difficult coming to a sense of this is my home (.) that is one thing you know I’m lacking (..) I don’t have any place I can call my homeland or my country’). 5.4. Zanzibar as a Place to Challenge or Love Unconditionally Most of the speakers construct themselves as historians of the 1964 Revolution and predominantly picture the events as a hindrance to their personal development (R7 ‘My parents felt, as I said earlier on, that we were young, we had a future ahead of us. We didn’t know what the Revolution would bring for us’). However, others like R6 of South Yemen-Comorian origin in (24) prefer to focus on more contemporary history, although the starting point is the same reference to the political unrest and the low sociopolitical status of the group to which the speaker belonged. (24) R6. So thinking of those times, when the Revolution occurred, things changed and that hope was fading away, and we were possibly
With and Without Zanzibar 135 at that time being considered at best, non-persons [. . .] And, at the worst, we were considered as enemies to be suppressed This is accompanied by descriptions of the treatment to which Comorians and Arabs were subjected as in the case of the loading of people on boats (dhow) for repatriation. (25) R6. The Omanis, they didn’t like especially those with long beards, they didn’t like them and they put them on boats. [. . .] So some of them, the boats, as you know, sometimes they don’t reach their place of destination because of the seas and if you overload them. Following this opening, R6’s narrative insists on more recent historical events linking his decision to return to Zanzibar in the 1980s with the courage Zanzibari people showed at the time of President Karume’s assassination. Note that the fact the speaker’s mother was still in Zanzibar is presented as a secondary and additional consideration. (26) R6. It showed that it’s not just people succumbing to one-man rule or one-party rule or things like that, so that also gave some sort of hope that changes may come. Yeah, after all, he was a president for only eight years I think, yeah. So he was gunned down on his eighth year. That gave me a thought, I would just go. Whatever it is, let me go there. After all, my mother was here. In his narrative, therefore, Zanzibar is constructed as a morally exemplar place where people do not submit to a dictatorship and where they are daring enough to even destroy, if necessary, what they had created during the revolutionary process. This interviewee, who is very critical of the post-revolution political scene (‘The elections are a facade, you see, just a facade to show that there are elections’), therefore, constructs Zanzibar as a beacon of bravery. In common with the other returnees, however, this man’s relationship with the locals is that of a liminal mzungu. He is a stranger in his own country where he was invited back for unclear reasons and then denied basic human rights. In the following extract, the crucial phrase ‘non-persona’ (a term that underlines the liminality of these people) indexes the lack of consideration he feels the government has for him and people like him. Once again, this is a case of a speaker constructing himself as a liminal and placing himself in a non-place. (27) R6. Yes, I was still a non-persona. I mean, they [Zanzibar government] took me because I was seconded to them, and because I had the proper expertise in the medic. In fact, they have no surgeon at the time, the only people they had were the Chinese [. . .] They accept me
136 Roberta Piazza on the basis that I am quite innocent to them. I have my own clinic. I am running my clinic, I am not interested in any government job, which is made for people who have the right material. Through the works of memory and imagination, speakers like the one earlier operating within the context of diaspora are constantly in a dialogue with their place and the historical events that transformed their life. In this case, the choice to return to Zanzibar, on the one hand, seems due to the speaker’s hope that Zanzibaris will have the courage to change their political destiny as they did in the past, while, on the other, his narrative betrays a cynical lack of faith in the group now in control of the island (‘people who have the right material’). The critical stance towards Zanzibar also extends to the present time in the voice of those Zanzibaris who have returned to the island only temporarily and on a particular mission. In the words of R7 who insists that ‘it never was my intention to come back here,’ returning to his birthplace on a charitable mission and setting up a registered medical NGO involved ‘lots of hassle, red tape from the government [. . .] everything is so difficult, even to open a bank account here is like an impossibility.’ Following an unfortunate theft of some donated goods, this narrator cynically states ‘So I learnt my first lesson: don’t give these people a damn thing. These people meaning people in Zanzibar government organisations.’ The bitter tone of this statement requires no explanation nor does the use of the proximal deictic ‘these’ used as a distal reference in the context of ‘damn thing’ and revealing the speaker’s attitudinal orientation to the Government (Glover 2000 among others). It is noticeable that such a critical stance extends to the whole island (28) and the diaspora itself and the way it is managed by the local government (29). The last utterance in the final excerpt noticeably contains a political demand, albeit formulated as a hypothetical proposition. (28) Int. So would you say you are a Zanzibari? R7. I think my attachment to Zanzibar is the fact that I was born here. I’ve got no emotional attachment to the island [. . .] because of my childhood when I grew up but I wouldn’t say this is my home ever, it’ll never be my home. [. . .] I’m delighted we came here, set up a system which works [. . .] and I’m already planning my exit strategy to get back to get out to go back to the UK, France or wherever. (29) R7. This diaspora is a bloody joke, Int. Hmm R7. Really is a joke. Having said that, there is a chap there who is really passionate about it and he is very helpful but the department itself couldn’t organise a piss [up] in a brewery. [. . .] I think they should walk the talk and not just talk about it and they are not doing ANYTHING to recruit these people because it’s a diaspora and we
With and Without Zanzibar 137 get charged 3000 dollars to work here for two years and we have to pay 50 dollar visa every time we come into the country. If they were really serious, they would waive those fees for all diaspora to come here. Like other liminals, this speaker is caught in a void and inhabits a space in which he feels not totally at ease to the extent that he is planning his ‘exit strategy.’ Zanzibar is the place of memory that allures but then betrays and rejects its own people. Even the community of practice that the diaspora represents is false (‘a joke/a bloody joke’) and based on false promises if the returnees are charged visa fees. Unlike the other participants, the only woman in the group in (30) who lived outside the island with her husband but ‘ALWAYS wanted to come back,’ shows a romantic attachment to Zanzibar, marked by the themes of peace and innocence and an insistence on the island’s irresistible charm (‘those who left are coming back’). (30) R8. I am born and bred in Zanzibar. So my childhood was here and they (referring to some episodes she mentioned earlier) were the happiest childhood ever and I think that is one of the beauties of Zanzibar up to today when a child can be a child and the innocence with which I grew up now it strikes me because I’ve seen more of the world Int. Huh R8. Everybody [is] attracted to Zanzibar and why are they attracted. It’s something about this place, it’s that innocence with which children play. A pedagogical stance still characterises this speaker’s talk as with other participants, as she references an important local novelist (‘Do you know him? I’ll show you his books’). However, this interviewee exhibits a fresh, even childish attitude to the historical events. She constructs herself as an oblivious and distracted witness when she left Zanzibar in 1967, just three years after the Revolution and, although she admits there was a lot of tension, she says she learned about the uprising through historical sources rather than through direct experience. (31) R8. I didn’t even know there was a revolution. [. . .] I was very innocent I was still playing marbles we were still children. Even now I read books about the Revolution, I think oh my god has this really happened? In spite of this participant’s slightly younger age at the time of the events, her naiveté is disarming when, besides being unaware of the Revolution, she reveals her surprise on her arrival in England where she saw for the
138 Roberta Piazza first time white people outside a colonial context working (‘How come white people are working here?’). However, she interprets the reasons behind people’s decision to go back as due to the racism of the West (‘they were second class citizens in the West’) and depicts Zanzibar as a place where ‘you CAN make your money and feel you belong.’
6. Conclusion Through a discussion of selected narratives by Zanzibaris with different experience and life histories, we have observed how those who used to be hegemonic individuals construct themselves in relation to their birthplace and the events that occurred there. Not surprisingly, their relationship with Zanzibar emerges from rupture and a severance that they somehow attempt to bridge whether they have decided to go back or stay away. The constant pattern in these narratives is the role of historians or custodians of their island’s past that most of the speakers adopt on the grounds of their direct knowledge of the events. Their narratives, therefore, are legitimated as first-hand historical accounts and validated through the accuracy of the details provided, the understanding of the historical dynamics and the vividness of the memories (Ochs and Capps 1996; van Leeuwen 2008) (this is, for instance, the case of NR9’s narrative of a shot policeman who ‘collapsed outside our front door and lay there for two days so we couldn’t open the door’). Behind the historical narratives, though, we can identify the construction of a self that, in the choice of returning to Zanzibar or staying away from it, constructs a convincing argument and particular positive identities in spite of their hegemonic role prior to the Revolution (De Mieroop 2011: 587). The analysis has also shown two crucial features characterising these diasporic individuals. In the first place, they are in an open real or imagined dialogue with both the other individuals who are part of the diaspora and their master narratives. Such ‘socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting, and interacting’ (Gee 1999: 17 in De Mieroop et al. 2017: 181; also cf. Hammack 2011) about Zanzibar in particular revolve around the Revolution, the different ethnic groups, their different access to resources and different ways of managing power. Moreover, the individuals’ narratives are not isolated memories; they are various versions of a similar story of a hegemonic group that lost its dominance. Through the various versions of such narrative, each one of the interviewees constructs him/herself in a different way and moulds his/her self originally and creatively by using a number of discourse strategies that have been pointed out in the analysis. Secondly, the major pattern that emerged from these self-narratives is the liminality of these speakers’ lives. Issues of power in their relation with the new group in control of the island, the positioning towards the local people with whom the narrators no longer identify, the notion of change
With and Without Zanzibar 139 both in terms of potential political and personal transformation, and the crucial suspension between various places both in the present and in the speakers’ past recollection locate these people in an in-between sphere or as Bhabha calls it, a hybrid space that is created at the heart of First world cultures to which the speakers escaped and Third World postcolonial states to which Zanzibar belongs (Bhabha 1994: 2 in Eksner and Orellana 2005: 6). As a group of people who are no longer part of an elite, these individuals fit Bhabha’s definition of subjectivity of the liminal experience, as the ‘social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective’ (Bhabha 1994: 2 in Eksner and Orellana 2005: 5). The theoretical construct of liminality therefore has lent itself profitably to interpret the existential condition of these diasporic people for whom the events around the Revolution still provide a strong emotional link with Zanzibar. The analysis of the narratives proposed in this chapter has shown the heuristic usefulness of this concept as a tool to capture the identities these interviewees construct discursively, especially in the context of a dynamic conceptualisation of diaspora that refuses to reify and fixate individuals in a rigid and permanent dualism between a country of birth and another of residence (Tsagarousianou 2004). Assuming liminality as a lens through which to look at migrants’ experience makes it possible to appreciate the complexity of their lives and the connection they establish with their original place, the host countries, the people in the old and new space/s. Liminality therefore enables a more dynamic interpretation of diaspora in which the individuals who belong in it display multiple identities rather than limit their selfhood to the issue of uprooting and displacement. In the conceptualisation of van Gennep (1909), Turner (1967, 1969, 1974) and more recently Derrida (1983), liminality revolves around the concept of a suspension in itinere. The narratives of these diasporic individuals suggest an emphasis on the middle of the three stages that Van Gennep identified in any rite of passage, ‘separation, liminal period and reassimilation.’ It does not seem implausible to suggest that the narrators locate themselves discursively in an existential limbo in which their identities dialogue with a lost past (‘I related to the poor people a lot more than Umesh, for instance’) an indeterminate present (‘they treat me like a mzungu’) and an even more fluid future (‘I’m already planning my exit strategy’).
Notes 1 The present article is forthcoming in Narrative Inquiry in a slightly different form and is reproduced here with permission. 2 About 100 days before the Revolution, Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous country, and the recently independent Tanganyika, united under the present-day name of Tanzania. 3 However, at the time of the data collection, there were still governmental voices of political dissent, and in an interview, a government official, who did not
140 Roberta Piazza want to be recorded, denied any value to the diaspora project, and claimed that the diaspora department was a ridiculously small nearly non-existent office. Until there are serious remittances, he argued, no one can seriously talk about diaspora and diaspora’s impact on Zanzibar. 4 The larger collection of conversations included two more women but of a much younger age than the present interviewees and hence belonging to a different diasporic wave. 5 I am much indebted to Feroz Jafferji for his very generous help and hospitality. Without him and the financial support of the School of English at the University of Sussex, this study will not have been possible. For the skype interviews with the non-returnees, I am very grateful to Hassan Jaffer for putting me in contact with the Zanzibar diaspora in different countries. Thanks also to John Masterson, Simon Williams, and Paul Bennell for their useful comments on this work. All mistakes are obviously mine. 6 Key to symbols
[added text] [. . .] deleted text (non-verbal information) (.) pause (1.0) long pause indicated by seconds Underlying for identification of relevant elements CAPS for rising intonation
7 Quite interestingly, this speaker’s if-clause by which he retrospectively reflects on the political situation of Zanzibar, mirrors historian Lofchie’s (1965) similar syntactic constructing in the chapter ‘The African revolution’: ‘Had Zanzibar’s electoral districts been differently arranged or had proportional representation been employed instead of single member constituencies, the ASP’s strong popular majority would have enabled it to assume power as the result of an orderly electoral process’ (p. 257). Such similarity suggests that this speaker's narrative echoes the historical Discourses of the Revolution. 8 John Okello was a Ugandan man who lived in Pemba, hence his accent was different from that of the people of Zanzibar. 9 Umesh, a common Asian name, which the narrator pluralises later on, is a pseudonym.
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Part II
Liminality and Institutional Power
6 Challenging Peripherality: Cornwall in Pan-Celtic Narratives of Place Marc Scully
1. Cornish Identity at the Margins and the Pan-Celtic Context The Anglo-centric attitude about the periphery is actually completely on its head because Cornwall is actually very central in terms of a Celtic region by sea routes and obviously sea routes, sea routes are easier in the past than the road routes and even now sea routes are easier than road routes. (Interview with Morwenna, Cornish language activist at the 2013 Lowender Peran Festival)
Following Bhabha (1994) liminal places can be imagined as situated at a point of tension between the centre and the periphery, as places that belong to more than one oppositional national categories simultaneously, or as focal points for alternative ways of looking at how place is organised. From the perspective of social psychology, the focus is on how the individual experiences, negotiates and identifies with such liminal places, alongside the “collective practices through which specific place identities are formed, reproduced and modified” (Dixon and Durrheim 2000: 32). Such a focus also draws out the materiality of ‘in-between’ liminal spaces: such spaces are not just amphitheatres for the performance of transgressive identities, but actual places where people need to live their actual lives. This chapter examines Cornwall as one such liminal place. Cornwall has been described by Deacon (2007) as occupying an ‘ambiguous spatial location,’ which is simultaneously English county and Celtic nation, while not fully being either. As I will outline, Cornwall’s liminality exists alongside economic and geographic peripherality (Payton 1989). For those who identify with Cornishness, this liminality may act as a resource to challenge being positioned as peripheral: as in the quote noted earlier. However, a lack of wider recognition of Cornwall’s ‘Celtic’ status may also act as a constraint in expressing such identities. In order to explore this, this chapter draws on ethnographic research at a
148 Marc Scully pan-Celtic festival in Cornwall: in this context, regarded as a temporary liminal space within a more permanent liminal place. Cornwall is a peninsula, located at the extreme South-West of Britain. As of 2015, its population was estimated as being 545,000: however, it also has a large temporary population who have second homes in the region. Historically, Cornwall’s economy was largely built on the tin and copper mining industry: however, this has been in decline since the 19th century, albeit with sporadic revivals. Tourism is now central to the Cornish economy, driven by its numerous beaches, scenic coastline and temperate climate relative to the rest of Britain. However, the uneven economic dividends of tourism have led to some local disquiet, particularly when the poverty of some of the post-industrial mining towns of central Cornwall is compared with the conspicuous wealth of visitors to the coastal resorts (Husk and Williams 2012; Willett 2016). In considering Cornwall’s peripherality in relation to England, Payton (1989) puts forward a model in three chronological yet overlapping stages. An initial ‘Older Peripheralism’ stage of territorial and cultural isolation was brought to an end by the political centralism of the Tudor period, and the increasing significance of the Cornish fishing and mining industries to the wider economy from the 17th century on. However, the over-reliance on, and subsequent decline of these industries in the 19th century led to an era of ‘second peripheralism’ characterised by Cornish social, economic, and political paralysis. This paralysis was brought to an end by more interventionist regional development policies in the post-WWII era, and also by large inward (sometimes seasonal) migration to Cornwall as part of the rising trend for counterurbanisation. Payton argues that the limited economic benefits this provided local people and indigenous Cornish industry can be characterised as an era of ‘Third Peripheralism’ where Cornwall continued to develop in a manner distinct from the English ‘centre.’ This period has also been marked by an increase in Cornish political consciousness and the assertion of a Cornish identity distinct from Englishness. Deacon (2009) argues that there are two traditions of Cornish distinctiveness: the first based on its industrial mining heritage, and various cultural, religious, and political traditions that accompany this. These traditions lend Cornwall a specific regional character that can, nonetheless, be incorporated within Englishness: the comparison is drawn to Yorkshire. However, claims that Cornwall is a nation distinct from England generally rest on its ‘Celtic’ status. This is sometimes based on a historical narrative that positions Cornwall as one of the outlying areas of ‘Celtic’ Britain that was not initially conquered by the invading AngloSaxons: such narratives point to the English king Athelstan fixing the river Tamar as the boundary between England and Cornwall in 936. Another important historical moment that is regularly drawn upon is the 1549 ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’: a rebellion ostensibly driven by the imposition
Challenging Peripherality 149 of the English language in Cornish churches. The defeat of this rebellion included an event known as the Clyst Heath Massacre where, according to some accounts, 900 Cornish prisoners were summarily executed by English forces. Such accounts are the object of some historical dispute, and in particular have led to contention between revisionist and Cornish nativist historians (Deacon 2007, 2009). Indeed, many recent debates around the ‘Celtic-ness’ of Cornwall occur in the context of archaeological arguments that the ancient Celts, as an identifiable people, never reached Britain at all (e.g., James 1999). Accuracy notwithstanding, the earlier historical narratives serve as ‘usable pasts’ that allow for differentiation between Cornishness and Englishness and also lay the responsibility for Cornwall’s peripheral position at the hands of English hostility. This serves as an explanatory narrative for the decline of the Cornish language, which is central to constructions of ‘Celtic Cornwall.’ Cornish is an identifiably Brythonic language that is linguistically closest to Welsh and Breton that is generally taken to have ceased to be a living language in the 18th century, although it underwent a revival in the early 20th century in common with other ‘Celtic’ languages. Many of those involved in the Cornish language revival also adhered to Pan-Celticism: the promotion of greater cultural and political ties between the ‘Celtic nations.’ At this point, the movement was dominated by figures from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany for whom language revivalism and nation building went hand-in-hand: in order to be considered an authentic Celtic nation among other nations, it was necessary to present one’s linguistic bona fides. Towards that end, the Kowethas Kelto-Kernauk (Celtic-Cornish Society) was formed in 1901. Although Cornwall’s first applications to join the Celtic Congress were rejected on the basis that it had become too Anglicised, efforts by Cornish language revivalists were instrumental in securing its subsequent admission in 1904 (Hale 1997b). Despite this, Cornwall’s inclusion within the wider pan-Celtic world was not always a given: a failed attempt to hold the 1926 Celtic Congress in Cornwall underlining the extent to which it was not always seen as a ‘proper Celtic nation’ (Williams 2008). This may be attributed to early 20th-century Celticism in Cornwall never having been a popular movement. It is arguable that in order to fit into the Pan-Celtic milieu, ‘Celtic Cornwall’ enthusiasts modified and misrepresented existing Cornish folk customs to such an extent that they were unrecognisable to the majority of those living in Cornwall, thus resulting in little popular support (Hale 1997b). Payton (1989) criticised the movement for a nostalgic and sentimental interpretation of Cornwall, with little real attempt to understand its industrial culture, or problems associated with industrial decline. It has also been argued that, at least in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ‘Celtic Cornwall’ was an upperclass pursuit, the preserve of academics and intellectuals, many of whom were located outside Cornwall–Dodd (1986) has described this as an
150 Marc Scully example of the bestowal of a Celtic identity by the core on the periphery. Particularly in the 19th century, this formed part of a pseudo-scientific distinction between the ‘inferior Celt’ and the more ‘civilised’ Saxon. The idea that the Cornish were descended from ‘older’ inhabitants of Britain than the ‘Saxon’ English was combined with contemporary theorising of Cornwall as geologically distinct and more ancient to position Cornwall as pleasingly primitive and thus ‘romantic’ (Trower 2015). This ‘othering’ of Cornwall as Celtic was taken up by railway tourism advertising campaigns in the early 20th century, which promoted ‘a Celto-Mediterranean concept of a land of mystery and magic, where the sun always shone’ (Perry 1999: 101–102). The notion of Celtic Cornwall has undergone a steady revival since the 1970s, and on this occasion appears to have garnered greater popular support. Deacon (2009) has argued that the distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘Celtic’ versions of Cornish identity has become blurred, if not fused in recent decades: the Cornish archetype might now be described as ‘the industrial Celt.’ He claims that this has been spurred by a number of factors—performances of identity in the Cornish diaspora occurring in a ‘pan-Celtic’ framework; the popularity of ‘Celtic’ iconography in 1990s youth culture, and perhaps, most significantly, a sense of economic marginalisation and concerns about the long-term social and cultural consequences of mass tourism (cf. Hale 2001). These local concerns were mirrored at the political level, as local MPs began to campaign on Cornish issues, and Cornish activists began to develop links with other Celtic nations and minority groups across Europe (Husk and Williams 2012). Evidence from recent surveys of identity suggests that some level of ‘Celticity’ is now integral to ‘Cornish pride,’ particularly among younger people. For instance, Aldous and Williams (2001) found a greater willingness to identify as Cornish, as opposed to English, particularly within Western Cornwall and the old industrial towns, and that both Celtic revivalist and traditional industrial images of Cornish distinctiveness were mobilised in doing so. Willett (2008) found that from a sample of 150 respondents in 16 Cornish towns, 73% saw Cornwall as a unit that was “more than a county,” comparable to Wales or Scotland, while for over a third of respondents Cornishness formed their primary national identity. Willett also distinguishes between ‘insider types’ and ‘outsider types’ in relation to Cornish identity, noting that ‘insider types’ see themselves as ‘embedded in the fabric of Cornish history, and as the most recent inhabitants of a proud region, to be bequeathed to future generations’ (2016: 443). Alongside this increasing identification of Cornishness as Celtic and therefore oppositional to Englishness, has come a greater focus on the Cornish language, which was recognised as one of the official minority languages of the UK in 2002. Efforts to revive the language led to its status being upgraded from ‘extinct’ to ‘critically endangered’ in 2010
Challenging Peripherality 151 (Renko-Michelsen 2013). Learners of Cornish have invoked identity and a sense of Cornish distinctiveness as motivating their desire to learn the language (MacKinnon 2004). However, Dunmore’s (2011) research on language and identity among secondary school students suggests that while Cornish may have a symbolic value for Cornish identity, this is not reflected in widespread proficiency in the language. While references to Cornwall as a Celtic ‘nation’ are becoming more frequent, few, including ‘Cornish Nationalists’ argue for independence or ‘national’ autonomy for Cornwall, recognising the issues of scale. However, that is not to say Cornish distinctiveness is not a governance issue, with high levels of support for some form of decentralisation. Mebyon Kernow, the self-described ‘party for Cornwall,’ argue for a Cornish ‘national assembly’ within the context of further devolution within the UK, with some powers being retained by Westminster. While the party currently has no MPs, and just four seats on Cornwall Council, support for a regional Cornish Assembly has broad political support (Husk and Williams 2012). Cornwall’s distinctiveness has also been recognised on the European political sphere, with a successful case being made for EU structural funding. Willett (2013) notes how campaigners in Cornwall drew on its ‘Celtic’ distinctiveness in making this case, as they found this argument about cultural difference worked better in the EU than the UK political context. It could be argued that selling Cornwall’s ‘Celtic’ distinctiveness to the EU in the early 21st century has historical parallels with selling it to Celtic Congress in the early 20th century. While contemporary forms of strategic essentialism as a means of dealing with peripheralisation may be on a sounder footing in terms of popular sentiment, they still run the risk of oversimplifying people’s personal identification with Cornishness, whether through a Celtic lens or not. Willett and Lang’s (2018) analysis of Cornwall’s peripheralisation argues that discourses that position it as economically reliant on tourism, may have the effect of denying the agency of those who live in Cornwall in articulating their own sense of place-identity; narratives that position a peripheral region as backward may stigmatise those who live there (Willett 2013, 2016). Similarly, narratives that portray Cornwall in a counterurbanisation frame as desirable because of the relaxed pace of life, or as somewhat ‘otherworldly,’ in contrast to London and other large cities, can have the effect of reinforcing the peripherality of the region, and positioning those seen as ‘native’ to the region as backward (Payton 1989). Positioning Cornwall as part of the ‘Celtic Fringe’ may therefore be alienating, even if strategically useful in certain contexts. This encourages us to examine narratives of ‘Celtic’ Cornwall within the meaning-making around the identity of those individuals who live there. How meaningful are such discourses to individuals within Cornwall, while they articulate their own identification with place? A discursive
152 Marc Scully social psychological approach allows us to recognise that identification will necessarily vary from individual to individual, while also recognising that some ways of expressing belonging have more rhetorical power than others, and so are more likely to be taken up. This inevitably leads to a discussion of what is ‘authentic,’ where the personally meaningful intersects with identities that have gained a wider recognition. It has been argued that ‘members of oppressed groups are more likely to confront the “problem” of authenticity than are those who inhabit the world of power and privilege’ (Erickson 1995: 137): this can be extended to those positioned as peripheral. In my own previous work (Scully 2010) on how ‘authenticity’ operates, I have argued that personal identities interact with collective identities on three levels: reflection, recognition, and ownership. For a personal identity that is embedded in a collective identity to be ‘felt’ as authentic, the collective identity must in some way reflect the personal identity. However, this collective identity must also be recognised as authentic, both within, and to a certain extent, externally to the group. Which identities are recognised as ‘authentic’ is fundamentally a question of power relations and agency. As such, some level of ownership of the identity, both personal and collective, and ability to shape how it is performed and perceived is also crucial to ‘authenticity.’ Conceptualising ‘authenticity’ at this nexus of the personal and the collective, means that the question of whether the Cornish are indeed ‘Celts’ in a historical sense is not determining to identity, but at the same time forms part of the broader rhetorical framework through which expressions of identity are seen as valid or not. The focus of the analysis is therefore on ‘usable pasts’ rather than on the status of the historical evidence. In this, the analysis follows Hale (1997a) who argues that it is best in understanding Cornwall’s ‘Celtic’ identity not to rely on ‘objective’ evidence but to take an ethnographic stance, acknowledging that ‘Celtic expressions in Cornwall are meaningful, multi-vocalic and constantly undergoing change and negotiation’ (p. 97). To claim a contemporary ‘Celtic-Cornish’ identity, therefore, has the potential to be a double-edged sword. It is a usable past that can be drawn upon to emphasise the distinction between Cornwall and England, both culturally and politically. However, the associations of ‘Celtic twilight’ mysticism and ‘otherworldliness’ associated with the ‘Celtic Fringe’ may have the effect of reinforcing Cornwall’s peripherality. The challenge, therefore, is to articulate a version of Celtic-Cornishness that is not peripheral—the Celtic without the Fringe, so to speak. One means of doing this is to argue that within an alternative geography viewed through the pan-Celtic lens, Cornwall is central, not peripheral. This is the argument encapsulated in the quote that begins this chapter, which comes from an interview with a Cornish politician and language activist that I carried out at the 2013 Lowender Peran festival: Cornwall’s annual festival of pan-Celticism. I expand on the festival, and how it
Challenging Peripherality 153 may be used as a way of studying Cornish identity within a pan-Celtic framework that follows.
2. Lowender Peran: Cornwall’s Pan-Celtic Festival Festivals are now regularly theorised as liminal spaces, which allow for identities to be articulated, explored, and experimented with in ways which may not be feasible in everyday life (Bennett and Woodward 2014). In particular, from a social psychological point of view, it can be argued that festivals, through gathering those of a similar collective identity together, allow for the performance of a personally relevant identity that is more likely to be recognised as ‘authentic’ in that specific environment. For instance, Kim and Jamal (2007) argue that festivals allow for ‘existential authenticity’ on the part of participants: that the liberation associated with the festival space enables them to ‘develop new social worlds and experiences that lead them towards an authentic sense of self rather than being lost in public roles’ (p. 184). However, while the festival space may allow for more personally relevant expressions of identity, that is not to say that they are not policed: the festival space, like any other social space, will have its own social norms around identity and authenticity. Therefore, while a Celtic festival space may allow ‘Cornish Celts’ greater latitude in articulating their own personally ‘authentic’ identities than they experience in everyday life, this still has to be negotiated within the immediate social norms associated with the festival as regards what it means to be Cornish, what it means to be Celtic in Cornwall, and what it means to be Celtic more broadly. Lowender Peran is billed as a celebration of Cornwall’s heritage and Celtic links. Its name translates as the ‘Festival of Piran,’ thus being named after Cornwall’s patron saint. It is generally held annually around the end of October. Although the festival site has recently relocated to Newquay, for most of its existence, it was held in Perranporth, a small town and tourist resort on Cornwall’s north coast. Perranporth is near the site where St Piran is reputed to have first landed in Cornwall following exile from Ireland in the 5th century AD: as such, it is a ‘site of memory’ in terms of Cornwall’s links to the wider Celtic world. The festival was first held as Kernow Pan-Celtic in 1978, being renamed to Lowender Peran the following year. It followed in the tradition of the Festival Interceltique in Brittany, and the Feile PanCeilteach in Ireland, both of which were established earlier in the 1970s. Successful participation by Cornish folk music and dance groups at these events lent impetus to efforts to set up a similar festival in Cornwall (Davey 2011). While still on a smaller scale than more well-known festivals in Ireland, Brittany, Scotland, and Wales, the festival is now an established part of the pan-Celtic festival calendar. However, it is arguable that the festival, and Cornish music and dance more generally, is somewhat marginalised in
154 Marc Scully accounts of the Celtic music scene, as there is a hierarchical assumption, noted by Matheson (2004), equating ‘Celtic’ music with folk music in the Irish and Scottish tradition. Performing at Lowender Peran, therefore, is a way for Cornish musicians to inscribe Cornish music and dance traditions as Celtic, and gain recognition for them as such from performers from other Celtic nations.
3. Methodology The ethnographic research on which this chapter is based took place in October 2013, when I and a research assistant, Steve Ling, attended the festival, from the opening night on Thursday to Saturday. During this period, we attended as many events as possible, while also carrying out interviews with attendees and performers. These were overlapping categories, with many of those attending the festival also performing in some way, either formally or informally. Representatives were present from each of the other Celtic nations, with slightly more Breton and Manx groups in attendance than those from Ireland, Wales or Scotland. The majority of the programme for the festival comprised of musical and dance performances, and participatory dances—e.g., ceilidhs. Besides these, there were also poetry readings and spoken-word performances, Cornish language workshops, historical talks, and sporting demonstrations. Throughout the festival, stalls were present in the lobby of the hotel—some of these were set up as a ‘Celtic Market’ selling Cornish produce, others promoted the Cornish language or other forthcoming cultural events. Throughout the festival, we took fieldnotes based on our observations which we compared at the end of each day. Informal conversations with festival attendees were incorporated into our fieldnotes; more formal interviews were recorded and later transcribed. The interviews were semi-structured and of varying length depending on the availability of the participant, and their role in the festival: some interviews were less than five minutes in length, others lasted up to an hour. Both Cornish and nonCornish festival participants were interviewed—however, in this chapter, I have focused on interviews with self-identified Cornish participants. Again, depending on circumstances, interviews ranged from the semistructured to the largely unstructured and consisted of both personally tailored, and more general questions. All interviews addressed the topic of Celtic-Cornish identity in some way, for instance, asking participants about their personal involvement and interest in Cornish culture, whether they saw parallels between Cornish culture and that of other Celtic traditions, and exploring their perspectives on Cornwall’s history and contemporary position. Analysis of the interview data is derived from the tradition of critical discursive social psychology (Wetherell 1998; Edley and Wetherell 2001) wherein the immediate context of the interaction of
Challenging Peripherality 155 the interview is linked to the broader relevant social context, revealing the ‘shared sense-making resources’ that underpin Celtic-Cornish identity. In particular, I am interested in how participants take up, or not, subject positions as Cornish and/or Celtic, and their assumptions about who else shares those positions: the participants ‘identity work’ is thus carried out through language and interaction (Benwell and Stokoe 2006). The extracts presented next are indicative of the wider corpus of interview data: all participant names are pseudonyms. As within this tradition, an interview is seen as a co-constructed enterprise, the positionality of the interviewers is relevant; I am Irish while Steve is English. Therefore, I was more likely to be positioned as a Celtic ‘insider’ than Steve, which may have shaped the interview interactions.
4. Negotiating Celtic-Cornish Identities in Festival Space As a means of exploring how individuals negotiated ‘Cornishness’ in the context of Lowender Peran, it was useful to organise the data around three interrelated orientating concepts, derived from both the existing literature and from initial coding. These were ‘Cornishness as distinct from Englishness,’ ‘Constructing “authentic” Cornishness’ and ‘Negotiating Cornishness within the pan-Celtic.’ In analysing the interview data, I attended to how each of these was accomplished in participants’ talk, and how they positioned their own personal identities within each of these repertoires. How participants used historical narratives to support these identity constructions was also a point of analysis: within this, participants drew both on the relatively distant past to construct a shared Celtic experience of oppression by the Anglo-Saxon/English, and also on the more recent past to discuss Cornwall’s place within the Celtic cultural revival. As noted earlier, the narrative of the Cornish as the descendants of the original ‘Celtic’ inhabitants of Britain, while historically suspect, has the status of something of a foundational narrative within Cornish ethnoregionalism. In the context of Lowender Peran, this may have been made more salient by the performance of the spoken-word piece ‘Return to Lyonesse’ on the opening night of the festival: a piece which situated a number of interlinked fantastical stories within the context of the ‘Celts’ being driven to the coastal peripheries and into the sea by the invading ‘Saxons.’ This narrative is used to explain links between Cornwall and Britanny that persist to the present-day: Jo: As the Saxons came in and pushed us all back into the far corners the Devon Celts got in their boats and went and formed Brittany, this is why it’s quite funny because they call us ‘erm Breton Veur, big Britain, and they’re Breton Bihan, small Britain, but I mean (laughs) they’ve got much more land than we have, but they look up to us as the, you know, the place from where they, from whence they came.
156 Marc Scully For Jo, consideration of the modern similarities between Brittany and Cornwall is filtered through the shared ‘historical’ experience of being ‘pushed back’ by the Saxons: this positions the present-day Bretons as being the diasporic descendants of the ‘Devon Celts,’ and thus neighbours of the Cornish. Thus, Cornwall is presented as being part of the foundational narrative of Brittany, but also as being the ‘original’ Celtic homeland, serving to position Cornwall as central rather than peripheral. This also becomes a means of authenticating Cornish-Celtic identities as, by invoking Breton narratives of Cornwall, Jo can stress that Cornish identities are recognised as such outside Cornwall. Similarly, by using the first person plural, Jo inserts her own identity within this collective narrative of Cornish identity. Jo’s (somewhat questionable) interpretation of ‘Breton Veur’ as referring specifically to ‘us’ in Cornwall demonstrates the extent to which this narrative of dispersal acts as a ‘usable past’ to emphasise Cornish similarity with other Celtic nations and, ipso facto, distinction from England. This is made more explicit by Jo elsewhere: Jo: I was in Peru with an English group and ‘erm there were some Irish there, there were some Scots in this group, it was a real mixed bag and there was a very nice English dentist, a very nice man and ‘er it came up one night about you know, rugby and talking and all the rest of it so he said, you know, you back the English, so we all looked, I mean I hadn’t discussed it with the Irish or the Welsh or anybody else but they say, oh no, oh no, if England’s playing we back the Celt every time, yeah, and that is very strong and I think it’s historical because if you look at our sort of history you know when we’ve been, you know they slaughtered 900 people in Exeter, English you know, sorry the English did, the Cornish went up to Crediton about the prayer book and I mean in ten minutes they just slit their throats, they just went right down, I mean how can you get over things like that you can’t, can you, 900 people, when you think about it, the people that would have marched up there would be the hale and hearty and sort of the breadwinner types, shall we say not the, the, you know the sort of women or the infirm, the old people, you know, and it’s sort of like it’s your flowers of your nation, isn’t it just ‘erm no, it’s too much has been done to us, that’s the thing, it’s a bit like the Irish (laughs). Within this personal narrative, Jo presents it as normative that a Cornish person would ‘back the Celt’—i.e., Wales, Scotland, or Ireland in a rugby match with England: this pan-Celtic solidarity is also presented as normative for the other ‘non-English,’ again stressing how Cornish identities reflect broader pan-Celtic ones. The explicit rationale given for this is historical injustice: highlighting the 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion provides
Challenging Peripherality 157 a justification in collective memory for resentment of the English, but also serves to position the Cornish alongside groups such as the Irish as the victims of English oppression. Having used the third-person plural briefly in giving the historical context for the massacre, Jo then reverts to the first person in posing the rhetorical question ‘how can you get over things like that?’, thus eliding the distinction between the trauma experienced by the people of Cornwall at the time, and the extent to which this trauma informs her own identity as a Cornish person. Such uses of historical victimhood are a well-established mechanism for establishing both the basis of a collective identity and one’s own place within the collective (e.g., Bar-Tal et al. 2009). While Jo, and others, invoked historical reasons for positioning Cornishness and Englishness as oppositional, others drew on present-day hierarchies of power. For instance, Nina, who was accompanying her husband, a poet performing at the festival: Steve: Do you think Cornwall has more in common with the Celtic nations than it does with England? Nina: Yes, I do and I think festivals like this, you know, and we go to other parts of other Celtic countries, and you just feel an affinity with those people. I think because we’re all so far from London and England is very London-centric, and there is no real comprehension of how life is in rural areas, and sort of having a Celtic identity is just another layer on top of that I think. I think you could go to Scotland, Wales, Ireland, they get it, they know what you’re on about, you know. You feel very much on the fringes of decisions made in London. While Jo’s assertion of affinity between the ‘Celtic’ nations rested on a shared collective memory of English oppression, Nina’s draws on a shared understanding of alienation from a London-centric England. This is not necessarily an obvious point on which to construct a sense of collective identity: one could argue that many other regions in England may feel similar alienation, whereas, of course, the majority of Ireland is not governed from London. Nonetheless, Nina’s invocation of the Celtic fringe demonstrates how it can both be experienced as disempowering for those in Cornwall, but also as a means of proactively building shared non-English identities. Positioning Cornishness as pan-Celtic and therefore ‘not English’ only accomplishes so much as a means of combatting peripheralisation: it allows for historical and contemporary similarities of experience to be identified but does not necessarily offer an alternative. A more positive framing can be found in more recent historical accounts of Cornish participation within the pan-Celtic movement, which emphasise the
158 Marc Scully benefits it has brought to articulating Cornish distinctiveness. The following extract is taken from an interview with Trevor, one of the festival organisers: Trevor: In the early stages, we always felt slightly inferior to Lorient and to Pan-Celtic. Well, Ireland’s got a population of five and a half million, we’ve got a population of under half so, y’know, it’s ten times the size of us in many respects. But what we found over the years is that we’ve got our own identity. And we’re not a big culture, we’re a discrete culture. And people are actually quite confident. Marc: Yeah, yeah. So it is almost that international, pan-Celtic outlook that has shaped the way Trevor: It has shaped it, because I think it, we got a confidence from them. We’d go to Ireland, they’d put the sort of notional arm around us, say here’s fellow Celts, we’re Celts and so on and, y’know, we had a major influence on Europe. And we come back to Cornwall and we’re told we’re second-class Englishmen. [Marc: (laughs) yeah, right] Y’know, so we said well okay, we won’t be Englishmen in that case, we shall be Celtic. And there’s a lot of that went on. It’s not so obvious now but certainly in those days there was a very strong well, y’know, if the English aren’t going to recognise us but Brittany and Ireland do, off we go Trevor’s narrative of personal involvement in pan-Celtic festivals is here interwoven with a broader narrative of progress whereby Cornish identity has become more self-confident. This is initially set up as a feeling of inferiority in pan-Celtic contexts, due to the relatively small size of Cornwall, and of the Cornish delegation within the large Celtic festivals in Ireland and Brittany. Within this narrative, it is the warm welcome—the notional ‘arm around the shoulder’ from ‘fellow Celts’ that, when contrasted with their experience of peripheralisation and non-recognition within England, solidifies their identification of Cornishness with Celticness. Claiming to be Cornish and Celtic is thus an act of political, as well as cultural affiliation. It should be stated again here that while identifying primarily as Cornish and Celtic, as opposed to English, may be an increasingly common position in Cornwall, it is not yet a majority one. As such, those organising and participating in the festival could be seen as ‘entrepreneurs of identity’ (Haslam et al. 2010) in creating a space for ‘non-English’ Cornish identities to be articulated. The audience for this articulation can be seen as threefold; disassociating from the English, associating with the other Celtic nations, and persuading the Cornish themselves that their ‘natural’ community of belonging is Pan-Celtic rather than English. In
Challenging Peripherality 159 order to make this claim, a process by which Cornish culture can be positioned as ‘authentically’ Celtic must be undergone, so that pan-Celtic culture is seen as reflecting Cornish culture, and so that Cornish culture is recognised as belonging within the pan-Celtic. Also, it is important that the Cornish people themselves should have ‘ownership’ over this culture: something that was arguably omitted in earlier attempts to shoehorn Cornish culture within the pan-Celtic. The position of the other Celtic ‘nations’ can be a double-edged sword when seeking to make the case for Cornwall’s belonging. On the one hand, they can be invoked as a comparison point through which aspects of Cornish culture can be defended against accusations of inauthenticity. On the other hand, however, similar comparisons can be made as a means of positioning Cornish culture as inauthentically Celtic. An example of the first comes from Morwenna, a Cornish language activist, in discussing the revival of the language: Marc:
And when you go to other Celtic countries and say you’re from Cornwall, you speak Cornish, is that immediately kind of, people recognise that? Morwenna: Yeah, I mean obviously Cornish is more closely related to Welsh and Breton because they’re all Brittonic languages but recognising that the Cornish language exists is not something you have to explain if you go to a Celtic country, if you go in to England then you may well have to explain what the Cornish language is and how it exists and in fact 30 years ago in Cornwall you probably would have had to explain it to children in school hall because there wasn’t a lot of understanding of it. The effect of Morwenna’s claim of recognition is to align Cornwall with Wales and Brittany and to disalign it with England. This argument also serves to align the Cornwall of 30 years ago with England, but the Cornwall of the present with other Celtic nations. This temporal comparison allows her to present a narrative of progress and of self-discovery: in stating that 30 years ago schoolchildren would not have been aware of the Cornish language, the implication is that today they would. The argument can, therefore, be made that there has been a generational shift: in being more aware of the Cornish language, Cornish schoolchildren of today are both more Cornish and, by extension, more Celtic and less English. This narrative of generational progress and increasing self-confidence was drawn upon by a number of the longer-term participants at the festival. From our own observations, it was notable that there was something of a generational divide in performances of Cornishness with younger participants being more likely to engage in hybridised cultural activities,
160 Marc Scully which incorporated contemporary music and dance styles alongside traditional ones. For instance, Ellie is a member of an all-female Cornish dance group founded at a pan-Celtic festival in Brittany with the express aim of performing traditional Cornish dances in a more contemporary style: Ellie: I think for my parents’ generation they thought, oh if we don’t do it the traditional way, if we don’t do it, you know, this proper way, then it won’t get done and it will disappear and for me I think, well no the groups already there and if I decide to wear fishnets and you know do it in a silly way in a pub, you know (laughs) or in a, you know, it’s still going to be there, it’s not, so I think I’m kind of then, I think my generation and the generations that are coming in as well are more sort of boisterous I suppose because they can afford to be because you know there’s not that fear that it’s going to disappear now, it’s strong enough that yeah you can play with it in a way As a member of the younger generation of Cornish festival participants, Ellie has inherited a collective memory of the Cornish revival but at the same time does not have the same personal experience of marginalisation. She constructs this as allowing a greater level of personal agency in performing Cornishness in more playful ways without threatening a broader sense of collective identity. This collapses the binary that there is a ‘proper’/‘not proper’ way to perform traditional Cornishness in order to ensure its survival. With regards to the interplay between personal and collective identity, Ellie positions herself and the other members of her generation as having the ability to perform a Cornishness that is more personally relevant, while still being recognisable as a legitimate expression of collective Cornishness. However, this is framed by a historical narrative of the precarity of Celtic-Cornish identities, which may have informed the collective performance of perceived ‘authentic’ Cornishness of previous generations. To assert agency in expressing an identity in a personally relevant manner is also implicitly to acknowledge collective constraints on the expression of that identity, whether from internal or external sources. While there may be a greater space to play with what gets to be ‘Cornish,’ there is still a need to demonstrate that Cornish culture can be situated as Celtic, particularly in contexts of encountering real or imagined scepticism of those from other Celtic nations. For instance, the following interview with Si and Matt, two 30-something Cornish musicians, illustrates the difficulty that is sometimes encountered in achieving recognition for Cornish music within the wider sphere of ‘Celtic’ traditional/folk music: Si:
I feel like Cornwall deserves its place so I don’t need to sit there and push it and be really, y’know, forward about it because you
Challenging Peripherality 161 can be just as forward about it by getting on with it and without making such a big deal about it because there’s always a danger when you push things too much that it becomes a bit of a joke of itself. Matt: I mean, there was an interesting thing, remember that session over in Truro with [band-name] and that lot. yeah Si: Matt: Who are really staunch Irish, they just play a lot of Irish stuff. Bit of Scottish stuff thrown in but, really, I mean, that’s what floats their boat. And they made some comment about Cornish tunes and Si and I sort of looked at each other and we thought, oh yeah, right, don’t, y’know, don’t bite, don’t bite. And then we were talking about, y’know, the way to resolve that, right, is what you do is you drop in, in the middle of the set that you’re playing, you drop in a really good Cornish tune. ‘Cos they won’t suddenly go (laughter) what?!, they’ll go, oh what’s that and you go oh it’s, I don’t know, y’know, whatever. yeah Si: Matt: And they’ll turn arou—y’know, the—it’s it’s surreptitious. Y’know, if you try and just force and just go, y’know, I’m making a statement here, well, what statement are you making, you’re just ma- you’re just trying to push your thing. If you- this goes back to this whole thing, a good tune’s a good tune. Si’s original statement can be read as disclaiming personal responsibility for proactively ensuring Cornwall’s ‘place’ is recognised within panCeltic environments. Rather, he draws a contrast between two possible strategies “pushing it/making a big deal of it” and “getting on with it” in terms of affirming the ‘authenticity’ of Cornish music. The latter is framed as preferable—as ‘pushing for’ the inclusion of Cornwall may backfire in ‘becoming a joke of itself.’ The logic here would appear to be that arguing for one’s right to belong opens up the rhetorical space for the possibility that one may not belong—however, treating ones belonging as a fait accompli forecloses that possibility. To treat one’s ‘belonging’ as uncontested is a form of identity work in itself. However, that does not mean that such belonging is uncontestable. Matt picks up on Si’s argument by offering an illustrative example—a brief narrative of an encounter with an Irish folk band who were dismissive of Cornish music. Again, ‘not biting’ is framed here as the preferable choice: where making an overt statement about the quality and right to belong of Cornish music would be futile. Rather, Matt presents a narrative of winning critics around by ‘surreptitiously dropping a really good Cornish tune’ into a set, and then almost nonchalantly drawing attention to its Cornishness. It is unclear whether this narrative is based on an actual event, or is a potential response that Matt and Si have
162 Marc Scully collaboratively worked up. Regardless, its function is to position Cornish music as being of sufficient quality to ‘belong’ on its own merits, and by extension reflective of a self-confident Cornish culture. It also allows Matt and Si to affirm their personal/professional identities as musicians in a way that does not come into conflict with their Cornish identities— Matt’s assertion that ‘a good tune is a good tune’ is one that he repeated a number of times throughout the interview. This may be read as a rhetorical defence against the suggestion that he plays Cornish music merely as a means of promoting Cornishness, regardless of the quality—‘just trying to push your thing’: rather allowing the music to stand on its merits is an argument for playing Cornish tunes because they’re good tunes. As such, this is a means of negotiating the interplay of personal and collective identities in a way that allows them both to be ‘felt’ and ‘recognised’ as authentic.
5. Conclusion The types of identity work presented here support Hale’s (1997a) argument, that ‘Celtic’ identities in Cornwall are meaningful, multi-vocalic and constantly undergoing change and negotiation. At the same time, it is possible to develop a three-stage model of how such identities are utilised to challenge Cornwall’s peripherality to accompany Payton’s (1989) original model. Firstly, we might argue that there is an explanatory repertoire of ascribing Cornwall’s marginalisation as effectively postcolonial: that the ‘Celtic’ Cornish and the ‘Saxon’ English are a separate people, and that the misfortunes of the former are the result of subjugation from the latter. Following this, narratives of pan-Celtic solidarity are drawn upon to position Cornwall as integral to an alternative non-English collectivity. Finally, the position of Cornwall within this pan-Celtic identity must be negotiated in a way that allows for both personal and collective ‘authentic’ expressions of Cornishness. In relation to the interplay of individual and collective identification with ‘Celtic’ Cornishness, it was notable how certain positions were presented as normative—i.e., as something all ‘authentic’ Cornish people should share. Defining oneself against Englishness is presented as such, particularly as it allows for alignment with a ‘Celtic’ identity. However, aside from not being English, what makes Cornish identity Celtic appears to be more open to individual negotiation, and in some cases contestation. Alongside the extracts presented here, it was notable in both our broader interview corpus and our observations of the festival, that there was a sense of generational change around the level of individual agency permitted in performing Cornishness. Based on the theoretical framework for ‘authenticity’ outlined earlier, it could be argued that the older generation having collectively asserted ownership of a Celtic-Cornish identity through ‘traditional’ forms has opened up the space for recognition of
Challenging Peripherality 163 the more diverse, ‘playful’ identities that better reflect the forms of CelticCornishness relevant to the younger generation. Drawing on festival theory (Bennett and Woodward 2014), I argued earlier that Lowender Peran could be considered a temporary liminal space in the more permanent liminal place that is Cornwall. The festival space undoubtedly allows participants an opportunity to work through their Celtic-Cornish identities: from the evidence presented earlier, it is also a way to negotiate the constraints placed on these identities. However, it is arguable that for many of the participants in this research, there is no clear distinction between temporary and permanent liminal space in the terms discussed earlier. For them, participation in the festival was not a chance to explore an identity uncharacteristic of everyday experience, but rather a relatively normal activity associated with their lives as performers. Many would also be best characterised as entrepreneurs of identity, seeking to resolve Cornwall’s liminal status between English county and Celtic nation in the latter direction. Based on the narrative of generational shift present at the festival and the more hybrid forms of Celtic-Cornish identity emerging, the festival may best be described as located in a liminal space between the past and the future.
6. Postscript What that future may constitute remains uncertain. As mentioned earlier, this ethnographic research took place in the Autumn of 2013. I returned to Perranporth in March 2015 for the annual St Piran’s Day procession across Perran Sands. On this occasion, there was a strong air of optimism from those participants I met for the second time. In the intervening 18 months, the people of Cornwall had been granted national minority status under the relevant European Framework Convention giving them a similar status in the UK as the Scots, Welsh, and Irish. Those I spoke to on this occasion felt that this would form the basis for greater autonomy for Cornwall. However, following the decision of the UK to leave the European Union, it is uncertain what relevance, if any, this status will continue to have. It is perhaps a peculiar irony that Cornwall voted 56.5% in favour of leaving the EU, given that the EU is the source of much of the political recognition of Cornwall’s distinctiveness. At the time of writing, the UK itself is in the liminal position of leaving, but having not yet left the EU: the position of Cornwall following this particular experiment with alternative configurations of identities is yet to be determined.
Acknowledgements The research for this chapter occurred under the auspices of the Impact of Diasporas on the Making of Britain research programme based at the University of Leicester. The programme was funded by the Leverhulme
164 Marc Scully Trust under Programme Grant F/00 212/AM. Thanks to colleagues on the programme and to Dr Steve Ling, who was the research assistant for this case study. Thanks also to the editor of this volume and to reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.
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7 Place-Identity and Urban Policy: Sharing Leisure Spaces in the ‘Post-Conflict’ City Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, John Dixon, Neil Jarman, Dominic Bryan, Jonny Huck, Duncan Whyatt, and Gemma Davies 1. Introduction: Problematising Parks and Shared Space Policy Exclusions in public space—defined as it is by the ‘tension between freedom and control’ (Dixon et al. 2006: 191)—often play out in efforts to limit access to undesirable groups, particularly those who might undermine the leisure and consumption focus of many new civic spaces (Sorkin, 1992). As such, street drinkers, the homeless and youth are often among those targeted for removal (Mitchell 1995, 2017, Dixon et al. 2006, Hocking 2015). In post-conflict Belfast, however, social exclusion in public space is as likely to be enforced by sectarian prejudice as by governments and the forces of global capital. Leisure spaces, parks, and community centres are among those public spaces in Northern Ireland that have in many cases been effectively ‘privatised’ for the use of certain sectarian groups, thereby diminishing their potential as spaces for civic engagement and well-being. Accordingly, large swathes of the local population are effectively absent from many public spaces. And parks have often operated as extensions of the most proximate residential area, which means they, too, reflect the wider segregation patterns of the city and its associated ‘pathologies of community attachment’ (Fried 2000, p. 193). For this reason, the need to create ‘civic sharedness’ across Northern Ireland’s public spaces has been a prominent theme in policy debate since the end of the Northern Ireland conflict1 in the late 1990s (see Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) 2005, 2006, 2010, 2013, Belfast City Council 2011b). Given the degree to which the conflict centred on issues of territory, sovereignty, and identity (Gaffikin et al. 2016), the fulfilment of this aim has proved especially challenging, with many areas outside of city centres perceived to be the domain of either Catholics or Protestants. Attempts to create policy frameworks for promoting shared space—that is, spaces people from all backgrounds feel comfortable using—have often been characterised by the absence of threat or aggression (OFMDFM 2005) rather than a concrete vision for
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 167 how such spaces could be encouraged. The devolved government’s most recent community relations strategy, for instance, while acknowledging that ‘shared space need not be neutral space’ and that people should be free ‘to celebrate their culture’ (OFMDFM 2013, p. 53), did not explicitly address how this would occur other than to endorse the celebration of culture in a ‘shared and mutually inclusive way’ (p. 28). Just as Fraser (1990) has problematised the ‘publicness’ of the public sphere, public space itself exists on a continuum, whereby spaces exist to varying and fluctuating degrees in both public and private realms. Likewise, in Belfast, the nature of shared space is always in flux and constantly changing (Gaffikin et al. 2008; Rallings 2014), a dynamic not widely recognised by policy. Though the city centre has been framed in government policy and planning documents as a space, which aspires to be ‘shared, inclusive and neutral’ (Belfast City Council 2016b; Belfast City Council 2015), based primarily on the consumption of goods and cosmopolitan programming of spaces, some have questioned the degree to which this has been achieved in respect to deeper social interaction (see, for instance, Leonard and McKnight 2015 on teenagers’ use and perception of the city centre during socially segmented festivals). Implementing a shared vision for public space in Belfast’s inner-city, workingclass residential areas, where identity and sectarian territorialisation assumes greater prominence and local-level policy is intensely parochial, has proved especially daunting. Given their liminal position as civic spaces typically surrounded by segregated residential districts, Belfast parks are on the frontlines of the ongoing policy initiative to create more shared spaces, but have in some instances proved the thorniest types of civic space to integrate due to the intrusion of sectarian identities and the limits on freedom of movement these intrusions have precipitated. For instance, a number of parks in the north of the city have been significantly impacted by social divisions: Alexandra Park is split in two by a so-called peace wall,2 the Waterworks has an ‘invisible interface,’3 and Ballysillan Playing Fields has a security fence on its boundary. Meanwhile, a security fence that limited access to the playing fields around the Valley Leisure centre was removed in 2016 as part of a process of regeneration (Belfast Interface Project 2017, Jarman 2004). Where the surrounding residential area includes both Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods4, intergroup contact may occur, but the potential for this interaction to be negative and entail rioting or other violent clashes has in some cases spurred further securitisation of the local landscape (Brand 2009). Thus, while public parks are sometimes classed as ‘the least contested type of public space’ (Johnson and Glover 2013, p. 194), Belfast’s sectarian landscape upends this characterisation. The intense ‘othering’ that occurred due to the conflict has meant that ‘place transgression’ (Dixon et al. 2006) is often associated with the presence of individuals or symbols linked to the opposing community.
168 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. Fear—whether rooted in experience or the imaginary—wields tremendous power to limit people’s use of leisure spaces in areas of the city dominated by the ‘other’ community (Bairner and Shirlow 2003). This tension between civic and sectarian associations in Belfast parks means that they are often essentially ‘liminal’ spaces, existing as both municipal resources and the extension of single-identity territories. This liminality of public parks speaks to the duality of much public space in Northern Ireland, its essential ‘in-betweenness,’ that is, its capacity both to create an inclusive and shared arena of public life while simultaneously reinforcing or underscoring fundamental social divisions. Thus the traditional function of parks as places that facilitate ‘bridging social capital’ (Putnam 2000), or connections between diverse publics that help build social cohesion and civic identification, is less evident in Northern Ireland, where contestation over territory, particularly outside of the city centre, is a widespread and highly visible phenomenon. This chapter focuses on local residents’ narratives about three key North Belfast parks (Ballysillan Playing Fields, Waterworks, and Alexandra Park), with various levels and types of security features, to explore the impact of place-identity relationships on people’s use and perception of ostensibly shared spaces. It considers how dynamics of power, territorialisation, fear, and belonging exist across these parks irrespective of obvious security elements. Although factors beyond the place-identity relationship also influence usage (such as criminality, gender, and other environmental features), we posit that this relationship is both formative and linked to deeply interconnected personal and collective histories that local residents have with particular places. 1.1. Place-Identity and the Divided City While acknowledging the ‘multidimensional nature’ of accessibility (Wang et al. 2015, p. 54), this chapter posits that people’s place-identity relationships are a crucial factor in determining the likelihood that leisure space will encourage or attract a high level of mixing and that the ‘sensuous geography’ (Rodaway 1994) or symbolic landscape is part and parcel of this relationship (Neal et al. 2015). In the Northern Irish context, where even the most ostensibly inclusive and ‘neutral’ of public spaces may be linked to patterns of sectarian identification, this dynamic is accentuated, and parks are no exception. They, in many instances, are liminal spaces, where the tension between their civic, public character and their sectarian and parochial orientation remains a defining feature. Proshansky et al. (1983) defined the concept of place-identity as a subset of self-identity, ‘a clustering of cognitive components’ (1983, p. 63) that reflect the day-to-day experiences of a person across a range of interconnected places. These cognitions serve specific functions for the individual, facilitating senses of environmental recognition, meaning,
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 169 preference, and threat, as well as helping to mediate responses to environmental change. Seen in this way, place-identity provides a means to explore the relationship between self and place, including the impact of particular environments on our sense of who we are and what we are worth (Krupat 1983). Sarbin (1983), for instance, notes the necessity of situating the self ‘in the geographical ecology’ (p. 338) and suggests that individuals do this through the process of ‘emplotment’—that is, providing narratives of self that are located in particular places (p. 340). Thus, as Korpela extrapolates, specific places ‘regulate the pleasure/pain balance, one’s self-esteem and characteristic sense of self’ (1989, p. 245), impacting the likelihood one chooses to frequent a given locale as well as the place’s restorative potential and contribution to overall well-being. One’s perceived level of ‘autobiographical insideness’ (Rowles 1983)— that is, physical, social, and psychological attachment to place accreted over time—further bolsters the place-identity relationship and its overall importance to maintaining a particular self-identity ‘within a place that on the surface and to the outsider may appear to have undergone fundamental transformation’ (1983, p. 308). Though much research on place-identity processes has focused on individual-level dynamics, place-identity relationships do not occur in a vacuum, and recent work has emphasised the role of broader sociopolitical forces, as well as collective identities, on people’s emotional connections to their spatial environments (Manzo 2003; Dixon and Durrheim 2000, 2004; Devine-Wright and Lyons 1997). In some instances, collective identities have also been shown to predict aspects of the placeidentity relationship. One study found that the stronger the local or national identity, the less likely individuals were to perceive problems in their local environment, which was interpreted as a desire to maintain the positive distinctiveness of a place-based group identity (Bonaiuto et al. 1996). Indeed, Stedman (2002, p. 567) posits that ‘place-protective behavior’ is most likely to occur where respondents hold ‘higher place attachment and lower place satisfaction,’ a sentiment, which is widespread across the working-class neighbourhoods of North Belfast. At the same time, resistance to change may be interpreted as a ‘dislocation of place identity’ (Dixon and Durrheim 2004, p. 466), often inseparably linked to ‘territorial entitlements’ or other socio-spatial goals (Dixon and Durrheim 2000, p. 33). This accounts for the intensity with which changes in the environment may be experienced, as well as for people’s tendency to seek out ‘environments that are compatible with their sense of who they are’ (Dixon and Durrheim 2000, p. 37). Following Dixon and Durrheim (2004, p. 471), the concept of placeidentity is used here to consider how ‘place-identity constructions’ influence people’s responses to their environment. While place-identity profoundly shapes relations in overtly territorialised contexts, it also shapes—and often obstructs—the degree to which members of different
170 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. communities are willing to share ostensibly public spaces such as parks, a point less evident in the literature. Analysing the discursive construction of the place-identity relationship as it pertains to the use and perception of public parks in North Belfast can help shed light on the best means to promote mixing and integration across the city’s leisure spaces. Research participants’ place-identity relationships provide a vital means to tease out the personal and collective associations that militate against ‘sharedness’ in the landscape, and thus to better anticipate potential challenges when seeking to open up spaces to the full range of identities and backgrounds. This is particularly useful in Belfast, where intensity of communal identification coupled with relatively low levels of mobility is closely linked to territoriality and exclusionary spatial regimes. As such, this chapter first considers the cleavage between the perception of shared space in public parks and the lived experience of parks as articulated by residents in the city. It then addresses the role of placeidentity relationships in shaping residents’ sense of well-being and belonging in parks. Subsequently, the chapter suggests that fundamental Northern Irish divisions have effectively merged the individual and collective dimensions of the place-identity relationship—that is, people approach public spaces in Northern Ireland from profoundly group-influenced positionalities or senses of self in relation to others (Merriam et al. 2001; Rose 1997). These quasi-collectivised place-identity relationships are shown to impact on how people use parks, either avoiding them entirely or only using parts of some of them due to fears over being targeted as representative of the unwanted ‘other.’ Only by addressing this placeidentity relationship, then, can policymakers hope to impact segregated socio-spatial dynamics in parks, which though ostensibly shared spaces, often exist in the Belfast landscape as liminal spaces.
2. Context: North Belfast, Segregation, and Social Division in Leisure Spaces The 30-year Northern Ireland conflict known as the Troubles left the capital city Belfast largely divided between Catholics, who historically have favoured Irish unity, and Protestants who wanted the province to remain part of the UK. Today, two decades after the Good Friday peace agreement, the city remains characterised by endemic residential and educational segregation, with many working-class areas split by imposing physical barriers known as peace walls. The Belfast Mobility Project, a two-and-a- half-year study of activity-space segregation in the north of the city on which we draw in this chapter, has examined how these broader social and material divisions shaped people’s daily lives and use of urban environments, including public parks. As noted, parks in Belfast, and particularly in North Belfast—where the broader geography is profoundly shaped by a patchwork of segregated
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 171 Catholic and Protestant housing estates and an associated legacy of violent conflict—pose problems for policymakers and planners. On the one hand, as open public spaces, parks are widely viewed in theory by the population as shared. For instance, the 2016 Northern Ireland Life and Times survey of social attitudes found that 86% of respondents considered their local parks to be ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ ‘ “shared and open” to both Protestants and Catholics’ (NILT 2016). Supporting this finding, prominent parks in North Belfast were defined as shared in an online participatory GIS mapping pilot study conducted as part of the Belfast Mobility Project. At the same time, this mapping exercise also revealed respondents’ views of the areas surrounding the parks and sometimes parts of the parks themselves as unsafe spaces (see Figures 7.1a and 7.1b). 2.1. The Parks The Ballysillan Playing Fields, a green space primarily surrounded by two working-class Protestant areas—Ballysillan and Glenbryn—is viewed by many Catholics as a space that they avoid, though a smaller, relatively more affluent Catholic area, known as Deerpark, also borders the park. Tensions between Catholics and Protestants have over the years precipitated the addition of a security fence and more recently green mesh netting extending the fence upward to protect Catholic houses on the other side of the barrier from Protestant missiles (Belfast City Council 2012a). The park’s reputation as a Protestant space has repercussions for the adjacent Ballysillan Leisure Centre, which many Catholics are also reluctant to visit. Meanwhile, the Waterworks is a large park bordered by the Catholic Cliftonville Road, the small Protestant Westlands estate and the more mixed, if still predominantly Catholic, Cavehill, and Antrim roads. It features a football pitch and multi-sports facility, as well as an upper and lower playground. Despite its reputation as a shared space, the park is known for its invisible interface and history of conflict. Not only is there a natural division in the topography of the park, with an upper area featuring a pond stocked with fish and a lower area with another pond once used for boating, but this division correlates with an unofficial sectarian dividing line, whereby the minority Protestants are widely perceived to be more comfortable in the upper portion of the park, near the Westlands. Indeed, sectarian clashes in 2001 led to calls by council and police representatives for the construction of ‘a permanent fence or boundary’ that would have essentially divided the park into ‘two conflicting communities’ and blocked access for Westland residents (Abdelmonem and McWhinney 2015; Jarman 2004). Community efforts to ‘reduce tensions’ and promote shared activities such as a cross-community fishing group that meets in the upper pond, successfully calmed the situation (Brand 2009), and the idea was dropped. Nevertheless, some Protestants remain
Figures 7.1a and 7.1b The Blue Areas in Figure 7.1a (Top) Suggest That the Waterworks, Alexandra Park, and the Ballysillan Playing Fields Are All Represented as Shared By Our Sample of North Belfast Residents in Their Spraycan PPGIS Exercise. At the Same Time, However, the Red Sprays in Figure 7.1b (Bottom) Reflect Their Views of the Surrounding Areas (and Parts of the Parks) as Unsafe
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 173 wary of visiting the park, which is increasingly viewed as dominated by Catholics both in terms of their presence in the park (Abdelmonem and McWhinney 2015) and the surrounding area’s residential composition. Finally, though both Protestants and Catholics use Alexandra Park, situated between the largely Catholic Antrim Road and the Protestant Tigers Bay/Mountcollyer neighbourhood, the nature of this use precipitated the implementation of a peace wall in the form of a metal security barrier (see Figure 7.2), construction of which began the day after the 1994 IRA (Irish Republican Army) ceasefire set the Northern Irish peace process in motion (O’Hagan 2012, Sharrock 1994). The construction of the barrier, which stands 3.5 metres high and runs for 120 metres from Parkside Gardens to the rear of the recycling depot on Alexandra Park Avenue, was a reaction to rioting between Protestant and Catholic youths, and creates a clear bifurcation between a Catholic upper portion and a Protestant lower portion. More recently, however, Alexandra Park has been held up as an example of social progress, when in 2011, a gate in the interface barrier was opened for a limited number of hours each day (BBC News 2011), a move that has earned the park substantial media attention. Nevertheless, patterns of use and operation remain deeply affected by the wall’s presence. Not only does the city council have two separate maintenance
Figure 7.2 A Peace Wall Divides Alexandra Park Along Catholic-Protestant Lines
174 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. teams for the park, but the park features two separate children’s play areas and anti-social behaviour remains an ongoing problem there. In 2014, the body of a man killed by republican paramilitaries was found floating in the park pond (Belfast Telegraph 2014). 2.2. Methodology: Narrating the Landscape The Belfast Mobility Project is an ESRC-funded study of activity-space segregation in North Belfast. As part of the project, participants were asked to take a pair of researchers on a walk through their local area and discuss how living in a segregated and divided city impacted upon their mobility choices and daily activities. The interviews were audio-recorded, with one researcher asking questions during the walk and the other taking photographs of features and landscapes central to the participant’s narrative. The routes of the walks were recorded via a GPS tracking app on the project smartphone. The interview data on the parks examined here—the Waterworks, Ballysillan Playing Fields, and Alexandra—emerged organically from the modified ‘go-along’ method (Kusenbach 2003) used in the project. Given their prominence in the North Belfast landscape, parks were included in some participants’ selected walking routes. Allowing ‘interviewees to freely construct their place experiences’ (Possick 2004, p. 58) in this manner, with full control over the route taken, enabled the identification of themes related to place attachment and patterns of use. Broadly, the semi-structured walking interviews, which lasted between 45 minutes and 2 hours, centred on questions of symbolic threat, community identification, intergroup contact, and access to facilities and services in the local area. Participants’ relationships to place were also probed in a shorter biographical interview, which occurred immediately before the walk in question and lasted about 30 minutes. This opened up a window into the participant’s background and contributed to a composite picture of how individual and collective identities were brought to bear on the physical environment beyond the home. An online pilot mapping exercise further captured participants’ perception of their local area and city centre—such as what spaces were seen as Protestant, Catholic, or shared—with parks featuring prominently in this data. All in all, 33 residents of North Belfast participated in the interviews, with roughly a quarter of the sample entering one of the three parks in question during their walk. (Other local parks, such as the Grove Playing Fields and Hazelbank, were also visited by a handful of participants but did not assume the same prominence in people’s narratives.) Interviews were subsequently transcribed in full and reviewed for references to parks and leisure spaces. The following analysis explores research participants’ narratives through the prism of place-identity. After examining the formative relationship between perception and use of parks, the chapter probes
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 175 participants’ senses of belonging and ‘at homeness’ in certain parks and the degrees of liminality these senses evoke. It then draws on participants’ narratives to consider how feelings of respite and ‘insideness’ in these parks are shaped by collective positionalities. As these narratives demonstrate, for many in Belfast, the collectivised nature of place-identity ensures that not all of the city’s residents feel equally free to use all of its parks. In light of these findings, policymakers aiming to create more integrated public landscapes must address the place-identity relationship as part of wider conflict transformation processes.
3. The ‘Post-Conflict’ Park: Shared Perceptions Versus Lived Realities Across all three parks, cleavages existed between an idealised conception of the parks by research participants as shared civic spaces and the implied threat and fear they also associated with these spaces. In most cases, their respective levels of safety and identification directly correlated to their community background and the residential make-up of the surrounding areas. This ambiguous liminality of some parks in post-conflict Belfast is related to their cognitive location in a grey area between ‘ethnic space’ and ‘shared space’ as delineated by Gaffikin and Morrisey’s (2011) spatial typology, and the power differentials such classifications imply. These parks often serve as the de facto backyards of the closest or dominant sectarian community, be it Protestant or Catholic, and this dynamic complicates their traditional function as urban oases. Thus, while research participants repeatedly classified parks as shared in their mapping exercises, their narratives about actual usage of and feelings to specific parks during both parts of the interview often underscored a less-than-shared reality. For instance, though Ballysillan Playing Fields was identified as shared by one Catholic participant during his mapping exercise, he also noted, When you go up to Ballysillan Playing Fields, you’re surrounded by the Protestant community. So people [Catholics] are afraid of other people [Protestants] recognising them. They get these ideas in their head—if they’ve been in jail or been in the young offenders’ centre, and somebody will see them: ‘Oh, there’s a Catholic.’ They get this idea that gets into their head, so they don’t want to walk into that type of atmosphere. Know what I mean, they feel threatened. (Interview, 23 January 2017) This perceived threat also emerged, if more elliptically, in the narrative of a man from Protestant Glenbryn, who took us into the Ballysillan Playing Fields (see Figure 7.3). Though the man considered the space shared, memories of past interactions with Catholics in the park—memories that emerged over the course of his walking
176 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al.
Figure 7.3 Protective Netting Borders an Adjacent Catholic Residential Area at the Ballysillan Playing Fields
interview—shed further light on that community’s general sense of fear and alienation from the space. Respondent: I’ll show you a guy; he’s got a German Shepherd . . . met [him] when I was walking the dogs one day. He was really nervous,
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 177 he says, you know: ‘I’m a Catholic’—and I said: ‘I don’t give a shit, to be honest with you. I’m more interested in my dogs.’ . . . and I’ve always sort of been like that. Interviewer: So you say you bonded over your shared German Shepherd . . . you both have German Shepherds? Respondent: Yes. He has . . . ack, I’m a dog person. . . . He used to walk, but then all of a sudden, he just stopped. He just stopped coming out . . . he got a bit of, somebody said he got threatened. Interviewer: So he stopped using the Ballysillan [playing] fields? Respondent: Yeah, he stopped using it. Em, it’s like, people . . . Interviewer: So he didn’t, he felt unsafe then—you think? Respondent: Well, em, he just stopped. Interviewer: He just stopped. Respondent: That was it. You know, usually, I’d meet him at a certain time every day and then . . . all of sudden he was gone. (Interview, 11 March 2016) In the Waterworks, where the surrounding area is dominated by Catholics, a similar narrative was expressed, albeit from opposite group positionalities. Though it was also viewed as a shared space, with one Catholic participant noting that it was for ‘both sides of the community . . . cause of where it is situated’ (Interview, 23 January 2017), in this instance, it was usually Protestants who expressed fears about using all (or part of) the park (see Interviews, 11 March 2016; 15 June 2016; 13 December 2016). Some Catholics, meanwhile, clarified that it was more shared in the upper portion of the park, which also borders a small Protestant enclave in addition to Catholic residential properties (see, for instance, Interview, 4 May 2016). Even in Alexandra Park, where a peace wall running through the space creates a clear line of division between the upper portion, which is surrounded by Catholic residences, and the lower part bordered by a Protestant community, many interviewees said it was shared. This, despite the fact that the barrier physically limited their movement through the park depending on the time of day (as security gates are shut at dusk) and also created a sense of community territorialisation over parts of the park. As one Catholic woman pointed out: ‘The bottom part is like the Protestant area, you’re going down into the Protestant area when you go down there, and the top part would be [the] Catholic community part, so’ (Interview, 17 October 2016). This widespread understanding of the lived reality of the park was further evidenced in usage patterns. For instance, Protestants indicated that they usually stayed on their side of the peace wall or used entrances closer to the Protestant residential community (see Interviews, 20 October 2016; 16 November 2016; 18 November 2016).
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4. Analysis: Place-Identity in Practice 4.1. Place-Identity: Belonging, Comfort, and Ease in Place As the previous section attests, in contested cities such as Belfast, ‘spaces of common belonging are at a premium’ (Gaffikin et al. 2010, p. 493). Residents of single-identity communities living near ‘interfaces’ routinely spend their entire lives in highly localised community settings—either unable or unwilling to leave their own area (Knox and Carmichael 2005). The sense of attachment to the ‘local’ (Knox 2001) breeds highly defined and group-influenced understandings of who belongs in place and who doesn’t. This dynamic dictates the nature of the place-identity relationship, including the likelihood that people develop a strong connection to urban parks as places of well-being, respite, and restoration. Given that emotional belonging to a particular environment requires a ‘psychological investment with a setting that has developed over time’ (Vaske and Corbin 2001, p. 17), a space widely believed to be within Protestant ‘territory’ is less likely to be perceived as accessible for Catholics and vice versa. For one Catholic man, who lived near the Waterworks, the park was clearly associated with pleasant childhood memories of days out away from his then-home in the violently militarised landscape of Catholic Ardoyne, a hotbed of IRA activity and British Army patrols during the conflict. The sense of escape and normalcy, which the park brought to his childhood, has remained throughout his developmental cycle and continues to serve a restorative purpose (Korpela 1989) for him as an adult with a family of his own. Respondent: Yeah, the Waterworks been in my life from [when] I’ve been a kid. As I said there was no playground in Ardoyne; this is where you came. So when you did get taken out of Ardoyne, this is where your parents would have brought you, over to the Waterworks Park. . . . I suppose your parents, your grandparents, just wanted to get you out of it for the day, you know, get away from the smell of burnt vehicles and Army and police. (Interview, 30 June 2016) This long-standing autobiographical association with the park, in turn, embeds the landscape with personal memories that further strengthen a sense of place identification. Carefree days spent with mates infused his sense of place with refreshment and fun and were clearly associated with a key stage in his personal development (Hay 1998), with the following excerpt revealing a deep attachment to the Waterworks, as well as an associated ‘emplotment’ (Sarbin 1983) of self in place. In this way,
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 179 his place-identity may be interpreted as a sub-identity of his self-identity (Proshansky et al. 1983), helping to sustain a connection to a particular landscape and a feeling of personal and social insideness (Rowles 1983). Respondent: . . . There used to be park benches just here below these trees, in-between those trees. We hid in there; there was big bushes all the way round so you could hide and have your wee bottle of cider. Somebody had a ghetto blaster and blasted a bit of music you know, the parks. Interviewer: Back in the day. Respondent: Or boom boxes, yeah. That’s it. Backing the beats. It’s a great wee park. This is only the bottom part of it. This is where I go to clear the head, go for a walk. Interviewer: How does it make you feel? Respondent: I love it. I love here, aye, I really do love it. It’s nice and peaceful. Yeah, I grew up about here, I knocked about here for five or six years. (Interview, 30 June 2016) Similarly, a young Protestant man from the Tigers Bay neighbourhood, though acknowledging the peculiarity of having a peace wall running through a public park, as is the case with Alexandra, recalled the park as a green space for dog-walking and childhood fort-building. These pleasant memories reinforced a positive place-identity relationship not based on exclusionary sectarian identifications. Interviewer: So how do you feel coming through the park? Do you like that you have this space nearby where you live? Respondent: Yeah, actually I do. Interviewer: Do you come here often? Respondent: I used to walk the dogs here all the time. There used to be far more trees than this. We used to have all kinds of hidden huts and places we built out of pallets and duct tape. Two crews of them, our friends, and the other group, they had a couple more people. They were older and a bit more creative with their stuff. They built better places than we did. Interviewer: So you wouldn’t worry about encountering people from the other community in this place? Respondent: No. Interviewer: Do you ever worry about encountering anyone from your own community? Respondent: No. Not worried about running into anybody, unless I’ve got my dog, and they’ve got theirs. (Interview, 20 October 2016)
180 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. Thus, for both these interviewees, the existence of positive place-identity relationships forged during childhood served as a mitigating factor, capable of overcoming the more pernicious aspects associated with the perceived liminality of these parks and contributing to their willingness to actively use spaces of mixing in the divided city. 4.2. The Collective Is the Personal: Place-Identity and Power in Belfast Parks Dixon and Durrheim (2004, p. 459) point out that belonging fundamentally requires an individual to have ‘a personal sense of being “at home,” ’ a sense that is inevitably influenced by the wider social context. In the case of Belfast parks, the nature of the place-identity relationship is profoundly shaped by collective identifications. Even in situations where an individual participant expressed alienation from his or her group identity and a propensity to mix with members of the other community, the intertwining of individual and collective placeidentities remained a constant consideration in their mobility choices. Indeed, despite the recognition that ‘autobiographical insideness’ and place attachment are ‘highly personal and idiosyncratic’ (Rowles, 1983, p. 307), ‘insideness’ ipso facto implies a connection to a wider community and an associated group identity. Thus, the more intense the feelings of autobiographical insideness, the more likely the individual’s place-identity reflects collective concerns and historical power relationships between and among groups. This dynamic came across strongly in the narrative of one young Protestant man, whose community identity was vital to his sense of self. He noted his ‘big connection’ to the ‘close-knit’ Protestant community and described himself as a ‘home-man.’ The collective identity of ‘the people of the Tigers Bay’—and the need to defend this identity—was a recurring theme throughout his narrative, both during the biographical and walking portions of the interview. This ‘insideness’ translated into a sense of territoriality vis-à-vis the park that stretched back to his father, who had also engaged in battles with Catholic youths there in previous decades. As this young Protestant noted, Dad fought in that park 15 years before I was born, in the same park, and he wasn’t even from here. . . . [My parents] would be quite open to tell you he was involved in x, y, and z, but he was defending our homes, or he was defending the community. (Interview, 16 November 2016) Once inside the park, this man’s sense of unease could be related to the park’s role in his life as an ‘incident place’ (Rowles 1983), spanning a number of years in his youth when he gathered at the Alexandra Park
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 181 peace wall during the summer months to riot against Catholics with ‘bricks and bottles.’ Respondent: So, basically, we are in the Alexandra Park, it is a divided park. This is a park that I would frequent, and I would say most people in this area frequent. Simple things like you know walking the dog . . . You know, I used to do a bit of jogging and stuff and that type of thing. But it is a place where, I don’t know, I still always feel slightly on edge and that’s just because of the experiences I’ve had. And because it is a park and it is slightly more secluded, there always is, for me, the potential of . . . violence and of you know, being hurt or even worse. So it’s not a place that I would, especially at night, on the dark nights in the winter, it’s not a place that I would come. I would stay towards the bottom end of this park. Interviewer: Yes, closer to your own house and the Protestant area. Respondent: It doesn’t feel like a, if I go to an ordinary park that’s not a divided park, the park is a very relaxing place, it’s a lovely place to come. The further I move up the park it doesn’t feel like a relaxing place to me. (Interview, 16 November 2016) For this man, the protection and maintenance of community were also closely linked to his place in the local social hierarchy. As such, he had both a personal and collective stake in assuring the ‘purification’ of space (Sibley 1995) on the ‘Protestant’ side of Alexandra Park, since the peace wall helped to enhance and define his position as a defender of ‘the people of Tigers Bay,’ a community of ‘mythic unity’ (Kwon, 2004). His use of war metaphors to describe his actions and role in the community suggests a strong sense of territorialisation and a desire to define who or what is seen as ‘out-of-place’ (Cresswell 1997) in the local area, to essentially maintain control or power in the area. He pointed to an incident from his childhood when his grandmother’s house, which stood at a nearby interface across the street from an Orange Hall, was repeatedly petrol bombed, as crucial to inciting his involvement in violence. Repeatedly referring to the area as ‘a battleground,’ he also acknowledged, ‘I’ve done a bit of damage in these communities,’ but justified this violence based on a need to ‘defend your home.’ His commitment to the defence of the neighbourhood’s Protestant residents and ‘pure’ identity was summed up in his strong opposition to the opening of the park’s peace wall gate. Respondent: Personally I don’t feel comfortable with the gate open. I wasn’t in support of the gate being open. Interviewer: I was going to ask you; do you think it is still necessary? So obviously you do.
182 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. Respondent: Yeah, absolutely. The gate was opened again. A consultation was conducted by so-called, you know, peace-builders and community workers, who in my opinion weren’t reflective of the vast majority of people living in the vicinity of this park. There was actually a riot the day the park was actually officially opened. There was actually a riot.5 . . . I am against removing anything when people feel it is not the right time to do it and people don’t feel safe, and people still feel under threat. (Interview, 16 November 2016) This young man’s sentiment is in line with observations of other scholarship, which has found some Protestants view the peace walls as necessary to protect space for the expression of cultural identity due to their overall unfavourable demographics, which has seen their population decline, while Catholics increase in numbers (Byrne and Gormley-Heenan, 2014). Belonging, as Dixon and Durrheim (2004, p. 459) aver, ‘is also a group response, wed to the history of ethnic and racial relations and inflected to its core by political struggles over space and place.’ The merging of collective and personal place-identities that occurs in Belfast is also evident in the narrative of a Protestant interviewee in the Waterworks (see Figures 4a and 4b). Here, a sense of territorial displacement complicated an otherwise positive narrative. His weekly walk to the Waterworks, he noted, took him by residential areas he perceived to be gradually ‘Greening,’ that is, becoming increasingly Catholic in residential make-up. The man passed streets, where he said Union Jacks no longer flapped due to objections from newer Catholic residents, as well as a former ‘Protestant bar’ that had since come under ‘Catholic’ ownership. Once he entered the park his discourse demonstrated an awareness of the perceived invisible sectarian divisions and the collective identity of different users. While the Protestant found the park personally restorative, his sense of comfort was diminished by an overarching sense that the ‘place’ of the park and its broader surroundings was no longer a Protestant domain, but increasingly dominated by Catholics. Not only did he point out that ‘the top here is a Protestant area and they say this here bit . . . is mostly for Protestants’ but also he later remarked that an area bordering the park where his aunt once lived was no longer the Protestant stronghold of his childhood (Interview, 13 December 2016). Even an angler’s club designed to promote mixing between Catholics and Protestants was viewed with cloaked suspicion. Interviewer: Are you a member of a cross-community fishing group? Respondent: No, no. I came down here, and I did fish it once when it just first started open and I caught a brown trout, oh I caught a rainbow, . . . and I took it home with me, but then I found out you
Figures 7.4a and 7.4b The Waterworks’ Natural Topography Reinforces the ‘Invisible Interface’ (7.4a, left) Between an Upper Park, Which Borders a Small Protestant Enclave (7.4b, right) and the Catholic-Dominated Areas Closer to the Antrim Road End
184 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. had to be in the club, the cross-community club, and then I asked people about it and, ‘Yes, come down and join whenever you want.’ So it is a cross-community, but I would say there would be very few Protestants in it to be totally honest with you. But I don’t know, I can’t, and because the area it’s in and where it is, it’s more than likely that there’s not many Protestants in it. But when it comes to sport nobody cares who you are, you know what I mean. . . . . I’m not too sure how many’s even in the club, or who’s in the club, but I’m only suggesting because of the area you would expect there to be more Catholics in it than Protestants. (Interview, 13 December 2016) As such, the Protestant’s happy associations with the Waterworks as a place where he came in his childhood to ‘get the spricks’ (tiny fish) and now visited to relax after a long day at work are tinged with reminders of demographic decline, which serves to undermine his ‘place-referent continuity’ (Twigger-Ross and Uzzell, 1996), as well as to underscore the ‘dislocation of place identity’ (Dixon and Durrheim, 2004) and comfort he experiences within his environment. 4.3. Place-Identity Implications: Civic Avoidance, Integration, Outlook Research participants’ place-identity relationships, rooted as they are in personal and collective associations and experiences over time, have important implications for the use of public space. Feelings of fear and dis-identification came across strongly in research participants’ narratives related to all three parks. These feelings, in turn, dramatically influence the likelihood that all or parts of a given park will be used by certain residents. Accordingly, we would argue that the nature of the place-identity relationship must be addressed by policymakers seeking to effect change. As the man from Protestant Glenbryn noted, I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking around the Waterworks . . . which would be ideal—’cause I’d love to take the dogs for a swim every day, but I don’t feel comfortable enough to go down there . . . I definitely wouldn’t walk in the Waterworks. Not only that, there’s a lot of heroin users and that type of thing . . . alcoholics. Interviewer: And nothing ever happened to you? Respondent: When I was younger, I did get a kicking; when I was younger in there . . . I did go out with a girl down there, and I was walking through and I got a severe kicking. Interviewer: Who would have done that? Respondent: Just a crowd of guys . . . who caught on who I was . . . Interviewer: Right, OK. So you were dating a Catholic then?
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 185 Respondent: Aye. See I’d do that ’cause I wasn’t allowed to. I just couldn’t help it. It was in my nature. (Interview, 11 March 2016) While this sectarian experience in the park from his youth continued to colour the man’s sense of belonging and contribute to a view of himself as a spatial outsider, his description of the Waterworks as a place frequented by alcoholics and heroin users allowed him to reframe his avoidance of the park as a reflection of his preference for order and safety—underscoring his abhorrence of ‘place transgression’ (Dixon et al. 2006)—that is the existence of undesirable or ‘out-of-place’ activities—rather than acknowledging his outright fear of (or distaste for) encountering Catholics. Meanwhile, one woman from Catholic Ardoyne, which is separated from the Protestant Glenbryn area and the adjacent Ballysillan Playing Fields by a large peace wall, noted the care with which she and her children moved around the vicinity, taking buses or taxis for even short trips in the local area and ensuring that their Catholic school uniforms were removed or covered when venturing into Protestant territory. Notably, though Ballysillan Playing Fields was only a few minutes’ walk from her house, it was not a landscape she felt was hospitable to her personal and collective identity. Indeed, she stopped short of actually entering the park during her walking interview. As she explained: ‘We don’t tend to use the Ballysillan park even if they have got football, we don’t tend to bring supporters up’ (Interview, 4 May 2016). Likewise, as previously stated, both ethnonational communities generally preferred their ‘own side’ of Alexandra Park, though a handful of respondents indicated that they used the entire park (see, for instance, Interview, 17 October 2016). Nevertheless, the parks serve a restorative purpose for residents from both populations, providing escape, pleasure, and solace within their spatial environments. They thereby hold the potential to facilitate the maintenance and creation of place-identity relationships centred on individuals sharing civic space to their mutual benefit rather than on sectarian groups flexing territorial muscle. This restorative potential remains a key attraction of parks in North Belfast, where much of the population would have little access to green spaces otherwise. For instance, one interviewee noted that she planned to attend a lantern festival in Alexandra Park designed to attract residents from both Catholic and Protestant communities (Interview, 17 October 2016). Likewise, another interviewee referenced the psychological benefits he reaped from frequent visits to the Waterworks, commenting, “Look at the view you have from here, it’s lovely, isn’t it? . . . If you’re having a stressful day at work, or just stressed out, take a walk around here, a couple of laps and de-stress” (Interview, 30 June 2016).
186 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. Finally, despite his apparently conflicted feelings towards the park, the narrative of the Protestant man who lived near the Waterworks also underscored the potential of spaces of leisure and respite to provide opportunities for sharing space in a profoundly civic manner and to do so in the most democratic of ways. Interviewer: It sort of seems from talking to you that the Waterworks is sort of your focal point, or your anchoring point—it’s the place that you go to and spend your time, the most time in the neighbourhood . . .? Respondent: Well the Waterworks is the main focus, yes, because you’re coming down here, you’re seeing this, right, you’re walking round, there could be boys there fishing, you could stop and talk to them. You stand and meet somebody feeding the ducks, you talk to them ones, you know what I mean? You go anywhere else, there’s none of that. There’s a football pitch and you just walk round, there’s nothing there to [do]. (Interview, 13 December 2016) As such, the restorative aspects of these ‘in-between’ public spaces clearly point to their potential as ‘spaces of opportunity,’ whose very liminality may ultimately assist in the promotion of social integration between divided communities.
5. Concluding Thoughts: Place-identity, Parks, and Policy Implications The previous excerpts bring to the fore the relevance of the place-identity relationship to people’s perceptions and use of civic spaces. They also underscore the importance of understanding place-identity relationships to achieving shared space objectives and, thus, to determining the nature of what is allowed to be shared and what or who is excluded from public parks. For our interviewees, this relationship, more than any particular design feature, emerged as the crucial determinant in whether they viewed the park as shared and welcoming or threatening and contested. Exploring these place-identity discourses also opened up a window into the multiple ways space is experienced within so-called single-identity communities. It highlighted the importance of personal history and the strength of community identity in determining this relationship and shaping perceptions of park ownership and control. Simply put, placeidentity, and particularly the collective dimensions of place-identity, shape people’s use of parks in ways that are not as evident in areas without a history of violent conflict. These findings have particular implications for policymakers seeking to open up Belfast’s green spaces for all residents. They speak to the
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 187 challenges of creating truly shared areas in more liminal public spaces outside of the city centre, spaces where the residential make-up influences how the use of activity space unfolds. Officials must be cognizant that shifting parks from contested or partially territorialised liminal spaces to genuinely shared spaces requires an understanding of the dynamics of the place-identity relationship. And policy prescriptions must take into account the psychological dimension (Hickey 2014) of shared space if they are to have any hope of success. This means that design alone, while critically important, is not sufficient to promote integration in leisure spaces such as parks—and changing the nature of place-identity relationships must be part of the larger project of urban regeneration. Along these lines, it should be noted that struggles over cultural expressions along a new greenway, which links a number of parks across predominantly Protestant East Belfast, point to the resilience of traditional place-identity relationships and the territorialisation they have entailed. The city council’s plans to extend a greenway model into other parts of Belfast (Belfast City Council 2016a) will demand an equal emphasis on place-identity transformation if it is to effect the broad-brush social change that is currently envisioned within preliminary local development plan documents. Inclusive cities demand inclusive place-identities, and future policy must address this. Given their position as civic spaces at the edge of often single-identity residential areas, parks in Belfast hold tremendous potential to serve as laboratories for social transformation, helping to bring the more ‘mixed’ place-identity of the city centre closer to areas more firmly entrenched in social division and a conflict mentality. Activities that promote civic interaction may contribute to a less segregated place-identity relationship, whereby people feel good about a public space and use it for reasons related to common civic identity. Such events tend to occur in the city centre or in predominantly middle-class areas. Records show that in recent years, a plurality of events have taken place in just three parks: Ormeau, Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon, and Botanic Gardens, all of which are located in middle-class areas of South Belfast (Belfast City Council 2013). A report commissioned for the city council highlighted the potential of holding citywide events from ‘stage cycle days’ to outdoor movie nights to concerts in ‘second tier district parks and third tier neighbourhood parks’ as a means to change perceptions and create linkages between areas, in much the same manner as the Belfast Marathon is credited with achieving (Gaffikin et al. 2008). Already, a popular Saturday morning 5K run in the Waterworks has made inroads in attracting a mix of visitors. And discussions related to the potential creation of a Roald Dahl sculpture trail in Alexandra Park and an outdoor classroom appear to be an early attempt to promote linkages with the surrounding area, and build on the successful staging there in 2016 of the North Belfast Lantern Parade & Magical Festival, which had previously been held in the Waterworks.
188 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. As such, further spatial integration could be promoted by shifting public events on a rotating basis to parks in historically divided parts of the city. Moving events, such as the Belfast Mela, outside of middle-class spaces like Botanic Gardens could encourage greater cross-community and class interaction. Notably, some working-class interviewees indicated that the area around Botanic was not seen as welcoming for someone from their social background. These class exclusions and associated immobilities further reify pre-existing localised sectarian identities and power dynamics. Circulating marquee civic events through the city would ensure that all areas and community backgrounds have the opportunity to experience more integrative and diverse cultural expressions. This could contribute to place-identities based on an emerging sense of civic ‘insideness’ rather than sectarian-based senses of community belonging and place attachment. These goals will obviously require significant public investment in the curation of a geographically balanced and inclusive programme of activities and events across the city’s parks. This will demand a ‘joined up’ approach—and a willingness to move beyond traditional community ‘leaders’ to engage directly with citizens in the shaping and stewardship of leisure spaces. Ultimately, reshaping the place-identity relationship with parks in Belfast could positively impact on people’s willingness to move into and integrate the single-identity neighbourhoods surrounding many of these green spaces, which for far too long have served as the quasi-backyards of particular sectarian communities.
Disclosure Statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Acknowledgements This research, conducted as part of the Belfast Mobility Project, was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under Grant (ES/ L016583/1). The authors would like to thank the residents of North Belfast who contributed their time and insights to this work.
Notes 1 The conflict pitted Protestant unionists who wanted to remain part of the UK against Catholic nationalists who have historically favoured reunification with the Irish Republic. 2 Peace walls, or security barriers, are a common feature on the Northern Irish urban landscape, particularly in Belfast, where the first walls were built during the early days of the conflict to separate Protestants and Catholics at ‘interfaces’ where Catholic and Protestant areas meet. Today, more than 100 such
Place-Identity and Urban Policy 189 barriers can be found across Northern Ireland via forms ranging from concrete walls to metal fencing and security gates (Belfast Interface Project 2017). 3 So-called invisible interfaces indicate areas where perceived Protestant and Catholic territories abut up against one another and may be marked by little more than flags or sectarian graffiti. 4 In Northern Ireland, the terms Protestant and Catholic are broadly used to connote ethnonational affiliation rather than religious devotion. 5 According to a Department of Justice official, ‘The “story” of the riot is one that was spread by members of the PUL [Protestant, Unionist, Loyalist community] . . . I’m told by . . . the PSNI that this story is simply not true” (email communication to authors, 5 May 2017). Moreover, during the three-month pilot program to open the gate at the wall, neither the PSNI nor city council recorded any incidents (Belfast City Council 2012b).
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192 Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Sturgeon, et al. Rose, G. (1997). Situating knowledges: Positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography, 21(3), 305–320. Rowles, G. 1983. Place and personal identity in old age: Observations from Appalachia. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 299–313. Sarbin, T. 1983. Place identity as a component of self: An addendum. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 337–342. Sharrock, D. 1994. Belfast walls itself in, ceasefire or No. The Guardian. 23 September, p. 10. Sibley, D. 1995. Geographies of Exclusion. London: Routledge. Sorkin, M. 1992. Introduction: Variations on a theme park. In M. Sorkin (ed.), Variations on a theme park: The new American city and the end of public space (p. xi–xv). New York: Hill and Wang. Stedman, R. 2002. Toward a social psychology of place: Predicting behavior from place-based cognitions, attitude, and identity. Environment and Behavior, 34(5), 561–581. Tuan, Y. 1980. Rootedness versus sense of place. Landscape, 24, 3–8. Twigger-Ross, C. and Uzzell, D. 1996. Place and identity processes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16, 205–220. Vaske, J. and Corbin, K. 2001. Place attachment and environmentally responsible behaviour. Journal of Environmental Education, 32, 16–21. Wang, D., Brown, G., and Liu, L. 2015. The physical and non-physical factors that influence perceived access to urban parks. Landscape and Urban Planning, 133, 53–66.
8 Place-Based Narratives among New Speakers of ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i Christina Higgins
1. Introduction This chapter explores the role of place in narratives of language learning among speakers of ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, the Hawaiian language. On the one hand, place refers to speakers’ cultural, political, and physical affiliations with the Hawaiian archipelago and their engagement with language and place-bound knowledge systems and practices that have historically been central to Hawaiian ways of life. On the other hand, the role of place is more metaphorical, as it describes the oftentimes liminal status of Hawaiian language learners with reference to the last remaining elders and the small population of first-language speakers from the island of Ni‘ihau. While thousands of people have learned Hawaiian since the 1980s, new speakers of this language are sometimes seen as ‘wasting their time’ since the language is not associated with socio-economic mobility, as tied to the free market. Hence, their choice to dedicate themselves to helping to revitalize Hawaiian is seen as one that will get them ‘nowhere.’ In the narratives of language learners that recount their dedication to learning ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, both aspects of place come into play, thereby creating opportunities for speakers to assert their Hawaiian identities and to express a response to their linguistic liminality. While place matters for everyone, it is of particular importance in those indigenous communities where the efforts to reclaim language, land, and political autonomy are still a site of struggle. Language revitalization efforts have played a role in greater self-determination in indigenous communities, as language rights are inherently a part of minority rights in every context around the globe (May 2013). Revitalization programmes that employ place-based and culturally sustaining frameworks illustrate successful ways forward for language learning and more holistic engagement with the social, ecological and sociopolitical contexts to which languages belong (Jansen et al. 2013; McCarty and Lee 2014). Indigenous ontological frameworks have always positioned people and the environment as overlapping and interacting (e.g., Memmott and
194 Christina Higgins Long 2002). However, work in the fields of applied linguistics and sociolinguistics has yet to deeply examine the relationship between language and place among language learners involved in language reclamation efforts. For Hawaiians, language and place are deeply intertwined not only due to Hawaiian epistemologies which place land in a central space, but also because the loss of language occurred alongside the dispossession of land and the loss of political sovereignty. The colonization of Hawai‘i by the United States led to the near extinction of Hawaiian in the 20th century, and assimilationist ideologies pervaded education and government, leading many families to devalue Hawaiian and embrace English, the language that was believed to lead to greater potential for socio-economic prosperity. In the 1970s, people began to revitalize the language, and after a great deal of hard work and lobbying for language rights, the language is now being learned by thousands of people across the state of Hawai‘i. The role of place in the learning of Hawaiian deserves attention particularly because most language learners are new speakers, or individuals who did not have significant exposure to the language in the home, but who learned it through language immersion or revitalization programmes, most often as adults (O’Rourke et al. 2015). New speakers are central to the re-establishment of Hawaiian across as many domains of life as possible (Warner 1998). It is important to better understand how these new speakers relate their own language learning and use to place in order to better understand their investments, desires, and visions for using the language in a society that has suffered tremendous cultural damage but which is also experiencing linguistic and cultural revitalization. New speakers’ language proficiency and cultural knowledge is often compared to the remaining elders’ who speak ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, and to a group of about 100 speakers from Ni‘ihau, an island that never lost Hawaiian as the dominant language in all domains of life, including schooling, since it became privately owned before U.S. occupation by a family who promoted the maintenance of ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i. At present, it is estimated that there are approximately 1,000 mānaleo,1 a recently coined word that refers to native speakers of Hawaiian (NeSmith 2002), while there are over 18,000 speakers of Hawaiian in the State of Hawai‘i, according to the U.S. Census (ACS 2015). Since the majority of Hawaiian language users are in fact new speakers, it is important to understand how they position themselves in the physical, cultural and linguistic landscape of Hawai‘i. While mānaleo are automatically identified as authentic speakers of Hawaiian and are typically sought out for their cultural expertise (NeSmith 2002; Wong 1999), it is unclear whether and to what degree new speakers express legitimate identities as speakers of Hawaiian.
Narratives Among New Speakers 195
2. The Marginalisation and Authentication of New Speakers Previous work on sociolinguistic authenticity has shown how nostalgia plays a strong role in identifying speakers as representative of a certain place and of a given language. A linguistically authentic identity is often tied to a rural lifestyle that is ‘stuck in time,’ monolingual, and devoid of cross-cultural or even cross-dialectal contact (Coupland 2001). This vision has impacted the models for Hawaiian language learning among new speakers as well, which in turn contributes to the view that new speakers’ Hawaiian language is somewhat contrived. Wong (1999) notes that although new speakers are the majority, as a group they are in a difficult position since materials widely used in Hawaiian language teaching are informed by texts from the late 19th century, which leave them with archaic models. In thinking about the learning of Hawaiian for the future, Wong asserts that ‘[i]n the negotiation of what authentic Hawaiian is and will be, it is necessary to involve input from Hawaiian communities, whether they speak Hawaiian or not’ (1999: 112). Higgins (in press) demonstrates how new speakers who use Hawaiian as much as possible across all domains often find themselves in a perplexing dilemma when they use their University Hawaiian with native speakers. These new speakers use both archaic and newly coined vocabulary items, and native speakers who are unfamiliar with these forms treat them as mistakes or as misguided efforts to speak the language. While the study of authenticity has focused largely on the linguistic features of a language or variety, this chapter explores this topic from a more discursive perspective by examining how new speakers of Hawaiian narrate their reasons for learning and speaking Hawaiian as related to place-bound Hawaiian cultural practices. Drawing on Bucholtz (2003) and Bucholtz and Hall’s (2004) concept of authentication, I examine how narratives place these participants’ language learning in a Hawaiian worldview which highlights one’s physical, social, and spiritual connection to land and sea, and therefore which challenges the liminality of being a new speaker of a language that is not associated with upward socio-economic mobility. Authentication is a discursive process that reveals how identities are activated. The study of authentication requires close attention to the sociolinguistic ‘processes by which authenticity is claimed, imposed, or perceived,’ which can include the use of particular sociolinguistic variants that are emblematic of a social identity (Bucholtz and Hall 2004: 498). Authentication can also be claimed on a more metalinguistic level, as illustrated in Bauman’s (1992) analysis of the legends about the kraftaskáld, an Icelandic poet thought to have magical powers. Bauman found that in the opening and closing parts of their narratives, speakers established their rights as tellers by pointing out how they have
196 Christina Higgins come to know the stories, a discursive move ‘akin to the art of antique dealer’s authentication of an object by tracing its provenience’ (1992: 137, cited in Bucholtz and Hall 2005: 602). Similarly, in the interview data examined in this study, new speakers of Hawaiian articulate their own authenticity in part by locating their language learning desires in a Hawaiian worldview which is deeply connected to the land and to cultural practices that have a long history in Hawaiian traditions. While it is of course possible for Native Hawaiians to express these convictions without the Hawaiian language, the narratives produced by new speakers indicate that rooting themselves in the Hawaiian landscape culturally and linguistically is a crucial part of their reclamation process.
3. Language and Place in Indigenous Contexts The relationship between language and place has always been central to the use, maintenance and revitalization of indigenous languages. Tragically, the forced removal, relocation, and loss of land among indigenous people have threatened place-based forms of knowledge along with language endangerment in these communities. Indigenous communities are losing their access to local ecological knowledge such as particular methods for fishing and harvesting of plants for medicinal purposes when their land rights are taken away, and this lack of access is intricately tied to the maintenance and loss of indigenous ways of knowing, including indigenous languages (Kame‘elehiwa 1992; Maffi 2005). Language revitalization is therefore often tied to traditional cultural practices for the purpose of maintaining land rights and protecting an indigenous way of life in the face of dominant languages, non-indigenous education systems, and economic systems that threaten indigenous lifestyles. Land-based practices are key for the maintenance and reclamation of language and culture since institutional spaces are more challenging to reappropriate. The most promising efforts involve protecting and revitalizing the use of indigenous languages in traditional domains while also working to normalise the use of these languages in new realms. As research on Native American languages in North America has shown, efforts to resist the homogenising forces of global languages like English require not only maintenance of indigenous languages in traditional domains but also the “re-emplacement” of these languages in new domains such as schooling (McCarty et al. 2012). In ka pae ‘āina Hawai‘i, or the Hawaiian archipelago, place is central to Native Hawaiian worldviews (Oliveira 2005; Pukui et al. 1974). While the concept of place in Hawaiian culture is deserving of lengthy discussion, I summarise the work of Native Hawaiian scholars who have addressed place directly to offer a brief introduction to this complex topic. As a non-Hawaiian scholar, I find it crucial to rely on Native Hawaiian scholarship to attempt to convey the key concepts for a wide readership. Kana’iaupuni and Malone (2006) explain that Hawaiian epistemologies
Narratives Among New Speakers 197 and well-being are tied to the land and sea in four key ways. First, Native Hawaiians see land as integral to their spirituality. Their cosmology explains that the archipelago was born from Papahānaumoku (earth mother) and Wākea (sky father), who gave birth to kalo (‘taro,’ a root vegetable), and ultimately the Kānaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian people. Nature thus requires guardianship by Native Hawaiians since the land, wind, and rain are primordial ancestors (p. 285). Second, Hawaiians have strong physical ties with land, as evident through ceremonial enactments such as burying both the afterbirth and the body of a deceased person in the same place in order to bring the relationship with the land full circle. Subsistence farming of kalo (‘taro’) and fishing as key resources for food also tie Native Hawaiians physically to the land. An expression that summarizes a widely shared Native Hawaiian perspective on the land is aloha ‘āina, aloha ke akua, aloha kekāhi i kekāhi (‘love and respect the land, love and honor God, love and look after one another’) (McGregor 2007). Third, land is political and serves as a means to actively remember the past and the disenfranchisement of the Hawaiian people. Aloha ‘āina is a political stance, as it emerged in the 1970s as a movement to reclaim lands that were taken from Native Hawaiians by the United States government, including Kaho‘olawe, an island that was used by the U.S. Navy for target practice. Native Hawaiians identify land as a key site for selfdetermination and are active in efforts to reclaim lands and to protect wahi pana (‘sacred places’). A great deal of land was ‘ceded’ to the U.S. government as a result of events following the military-backed overthrow of the monarch, Queen Lili‘uokalani, in 1893, and many sacred places are on land currently occupied by the U.S. military and other federal and state entities.2 Finally, place is intricately tied to one’s genealogy. In Hawaiian practice, genealogical chants identify family lineages and histories of the ali‘i (‘royalty’). Introductions in writing and speaking still include reciting a lineage of the place where one was born and the place of one’s ancestors, including mention of a particular valley, wind, mountain, or body of water (Kana’iaupuni and Malone 2006: 291). These interconnected elements are also expressed as ea, a concept that has come to be translated as ‘sovereignty’ but which also refers to the linkage of life-breath-sovereignty, which is at the heart of Hawaiian genealogy and Hawaiian epistemology. Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua (2014) explains, ‘[u]nlike Euro-American philosophical notions of sovereignty, ea is based on the experiences of people on the land, relationships forged through the process of remembering and caring for wahi pana, storied places’ (p. 4). She cites Davida Kahalemaile’s3 1871 speech to offer a more expansive meaning of ea (2014: 5): 1. Ke ea o na i-a, he wai. 2. Ke ea o ke kanaka, he makani. 3. O ke ea o ka honua, he kanaka. . . . 4. Ke ea o ka moku, he hoeuli. . . . 5. Ke ea o ko Hawaii Pae Aina . . . Oia no ka noho Aupuni ana.
198 Christina Higgins [1. The ea of fish is water. 2. The ea of humans is wind. 3. The ea of the earth is the people. . . . 4. The ea of a boat is the steering blade. . . . 5. The ea of the Hawaiian archipelago is the government.] In sum, Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua explains that ea is ‘the mutual interdependence of all life forms and forces’ (2014: 5) Ea refers to the Hawaiian people’s right to live a life that is anchored in the physical and spiritual environment. These ideas about place as essential to the well-being of the Hawaiian people are evident in research that examines how ea relates to a range of measures, including better health outcomes (Oneha 2001) and to improved educational outcomes as a result of culturally relevant, place-based education (Kana’iaupuni et al. 2017).
4. ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i: From Past to Present Language revitalization efforts have led to substantial success since the 1980s for ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, a language which had lost nearly all speakers by the 1970s. In the 19th century, Hawaiian was still the chief language used across the islands in schools, homes, and the community (Wilson and Kamanā 2001). However, due to western contact and disease, an estimated 91% of the population was decimated by the 1850s (Stannard 1989: 70). Ultimately, American businessmen who were the children of missionaries worked to acquire land, and in 1893, they schemed with U.S. military forces to overthrow the Hawaiian monarch, Queen Lili‘uokalani. The illegal government banned Hawaiian as a language of schooling in 1896, and in 1898, the Republic of Hawai‘i was formed through annexation. Hawaiian continued to be spoken, and Hawaiian newspapers were published until the 1930s. Nevertheless, pressure to assimilate to an American way of life, coupled with the imposition of English in schooling, discouraged many families from speaking to their children in Hawaiian in the first half of the 20th century (Wilson 1998). After World War II, Hawai‘i became the 50th state of the United States, and all efforts that had previously supported the teaching of Hawaiian in public schools were discontinued. A Hawaiian Renaissance emerged in the 1970s that led to the reclamation of Hawaiian cultural practices previously banned by missionaries and the U.S. government, including ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, hula, voyaging, song, and Hawaiian medicine. After a great deal of lobbying, Hawaiian became an official language of the state in 1978, and in 1983, the first ‘Aha Pūnana Leo (‘language nest’) immersion preschool was established by a group of parents on Kaua‘i (Kawai‘ae‘a et al. 2007). Thanks to the tireless efforts of many, there are now over 20 immersion programs operating as stand-alone and within school programs, including public charter schools. Census estimates from a five-year survey ending in 2013 report 18,610 speakers of Hawaiian
Narratives Among New Speakers 199 in the state (ACS 2015), a figure that includes an estimated 100 people on the island of Ni‘ihau, an island that was sold to foreigners in 1864 who supported the maintenance of Hawaiian. The transaction pre-dated American occupation of Hawai‘i, which led to the preservation of the language there.
5. Data Collection and Participants The five accounts analysed in this study are taken from face-to-face interviews that were recorded with individuals from across the State of Hawai‘i in the form of histories of family language use. They are part of a larger project including 110 interviews about family language transmission in Hawai‘i. The participants were all university students who were recruited through a call for research participation as well as via personal social networks. Interviews were carried out by a team of four researchers, including the author and three research assistants. Three of the researchers are malihini (‘newcomers’) and Caucasian, and one research assistant is multi-ethnic, with Japanese, European, and Hawaiian ancestry. Interviews were conducted in English, though Pidgin and Hawaiian were also used occasionally, particularly by the interviewees. The interviews probe into how and why various languages such as Hawaiian, Cantonese, Portuguese, Japanese, and Pidgin (the creole language of Hawai‘i that resulted from sugar plantations) had been added, maintained, revitalized, or lost in each generation. In preparation, participants were asked to research the language history of their parents and grandparents and to ask their family members about their language histories. Each interview began with the participant’s language history. During the 30–60 minute interviews, the participants worked with the interviewer to sketch their linguistic family trees, while the interviewer made notes about the linguistic repertoires used by each family member. Along the way, questions were asked about what domains family members used their languages in, who they spoke to and in which languages, and why particular languages were or were not transmitted along generations. The purpose of the questions was to elicit stories that would shed light on language maintenance and language shift in families, so no attempt at cross-checking the factuality of the statements was made. No questions explicitly asked about the relationship between the Hawaiian language and a Hawaiian worldview. However, most of the participants incorporated these themes into their explanations about why they or their family members had chosen to learn the language. After initial coding for place-based themes across the data, I selected five participants whose interviews provided rich data with substantial narrative detail about the role of place in their use of and regard for ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i (see Table 1). The new speaker participants are typical
200 Christina Higgins Table 8.1 Participants Pseudonym Gender Age Ethnicities Raised
Hwn Lg Education
Hwn of Previous Generations
Koa
Pūnana Leo (parent)
Father receptive knowledge
M
42 A,H,J
O‘ahu
B.A. Hawaiian Grandparents fluent Jason
M
28 A,H
Florida
B.A. in Hawaiian
Father “used phrases” Grandmother fluent
Hi‘ilei
F
25 A,F,H,P
Moloka‘i Three years high school B.A. in Hawaiian
Krysta
F
20. H,F
Mother uses vocabulary Grandparents fluent
Moloka‘i. Two years high Grandparents school fluent Two years university
Gina
F
20 A,C,H
Maui
Two years Pūnana Leo
Mother, uncle learned as adult Greatgrandmother was fluent
Note: A = Anglo; C = Chinese; H = Hawaiian; F = Filipino; J = Japanese; P = Portuguese
in that many are college students who have committed to learning and studying Hawaiian language and culture as adults. This population also includes a smaller proportion of non-traditional students, such as Koa, who returned to college in his forties to pursue his college degree. I also included one participant, Gina, who has Native Hawaiian ancestry and who learned Hawaiian in childhood, but who has not chosen to study Hawaiian as a young adult. By way of comparison, her narratives illustrate the range of worldviews and ideological perspectives towards articulating a Hawaiian cultural identity through the Hawaiian language.
Narratives Among New Speakers 201
6. Analysis I draw on Bamberg’s (1997) framework for positioning, which examines the ways that speakers represent themselves and others in the storied world of characters and plots (Level 1), in the storytelling world of the interview (Level 2), and in the macro-context of Discourses (Level 3) which are formed through history, personal and collective experiences, and the circulation of media. Positioning is a useful analytical approach to the study of place in relation to Hawaiian, as it reveals the sensemaking practices that speakers engage in when discussing their reasons for learning and committing to the Hawaiian language. In narrating their past experiences, speakers thereby construct characters for themselves and others in interviews. Positioning Level 1 thus sheds light on who they used to be, and what sort of ties they had or did not have with Hawaiian. When the participants step out of the storied world to comment on the characters and plot, they position themselves in Level 2, often shifting their footing (Goffman 1979) to make evaluative comments that help to see how they view their past and present selves as well as other characters and places in their narratives. Positioning Level 3 is particularly useful to the analysis here, as it allows us to see how speakers construct a Hawaiian worldview that is shared among a wider population. In this way, when new speakers of Hawaiian invoke place-based practices as a means of expressing their motivations for Hawaiian language learning and revitalization, they are articulating “collective positioning processes” (De Fina 2013: 46), thereby mobilising and also reifying Level 3 Discourses about Hawaiian epistemology such as aloha ‘āina and ea as ways of knowing that are interlinked with Hawaiian genealogy and the Hawaiian language.
7. Findings In presenting the analysis of narratives, I first illustrate how the new speakers told stories about their reasons for committing to learning and speaking Hawaiian which illustrate various aspects of ea. In all cases, an intimate experience with land, genealogy, sovereignty, and traditional Hawaiian practices on the land figured prominently. I then compare these narratives with stories about Hawaiian language and lifestyle as told by one Hawaiian participant who had not committed to the Hawaiian language. I include these perspectives as a point of comparison to demonstrate how the speakers’ portrayals about Hawaiian language and lifestyles reveal an important epistemological difference. This contrast sheds light on the ways that new speakers of Hawaiian understand their relationship to that language in a context where instrumentalist and globalist ideologies of language learning dominate. For the first set of data,
202 Christina Higgins I selected excerpts that provided insights into why the speakers invested in Hawaiian language and culture. I then grouped these into themes related to the principles of ea, discussed earlier. For each data excerpt, I make use of relevant narrative tools from positioning frameworks to help illustrate how the speakers expressed their identities vis-à-vis the principles of ea. See the appendix for transcription conventions. 7.1. Narrating ea: Connections to the Land The first example comes from Koa, a college student who at the time of the interview was earning his B.A. in Hawaiian. He was a middleaged student who had three children, two of whom attended a Hawaiian immersion school. Though Koa’s own paternal grandparents were fluent speakers of Hawaiian, they only spoke to Koa’s father in Pidgin and English, thereby leading to language shift in the course of one generation. Like many other Hawaiian families, Koa’s grandparents did not transmit Hawaiian to the next generation due to the pressure to adopt an American lifestyle and to have their children succeed in English-medium schooling. As a result, Koa only learned Hawaiian after he started to attend college, after his children were born. In the interview, Koa spoke a mix of English and Pidgin. He positioned himself as someone who primarily valued the convenience that Pūnana Leo, a Hawaiian-medium preschool organization, offered his daughter. Preschool in Hawai‘i is often difficult to obtain for families since there is more demand than supply, and because of the high cost of tuition. However, Koa’s family had an opportunity to receive financial support, making the preschool free. In Excerpt (1), Koa characterizes his old self as someone who was in support of the pre-school not so much because of the language, but more because of the free tuition. After voicing his former self’s inner speech, he shifts his footing to underscore his lack of enthusiasm and to note his old view that Hawaiian pre-school was really just a convenient solution rather than a choice to embrace his culture. Excerpt (1) Koa: So it was like for me, in the beginning it was like two birds with one stone. ‘Oh okay it’s free edu- free preschool and learn Hawaiian eh, cool.’ But I wasn’t really enthusiastic. It was just, just for go school. In the interview, Koa further contextualized his own personal history through constructed dialogue (Tannen, 1989) involving his old self and friends and acquaintances who were Hawaiian language supporters. In Excerpt (2), he animates them as critiquing him for not speaking Hawaiian (‘Oh, you don’t know how to talk Hawaiian, eh?’), and then
Narratives Among New Speakers 203 presents his past self as someone who responded by drawing attention to the importance of “talk[ing] money,” or prioritising making money over other values. Excerpt (2) Koa: You know, everybody ‘Look, oh you don’t know how to talk Hawaiian eh?’ ‘You guys gotta talk money nowadays talk money’ that’s how I was. ‘We don’t talk Hawaiian, we talk money.’ Int: What does talk money mean? Koa: Yeah, just nonsense. Go work always making money instead of learning about something. After the interviewer asks for clarification of “talk money,” Koa shifts his footing to his present-day self to evaluate that point of view as “just nonsense” that involves a life focused on making money instead of other more valuable pursuits. Since Koa was the main caretaker of his young daughters, he took them to the Hawaiian preschool and fulfilled the requirement that parents work at the school and participate in parent nights, which required learning some Hawaiian. This role led him to experience a significant shift in his thinking on Hawaiian. In (3), he explains how his value system shifted away from one guided by the economics of language and schooling. He narrates how his unemployment, that was due to job injuries, gave him the opportunity to change his outlook on life and embrace the Hawaiian language. Excerpt (3) Koa: And my youngest daughter, she went to Pūnana Leo and that’s when I was always laid up, I was always at home. I started hanging out at the school, like going on field trips, working on their garden. That was the main thing, they had this Hawaiian garden and being unemployed, I started I had to see like ‘aw man what I gon do?’ I started fishing starting farming, just trying to provide. And then just everything just kind of, Hawaiian everything hit me one time just like. My dad put it the best. He like, ‘The reason why you broke your leg and all of this Hawaiian stay come yet.’ So I just I said ‘Yep, I tried the American way, I’ll just try the Hawaiian way.’ For me, it’s been more enjoyable. In Excerpt (3), Koa describes his transformation as emanating from fishing and farming, practices which are decreasingly valued by most in
204 Christina Higgins Hawai‘i due to the normative values linked with a presumed pathway involving higher education, socio-economic mobility and white-collar professional employment. He frames his past experiences and outlook as “the American way,” and he labels a lifestyle of subsistence farming and fishing as “the Hawaiian way,” which he evaluates more positively. In (4), Koa continues with his self-reflection, comparing his past lifestyle with his Hawaiian one by describing his typical day after his daughters joined the preschool. This lifestyle is governed by connections with his family and his natural environment, whereas the “American way” is presented as a routine way of life that is only tied to a pre-set schedule. Excerpt (4) Koa: In the morning I could take my daughter to school and I could be able to go surf in the same morning I could come back like after lunch like work in their garden. And then later on that night we’d have makua (‘parent’) night where the parents are required once a week to kind of, like an open house night just to get the parents more involved. So just that whole day I felt like ‘wow.’ Instead of before, my days were just like get up, go work, come home, drink beer, eat, sleep, same thing. Whereas now my schedule- if there’s surf go surf, if it’s too hot go rest, later on come back and work. [. . .] That’s when I started learning ‘oh this is what they mean the Hawaiian style.’ Do things according to what you have not, ‘What? Oh, two o’clock. Oh you got to do this.’ Other new speakers of Hawaiian made direct ties to land and seabased practices in describing Hawaiian lifestyles. Krysta, a 20-year-old undergraduate, explained her decision to study Hawaiian in both high school and college as a result of being “in touch with her Hawaiian culture” due to the rural nature of the island of Moloka‘i, where she is from. Moloka‘i is one of the least populated islands with a high percentage of Native Hawaiian residents. It also receives the fewest tourists per year and hence is relatively isolated from outside contact. Excerpt (5) Int: Can you tell me about why you chose to study Hawaiian in high school and college? Krysta: Because like- I am really in touch with my Hawaiian culture like- I mean living on Moloka‘i all we, like- it’s totally different yeah? It’s just like, country- [. . .] It’s really nice, and all we do is fish, we hunt, like catch our own food and that’s like, the Hawaiian values you know. We take our
Narratives Among New Speakers 205 resources from the land. And that’s how we like, survived back in the ancient Hawaiian days. So, I mean, my Hawaiian culture is really important to me. Krysta relates her home island’s lifestyle as relatively undifferentiated from the past where people lived off of the land and the sea. She explains her reasons for studying the language in school as resulting from her deep connections to this lifestyle. In Excerpt (6), however, Krysta conveyed a narrative where she encountered questions from others about the value of Hawaiian when she was a student at a university in Honolulu. She recollected a discussion in an introductory linguistics class which brought up similar voices to the voice of Koa’s former self that devalued Hawaiian since it is not a language that can be spoken elsewhere. Excerpt (6) Krysta: I like, remember in class we talked about how like, monolingual and multilingual,[. . .] at the end, our conclusion was just like it’s- Hawaiian’s not that like, important because only people in Hawai‘i speaks Hawaiian. Like, you can’t really use Hawaiian in like, the mainland. You would probably want to learn like want to learn like, Spanish or like, Japanese or Chinese. But I told them that I’m still going to learn Hawaiian anyway. Krysta shares a memory from when her linguistics course examined the benefits of monolingualism or multilingualism in societies. She recounts the overall class sentiment as devaluing Hawaiian since it is not associated with socio-economic mobility and has no utility on the continental United States, thus making other more global foreign languages such as Spanish, Japanese, or Chinese better choices. However, she responds to this unified sentiment by emphasisng her dedication to Hawaiian in spite, and actually because of, its ‘restricted’ relevance to Hawai‘i. Rather than accepting the liminal status of the language based on what it can do for her later in life, she asserts the value of it for her own cultural identity and connection to her physical environment. 7.2. Narrating ea: Connections to Hawaiian Genealogy Koa expressed fulfillment through learning Hawaiian since the language is part of a bigger system shared by other Hawaiians from the distant past to the present. In Excerpt (7), he links his current identity to the genealogy of people he is tied to who may have also gone through transformations of their own, but who also lived the Hawaiian lifestyle he describes. He described his past perspectives as including bad decisions,
206 Christina Higgins but expresses that knowing where he came from gives him a sense of direction. Excerpt (7) Koa: So with the Hawaiian, it kind of gave me better understanding of myself, where I come from, and for me mostly it was why I do some of the stupid things that I do. But then now I kinda, I learn that ‘okay it’s not normal what you doing, but you come from a long genealogy of people that you know kinda, might have done things like that back in the day, but now you come from that. Now you know you living now. Now you know what you gotta do.’ [. . .] For me, it just gave me balance. Through his narratives, Koa articulates a past self who made mistakes and who had become too focused on a life governed by finances and mundane activities. In (7), he uses constructed dialogue to express his current worldview by talking to himself in inner speech. Learning Hawaiian and choosing a lifestyle more connected to family and his environment has led him to state ‘Now you know you living now.’ In returning to Level 2 positioning at the end of excerpt (7), his comment that his new life has given him balance resonates with the concept of ea as a form of personal sovereignty freed from the more schedule-based, American lifestyle he used to live. Similarly, Jason, a 28-year-old undergraduate who began studying Hawaiian as an undergraduate, expressed a calling larger than himself that was connected to his ancestors in describing his reasons for studying the language. Though he was born and raised in Florida, his curiosity about his father’s Hawaiian side of the family led him to a wider discovery about his kuleana (‘responsibility’) to his ancestors. He described how events related to Hawaiian sovereignty movements in the early 2000s involving the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the federal government led him to this discovery. The Kū‘ē Petitions that he mentions refer to the efforts by members of the Hawaiian Kingdom to prevent the annexation of Hawai‘i as a U.S. territory in 1897. 4 Excerpt (8) Jason: And then there was an event I think where the head of OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs) went ahead and sent a letter to Secretary of State Kerry asking about Hawaiian sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom and all of that. So then I starting looking into all of that and then I looked into the Kū‘ē (‘opposition’) petitions and I saw my ancestors’
Narratives Among New Speakers 207 signature. Then and all of a sudden I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility all of a sudden come into my life. [. . .] Int: How did you get that information? Jason: Just searching online. The documents, the Kū’ē petition were made available online. I forget how I found that link but I went through all the photocopied pages and then I found the signatures of my great-grandparents. And you know, that document is written in Hawaiian and in English so yeah, ever since then something clicked. (.) And it’s like okay, now it’s not about whether you’re comfortable identifying with it or not. You have a responsibility, you have to come back, and so at that point I started looking seriously into coming here. In Excerpt (8), Jason’s recognition of his great-grandparents’ names on the petition against annexation is the start of his development of a genealogical perspective on his relationship with Hawaiian. Despite living in Florida and having almost no Hawaiian perspectives shared in his family, he experienced an “overhelming sense of responsibility” towards his ancestors. The Hawaiian and English bilingual petition made something click, and he felt a sense of responsibility to return to Hawai‘i, a place he had only previously briefly visited in childhood. As a highly proficient language learner at an advanced level at a university on Hawai‘i island, Jason pointed out how his access to Hawaiian history and the Hawaiian language shaped his perspectives even more. Though he also has Celtic ancestry on his mother’s side of the family, he explained how the history of the Hawaiian people and the loss of Hawaiian informed his connection to the language. Excerpt (9) Jason: And then also gradually kind of understanding the history of, of loss and everything and I guess it just, it became more precious in that sense [. . .] yeah, I mean I value all parts of my heritage and, and consider all of them important but I kind of have come to value them through a Hawaiian lens. If that makes sense, that kind of Hawaiian sense of place, that sense of moku (‘island') of how the genealogy is sort of, how I now take that kind of mindset and view all sides of my heritage through it. So, I value it all but it’s all through this context of being Hawaiian. In (9) Jason refers to “a sense of moku” (‘island’), to articulate how he understands his place in the world as the mindset he views his own heritage and his worldview through. His use of moku references the creation
208 Christina Higgins story of the Hawaiian people in which the multifaceted nature of ea invokes the spiritual connection among land, sea, sky, and life. 7.3. Narrating ea: Connections to the Community/Sovereignty Next, I provide excerpts from an interview with Hi‘ilei, a 25-year-old doctoral student from Moloka‘i, who echoed some of the same voices from Koa’s and Krysta’s narratives in explaining other people’s reactions to her choice to study Hawaiian for her bachelor’s degree. She had learned Hawaiian for three years in high school and then earned a bachelor’s degree in Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, a program renowned for its strong, immersion-style instruction in Hawaiian language and culture. In response to the critique, she expressed more community-based practicality in knowing Hawaiian and Pidgin and being from Hawai‘i. Now an aspiring archaeologist, Hi‘ilei expects to work in Hawai‘i as an expert on Hawaiian land and history to help Hawaiian people make claims about sacred places and also to reclaim lands taken from them. In Excerpt (10), she responds to the critics in her narrative by explaining how being a Hawaiian and Pidgin language speaker is needed to work in the community to be accepted by others. She rejects the capitalist orientation to investing in language learning but then frames the Hawaiian language as a commodity in Hawai‘i, arguing for the appropriateness of the language for many local purposes. Excerpt (10) Hi‘ilei: That’s what I heard when I told people I was going into school for Hawaiian studies. ‘Why going to Hawaiian studies for? What you gonna be when you grow up? You’re not gonna make money.’ Or, ‘What’re you trying to be when you grow up?’ And that wasn’t—it wasn’t—that’s not what I was trying to do, you know. I wasn’t going to Hawaiian Studies to get a job out of it, but I can see how Hawaiian Studies could be of an asset because, I mean, I don’t wanna say we’re a commodity but we are. Hawaiian language speakers, um, working in these different disciplines, definitely, because we live in Hawai‘i. You need to know the language. You need to know how to talk to the people here in Hawai‘i on a level that they’ll be comfortable with, and majority of the times if you’re working with- in rural areas with, um, kama‘aina (‘long term residents’) local people who talk Pidgin, who are comfortable hearing Hawaiian and like revert to that as their comfort then of course they’re not going to go send somebody that’s not from Hawai‘i to talk to them, if that makes sense.
Narratives Among New Speakers 209 While others presented the value of Hawaiian as largely meaningful at a personal level, Hi‘ilei articulates a more community-centric logic for its value. In (10), she draws attention to the comfort that people in Hawai‘i feel, particularly in rural areas, with others who speak their languages. A bit later in the interview, she related her concern for the community to her own investment in Hawaiian. In Excerpt (11), she ties her convictions to the study of Hawaiian directly to the betterment of the Hawaiian people. After voicing the inner speech of her younger self who was choosing to study Hawaiian, she changes her footing to describe the larger political movement for Hawaiian sovereignty, including Native Hawaiians’ rights to manage their own cultural resources in a genealogically informed way. Excerpt (11) Hi‘ilei: I mean, to me it was always ‘Kay, I’m gonna get my foundation in Hawaiian, the language, and then use something else that I do as the tool to better our people.’ Yeah, basically using the- I guess fighting fire with fire against- everybody’sI mean, it’s- the cat is out of the bag. Everybody’s fighting for sovereignty now here ((laughs)). So this is just our part in that and trying to manage our own cultural resource man- oh at least for me as an archeologist, I want to be able to manage our cultural resources in Hawaiian, through the perspective of our kūpuna, (‘elders’), and that lens. In discussing her training as an archaeologist, Hi‘ilei explains how she will be able to serve Hawaiians by helping to be in control of cultural resources. She acknowledges political struggles in Hawai‘i, as there are multiple and fragmented groups seeking different forms of political leadership in the Native Hawaiian community. However, she clarifies her take on sovereignty as more connected to having the power to utilise a Hawaiian lens in personal and professional life. In (12), she explains that using the Hawaiian language is essential to this form of sovereignty in her own field and that doing so is also an act on behalf of the Hawaiian people. She pauses in her narrative to change her footing, stating ‘yes you can,’ arguably to naysayers in academia and in the larger community in Hawai‘i who question the utility of Hawaiian in this realm of life. Excerpt (12) Hi‘ilei: I just feel that I’m in this academic route as a tool to better our people? If that makes any sense, like, that’s- I guess that’s another reason why I went into anthropology is because I want to do anthropology and look at archaeology
210 Christina Higgins through, um, this Hawaiian perspective, through this lens, even with language. If you can do archaeology using Hawaiian language, ‘yes, you can,’ and that just moves us a step closer toward sovereignty. And not sovereignty in a sense of political sovereignty, but sovereignty in a sense that we as a people can be still be functioning, and do things independently, and have control over these resources, um, because we have to act in this Western realm, but we can still maintain our identity as a Hawaiian culture and Hawaiian people. 7.4. Comparing Epistemologies As a point of comparison, it is revealing to briefly examine interview data with other Hawaiian individuals who were not actively learning and using Hawaiian, and whose worldviews reflected their associations with the language. One case in point is Gina, a 20-year-old college student from Maui who attended a Pūnana Leo immersion school for preschool. She also attended Kamehameha School, a private, college-preparatory high school for Native Hawaiian students, but she had chosen to study Spanish for four years while there and two years of Sāmoan in college. Her mother and her sister both received degrees in Hawaiian Studies, and her niece was in an immersion preschool as well. Though Gina was quite familiar with elements of Hawaiian culture, she did not actively engage in any specific cultural practices. She had decided on a pathway that would take her to California in the near future, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in communications. She did express that she would eventually return to Hawai‘i, given the importance she attached to family ties. In asking Gina about what she might imagine for her future hypothetical children, she cast Hawaiian immersion and Hawaiian epistemologies as deficient. Excerpt (13) What do you think about immersion schools or other Int: possibilities? Gina: I like it, um I just like how they tea- like, the way that they teach the students is like really, really important like as Hawaiians. And just like in general. But um, like if I was to have kids well, I don’t know, but I would like want to have them in Hawaiian immersion but I like, um my, high school education at Kamehameha. Just cause it was more like college prep. Like more (.) like not just, like one frame of mind, but you saw more things as you got older.
Narratives Among New Speakers 211 Gina acknowledged the importance of Hawaiian identity through Hawaiian language teaching in immersion settings. However, in imagining her own children in the future, she prefers seeing them in a mainstream educational system that would put them on the pathway to college education, which would presumably not lead to majoring in Hawaiian Studies. She then characterizes the pathway to Hawaiian as “one frame of mind,” and presents the alternative of college preparatory education as offering “more things” as preferred. A bit later in the interview, Gina described people like her sister—that is, immersion graduates and people who major in Hawaiian language or Hawaiian Studies—as people who “stick to” the language, and as not “branch[ing] out,” arguably negative attributes that position them as provincial and unsophisticated (Excerpt 14). As they have dedicated their lives to Hawai‘i and Hawaiian language and culture, Gina characterized them as limited by their place-bound affiliations. Excerpt (14) Gina: But like they came to college to stick to like Hawaiian. Cause they didn’t like branch out. [. . .] I don’t know if it’s the same on O‘ahu. But like on Maui, a lot of the Hawaiian immersion kids like stayed home and they like live at home and they do like their Hawaiian stuff there. A final excerpt illustrates a unique scenario in Gina’s family which seems to blend all the right elements for her. She describes her mother’s cousin as “super into Hawaiian stuff.” Importantly, she and her family all speak English, and the husband went to Stanford. In spite of these attributes, Gina describes them as “native” and their lifestyle as living “off the land,” which she then evaluates as an anomaly since they are also “really smart.” She shifts her footing to clearly describe these characters in her family as unusual through her evaluation, ‘I know it’s weird.’ For Gina, then, this combination of attributes is unusual—through providing this outlier example, she constructs those who commit to Hawaiian lifestyles as living place-bound lives as having a narrow range of academic and professional interests. Excerpt (15) Gina: I have one aunty that’s like super like into Hawaiian stuff. [. . .] She’s like my mom’s cousin. She’s like really into Hawaiian stuff but then, like she speaks English and like her, like, kids are like, her husband went to Stanford and like they’re really smart. But like, they’re, like native. Like they live off the land. (.) I know it’s weird.
212 Christina Higgins This brief examination of one Hawaiian person’s who did not invest in the Hawaiian language suggests that cosmopolitanism derived from mobility is at odds with the values that the new speakers expressed in their interviews. As seen in the narratives of Koa, Jason and Hi‘ilei most clearly, the new speakers interpreted their connection to Hawai‘i and Hawaiian as providing them with greater satisfaction and fulfillment, rather than reducing their life choices.
8. Coda: Indigenous Epistemologies in a Modern World The narratives from the new speakers of Hawaiian shed light on the ways in which Kānaka Maoli (‘indigenous’) perspectives on language and its relationship to being Native Hawaiian shape the speakers’ investment in learning and using the language. Far different from global foreign languages, which are often learned to enhance one’s linguistic capital, the narratives illustrate how the learning of Hawaiian is not only a connection to one’s heritage, but a form of embodying a Hawaiian worldview. For the four new speakers, learning Hawaiian was centrally tied to their commitment to living a Hawaiian life. For some time, heritage language studies have acknowledged the more personal relationship that heritage learners may have with their family’s languages, thus leading them to express different dispositions in the classroom compared to foreign language learners who do not have a heritage connection to the language (e.g., Leeman 2015) and to show a range of affiliations with their languages because of their personal histories (e.g., He 2006). Still, nearly all of this research involves languages which are not endangered, such as Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. The reclamation of Hawaiian among learners with Hawaiian ancestry is rather different because of its endangered status and since Native Hawaiians are actively working to strengthen their communities through collective efforts that are tied to Hawaiian cultural practices. These new speakers are committed to the language because of its role in connecting them to the land, to their Hawaiian ancestors, and to the forms of knowledge that support the autonomy of the Hawaiian people within the occupied territory where they live. While their narratives point to the difficulty of asserting a Hawaiian linguistic and cultural identity in the context of the English language and American economic and political dominance, their stories also reveal a confidence and comfort in their affiliations with a Hawaiian way of life. Future studies of Hawaiian speakers may find more complexity with regard to the role of language among Native Hawaiians who are committed to living a Hawaiian worldview. As Gina noted in her discussion of her mother’s cousin, it is possible to live an indigenous lifestyle without knowing Hawaiian. However, for those who are committed to learning the language deeply, it seems that the principles of ea are essential.
Appendix Transcription Conventions
(.) “talk” ‘talk’ , Talk ((talk)) [. . .]
Pause reported speech inner speech continuing intonation cut-off Emphasis non-verbal actions ellipsis
214 Christina Higgins
Notes 1 Following the practices of scholars, indigenous and otherwise, who write about Native Hawaiians and indigenous people, I do not italicize Hawaiian to avoid othering the language and its speakers (cf. Goodyear-Ka‘opua et al. 2014) 2 Other sacred sites such as Mauna Kea, the mountain on Hawai‘i Island that marks the meeting point of heaven and earth, remain under the control of the state government. 3 Davida Kahalemaile was an organizer of Ka Lā Ho‘iho‘i Ea, an event commemorating King Kamehameha III’s act of restoring Hawaiian sovereignty after a British captain claimed the islands for Great Britain in 1843. Ka Lā Ho‘iho‘i Ea was a national holiday celebrated on July 31 thereafter (GoodyearKa‘ōpua 2014: 4) 4 More than 21,000 signatures (95% of native-born residents of Hawai‘i) were obtained on the petition and delivered to the U.S. Congress, which temporarily prevented the Congress from reaching a two-thirds majority of votes to pass it in 1897. However, the Congress voted for annexation the next year as part of a crisis involving Cuba and the Philippines under the Newlands Resolution on the logic that the United States needed to annex Hawai‘i to create a fuelling station in the Pacific for the war against Spain in the Philippines (Silva 2004: 160).
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9 Road Signs and the Negotiation of a Place-Based Identity in Israel Judith Yoel
1. Introduction Road signs convey a large amount of information in very few words, often through semiotics. They are a subject of public and academic interest. Signs relate to an individual’s identity. Although symbolic in nature, people have even been known to vandalise and destroy signs to which they take offence. When signs change, it often makes headlines, as in Birmingham, England, when the city banned apostrophes for fear that they were too confusing (Swaine 2009), and members of the public began reinserting them. Artist Brad Downey exhibits his photographic manipulation of urban signs worldwide (Bahattahcharya 2009). Road signs are changed just for fun, like the digital sign in Austin, Texas that was hacked to read “Zombies ahead” (Bahattahcharya 2009). There exists a Vienna Convention of Road Signs and Signals (1968) and many countries face dilemmas about signs, particularly small nations and those that use non-Latin alphabets. In this era of globalisation, there is a general trend towards an increased use of English. For example, in Japan, English was introduced in 2014, ‘as part of the government drive to attract foreign tourists’and partly in response to ‘difficulty encountered in inconsistently translated words’ (Kodera 2014). In anticipation of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, the number of bilingual signs (in Japanese and English) is increasing. Bilingual signs have begun to appear in Greece, in Greek and English. Even in countries, where the orthography is not an issue, the use of English is increasing. In 2014, a bill was passed in Belgium, allowing English to be added to the three national languages (Hendriks 2014). In Quebec, Canada, where signs comprised of French and a pictograph, the latter has been replaced by English, as ‘a visible indication that the . . . government is committed to language equality’(Authier 2017). In Schipol Airport, in the Netherlands, in recognition of English as an international language, all signage is posted only in English. In Iceland, while signs are not posted in English, all tourists are offered a free application for mobile phones, which translates local road signs into English and Japanese (Robert 2014). There
218 Judith Yoel are few exceptions to this trend. In Iran, English is in the process of being removed from signs “to free room for Farsi” because “citizens have repeatedly complained about the small [Farsi] font” (https://financialtribune.com/articles/people/30816/traffic-signs-minus-english). The move towards English is often not without controversy. In Malta concern is been voiced “for ideological reasons” opposing the use of English, citing the Maltese language as ‘a fundamental element of the national identity of the Maltese people’(Chetcuti 2012). Similar fear that English could potentially encroach upon one’s heritage has been expressed by speakers of Welsh and Irish. In Wales, the use of English is regulated so that ‘the Welsh language must be positioned so as to be read first,’and ‘it must be given equally favourable treatment [as English]’(Husband 2017). Citizens argue about which languages should appear, and in what order. In Ireland, changes are underway to increase the prominence of Gaelic (Gaeilge) in comparison to English, and a discussion of bilingual signs has introduced language into the discussion, such as “a visible denial of equal language rights” and “official tokenism” (MacEochagain 2012). Changes to road signs are often politically motivated, for they are more than just indications of locality, but they are symbolic of one’s affiliation, selfhood, sense of belonging and identity. In Israel, a country comprised of a diverse and multilingual population, there are two official languages, Hebrew, and Arabic, yet road signs are mainly in Hebrew. Hebrew is the first language, followed by Arabic and then English, the latter two which, sometimes, do not appear at all. When Arabic and English do appear, the Hebrew word appears in the Arabic and English alphabets. Language on road signs in Israel, as noted by Bigon and Dahamshe (2014), ‘constitute[s] . . . a highly invested political strategy for producing a linguistic landscape . . . in a contested context . . ., [where] signs reflect the dominance of political and ideological powers over the landscape’(p. 606).
2. Literature Review: Road Signs in Israel Road signs in Israel are generally similar to those in Europe and North America, with perhaps the exception of the signs that warn drivers of camels crossing. Font is standardised Highway Gothic and all signs are colour-coded according to function (e.g., green and blue for highways, orange for temporary traffic arrangements, and brown for historical sites and tourist attractions). By law, all road signs must be trilingual, displaying three languages, Hebrew, Arabic, and English. English does not hold official status, but it is a defacto language. A closer examination of signs reveals a plethora of information to consider, whether Hebrew or Arabic names are chosen, how names are translated, and how they are spelled. Road signs are regulated by the government in a top-down manner, a process which involves policymakers, politicians, sign designers, city
Place-Based Identity in Israel 219 planners, and linguists. This research examines the effect of road signs in Israel on the identity of native speakers of Arabic and native speakers of English, focusing on those signs officially posted by the Ministry of Transportation. Signs are representative of language attitude which is inseparable from linguistic ideology, and individual and group identity. Studies in linguistic landscape (LL) document the effect of the surrounding landscape on the construction, negotiation, and contestation of identity (Blackwood et al. 2016). Israeli road signs form a linguistic landscape that reveals politically motivated decisions related to a national agenda of language planning and policy. In other words, road signs are related to political geography, where socially based and politically based spaces are unnaturally established by those who hold the power to do so. A governmental policy, introduced in July 2009, determined that all road signs must be predominantly Hebrew (Bigon and Dahamshe 2014), and this research investigates the effects of this policy eight years after its implementation. Ultimately, the study also examines the relation between the representation of space and one’s identity, specifically as it relates to a place-based identity and to liminality—the concept that people are in an ambiguous state of disorientation due to instability, due to the effects of modernisation, urbanisation, and globalisation—which eventually results in them being pushed further to the margins of mainstream society. The present policy about road signage in Israel is part of a plan by the governing Likud party to strengthen a Zionist, national agenda and ‘unite the country under a single language’ (Freidman 2009a). The newly posted 2,500 road signs are meant to ‘reflect[s] the reality of the local population. . . [making all signs] easier for people to understand’(Freidman 2009a). This involves the transliteration of all Arabic and English into Hebrew. The main goal of this action is to reduce the widening rifts within Israeli society, gaps caused by: socio-economic class, secular and religious populations, the political left vs. the political right, Ashkenazi (European) Jews vs. Mizrahi (North African and Middle Eastern) Jews, Arabs and Jews, and many other groups and subgroups. The Hebrew language is a main and uniting factor in Israeli culture. Head of the Ministry’s Transportation Planning Department, justifies this policy stating that The lack of uniform spelling on signs has been a problem for those speaking foreign languages, citizens and tourists alike . . . It impairs drivers’ ability to find their way and we have decided to follow many other counties around the world and make the transliteration of all names correspond directly with Hebrew. (Etzion 2009) A committee titled The Subcommittee for the Authorisation of Place Names, led by the Academy of Hebrew Language, decides on changes
220 Judith Yoel to road signs and “discusses the ‘proper’ spelling of signs and the ‘correct’ transliteration into Latin and Arabic orthograph[ies]” (Freidman 2009a). The Transportation Planning Department decides which signs need changing (Etzion 2009). It was originally declared that only new signs would be affected by the reform (Etzion 2009), or those that need to be updated due to wear and tear or route changes (Freidman 2009a), but eight years onwards, almost all road signs in the country have been changed. When confronted with the question of how tourists who do not speak Hebrew would cope with signs that are predominantly Hebrew, how they would know that Yam Kineret is, in fact, the Sea of Galilee, a Ministry representative replied, ‘We expect people to familiarize themselves with the Hebrew names for their destinations’ (Freidman 2009b). When the same question was posed to the Minister of Tourism, his office was unable to comment, as they were unaware of the changes made (Freidman 2009b). To expect tourists to know Hebrew names for towns, cities, and landmarks is a tall order in a country where there are different names in Hebrew and Arabic. In 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel, the names of many Arab villages were changed. In 2014, and again in 2017, attempts were made to pass bills in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) to downgrade the status of the Arabic language from “an official language” to that of “a language with special status,” thus making Hebrew the country’s only official language. One politician, Dichter, states that such bills are necessary ‘to set in law our national identity while remaining a democratic state’ (Amangue 2017). Met with a great deal of controversy, opponents counteracted that such bills would ‘legally transform us [Arabs] into second-class citizens,’as asserted by Knesset member Odeh (Armangue 2017). 2.1. Linguistic Conflict The declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 by the United Nations (UN) (having previously been governed by a British mandate) was followed by unrest, with land at the centre of the conflict. Jews sought land on which to settle and Arabs battled to maintain their right to the land; other Arabs chose to flee, while others yet were evacuated, and their land confiscated. In 1949, two million dunams (one dunam is one decare (1000 m2) or 1/10 of a hectare of land) exchanged hands, most of which was managed by the Jewish National Fund, headquartered in Europe, should Israel fail to survive as nation (Bauml 2018). Approximately 150,000 Arabs remained in the area officially recognised by the UN as the State of Israel. Today Arabs constitute approximately 20% of the total population of Israel. Their culture, until recently, has retained a hierarchal and patriarchal structure that centres around land and territory (Schnell 2002).
Place-Based Identity in Israel 221 The names of villages that the government replaced with Hebrew remain controversial (Cook 2009). Some Arabs refuse to use the Hebrew names and protest that Arab villages are not located on Israeli maps. Jewish residents claim the same land as their own, for religious and historical reasons, and fight for their right to settle and develop the land granted to them by UN General Assembly (1947). Israel has also acquired additional land as the result of a number of military operations. Not unlike Arabs, Jews are attached to the land, and they take offence to Palestinian maps that do not locate Israeli cities or those that print pre1948 names (Omer 2009). Land holds physical, cultural, traditional, economic, and historical significance and provides people with the sense of belonging essential that is to human nature. It grounds them in their past, present, and future. Experiences related to land, such as the planting of trees, shape the place in which they live and simultaneously shape them as individuals. With strong emotional bonds, land and identity are intertwined one with the other. While road signs are a symbolic representation, as signs change, emotions, perceptions of selfhood, membership, and one’s views on societal status in society are aroused. An individual’s identity is under constant construction and reconstruction, and any sort of struggle over land quickly escalates into a personal issue because a struggle for land represents the effort for recognition and respect. 2.2. Linguistic Landscapes This research examines signs within the field of linguistic landscape, (LL), a relatively recent field of study that examines the effects of language used in one’s surroundings. Relevant to this research is the research of BenRafael and Ben-Rafael (2008) that explicitly states that the LL affects the individual’s sense of identity and that of Spolsky and Cooper (1991) that concludes that signs are written in the language one wishes to be identified with. A conscious investigation of language use in the public sphere reveals a social, cultural, historical, political, and ideological context, bringing issues such as language contact, linguistic diversity, language vitality, ethnolinguistic vitality and power relations to the forefront. A linguistic perspective allows one to examine the status of a language, as well as attitudes towards languages and language ideology. Signage is a symbolic identity marker. It is an expression of self (Goffman 1963), and it plays a significant role in relating to in-groups and out-groups, solidarity, and sociocultural affiliation. Language use on signs raises issues of identity, which in turn, directly affect behaviour. Just as signage can be interpreted as a presentation of selfhood, it can also be representative of a community or collective identity, which can be regional, ethnic or religious, or any combination of these. It can function as a marker of exclusion or inclusion (Calhoun 1997) and exemplify
222 Judith Yoel the role of certain bodies (e.g., government, municipalities, the public) in society. Signs are revealing of power, indicating which languages are tolerated, and the extent to which they are. Signs are also indicative of the degree of hegemony of one language upon another. 2.3 Language Attitude Various factors lie behind the different attitudes of Jews and Arabs, even though the reforms to the language on road signs are dictated by a single policy. Setting aside political reasons—a difficult, if not complexly impossible consideration in the Middle East—this research hypothesises that a strong and deep place-based identity plays a major role in the different attitudes towards signs expressed by native Arabic and English speakers. Particularly relevant to the former population is the matter of liminality. The maintenance and transmission of traditional Arab culture is decreasing. The Arabic speaking population in Israel is a complex combination of Christians, Muslims, Bedouin, and Druze, different ethnic and religious minorities. While united by the Arabic language, these groups are divided by different heritage, dialect and many other issues (e.g., Druze males serve in the Israeli military; Christians may volunteer to do so, while Muslims rarely participate in military service). This is further complicated by the fact that the Druze are loyal to the State of Israel, while other groups are more loyal to Palestine. The previously mentioned sense of liminality is caused, in part, by the numerous, recent reforms Arab society is undergoing, namely a weakening of traditional, and patriarchal structure, and changing patterns of leadership in the community, from elderly, religious leaders to young political leaders. Moreover, women are leaving their villages to enter into the workforce and pursue higher education, both of which are done mainly in Hebrew. The clear boundaries of a once traditional culture are becoming increasingly blurry. As rifts between traditional and modern lifestyles appear, so do others, such as widening divisions between religious and secular people. Marginality characterises many Arabs in Israel who tend to live in geographically remote, monocultural and monolinguistic villages. Even in mixed Israeli cities (e.g., Haifa, Lod, Acco, Nazareth), Arabs and Jews tend to reside in separate neighbourhoods. A group of people, whose parents were born in the land, who themselves were born there, who hold Israeli citizenship and passports, remain on the edge of Israeli society, physically and socially, often because they are perceived to potentially pose a threat to Israeli society. Linguistically, they are displaced as well. The Arabic language is a minority language in Israel. There is growing concern about the early age at which Hebrew is introduced into the Arab educational system (at age six), the amount of Hebrew being used by youngsters and the growing need for Hebrew in order to pursue a higher education and secure a stable job. ‘A lack of Arabic instruction at
Place-Based Identity in Israel 223 all levels of education, produces an Arabic speaking society that can neither write well in Hebrew nor Arabic. Abu Asbeh, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, asserts that the younger Arab ‘is forced to find a balance between his Arabic mother tongue and the dominant Hebrew state language, and the identity politics wrapped up within this reality’ (Shaviv et al. 2013). Arabic suffers from linguistic exclusion and there is a hegemony of Hebrew upon Arabic (e.g., public services). Young people who are becoming distanced from their first language have to rely on Hebrew in order to achieve political, social, economic and professional parity. With some exception, such as the case of Jews who choose to reside in particular locations for ideological reasons, such as places like Hebron and the West Bank (an area under joint Israeli-Palestinian control), most native English-speaking, Jewish immigrants are proud to become citizens of their new and chosen country, and this is exemplified in their adoption of Hebrew. Their sense of place is often vast, flexible and accommodating, and encompasses cultural, social, and linguistic aspects of Israeli society. They generally adapt willingly, although not always with ease. In some cases, immigration means that newcomers must forego previous citizenship in order to take Israel citizenship. 2.4. The Use of Arabic in Israel Arabic experiences meagre representation in the media. Jews, originally from Arabic-speaking countries, rarely pass their native Arabic tongue on to the next generation. Nor is Arabic a popular subject of academic study in education among Jews. National matriculation examination results for Arabic among the Jewish population are weak. Arabic has limited visibility outside of Arab villages. Some Israeli-owned franchises have even implemented a policy forbidding Arabic speaking employees (in Aroma Coffee, McDonald’s, etc.) to speak Arabic, stipulating only Hebrew be spoken. In a legal suit that resulted from the firing of a McDonald’s employee for speaking Arabic, McDonald’s argues,‘[a]ll workers speak between themselves and clients in Hebrew only to prevent uncomfortable situations for workers and clients who mostly speak Hebrew’ (Urquhart 2004). Despite legal ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court that the use of Arabic is a right under the Basic Laws of Israel and one that must be upheld (Urquhart 2004), the use of Arabic is often a sensitive issue. All Arabic names on road signs are displayed in Hebrew, but are written in Arabic orthography, if Arabic appears at all. Signs display numerous errors (Bigon and Dahamshe 2014). The road sign to Nazareth reads Natzeret in Hebrew, and Natzeret, in the Arabic too, not Nasirah, as called by the local Arabic speaking population. Likewise, Natzeret, not Nazareth, is written in English. Local bylaws (i.e., the Advertisements and Notice Bylaw 1964, 1990) often do not support the display of Arabic. In Nazareth, a city where both Jews and Arabs reside, it is clearly
224 Judith Yoel stipulated that ‘a person will not publish a notice or present a sign unless licensed by the head of the local authority. . . . Hebrew [must] take up at least two-thirds of the top part of the sign’and ‘Hebrew font [must be] bigger . . . [than other languages]’ (Shafrir 2012:3). In an additional example of support for Hebrew over Arabic, a list submitted of new names for train stations (2009 by linguist AvshalomKor included 19 suggested Hebrew names, including those located in Arab neighbourhoods. After it came to people’s attention that highway signs for the railways, airports, and the electric company appear only in Hebrew, the Ministry of Public Works was ordered, in a court of law, to add Arabic to the signs (Shafrir 2012: 4).
3. Methods of Research Photographic data of road signs were gathered, using an iPhone 5, for a one-year period, from June 2016 until June 2017, and the data were categorised according to criteria such as the presence or absence of languages, language order, typonyms, linguistic discrepancies, defaced signs, signs that contain errors, as well as additional features such as the addition of apostrophes and the re-assignment of capitalisation. Analyses were carried out by the researcher in consultation with native speakers of Arabic and Hebrew. In addition, 20 self-report questionnaires were administered in June 2016, to nine males and 11 females, of whom 16 were college students and four college lecturers. The purpose of the questionnaires was to elicit from the participants their personal opinions and feelings about road signs, thus shedding light on the ways in which road signs influence people’s sense of identity. Among the participants were six native speakers of Hebrew, six native speakers of Arabic, six native speakers of English, one native speaker of Romanian, and one of Russian. At the time of the investigation, the participants all resided in the north of the country and ranged in age from 21 to 62. The participants answered both ten closed and open-ended questions, in writing, about road signs, and were given vague information about the nature of the project, just that it relates to road signs. This research hypothesises that the reform in Israeli society regarding road signs has not been without an effect on the population, specifically the Arabic-speaking population, while English speakers are affected to a lesser extent. These are two very different populations. Arabs born in Israel are often not integrated into mainstream Israeli society, and they retain their own distinct cultural norms, traditions, and language. English speakers are mainly Jewish immigrants who have come to Israel under the Law of Return (1950), a law which entitles Jewish people, worldwide, to right to come live in Israel and grants them Israeli citizenship. These immigrants are encouraged to assimilate into mainstream Israeli society as quickly as possible and provided with intensive courses in the
Place-Based Identity in Israel 225 Hebrew language (Ulpan) at no cost and Hebrew often becomes their dominant language.
4. Results: Native English Speakers and Native Arabic Speakers English speakers generally view the faulty use of English on signs as annoying, even humorous, but they, generally, do not take it personally. Most are unaware that the changing signs are the result of an explicit governmental policy which aims to make the English more similar to Hebrew. No participants in this study were aware of this. Native speakers of Arabic, on the other hand, are aware of the changes being made to Arabic on signs and they perceive this action as an affront to their pride. They interpret such reform as a conscious attempt to manipulate their physical surroundings and further marginalise their culture and position in Israeli society. It emerged in their questionnaires that changes cause emotional turmoil not witnessed among native speakers of English. 4.1. Language Use in the Region Shohamy (2006) notes that all use of language in public transmits symbolic messages about the legitimacy of languages, as well as information about their relevance, and which languages are considered a priority. The language used on road signs in Israel is evidence of a dominant Hebrewonly ideology in a multilingual setting. In order to understand this policy, one must delve into past linguistic practices and briefly examine the complex nature of language use in this particular region. In practice, Israel’s bilingual status is “merely theoretical” (Shafrir 2012: 1), for Hebrew is the main language and Arabic plays a secondary role (Yitzhaki 2008). Arabic has been an official language in Israel since 1924 (The Mandatory Order, Article 82 of the Order of the Palestine Council) (Bigon and Dahamshe 2014). Arabic was incorporated into Israeli legislation in 1948 (Shafrir 2012), thus, dictating a comprehensive Hebrew-Arabic bilingual state of conduct. The country’s bilingual, policy, however, is unmonitored and unenforced. Amara (2006a) notes that although Arabic is an important language for the Arab minority, it plays a minor role in the in the rest of Israel. For example, by law Arabic must be accessible in public services, but such services are often “unavailable.” While Arabic is an official language, Arabic and Hebrew are not of equal status. Linguistically, Arabic is inferior. Many Arabs attest to feeling that at times they are discriminated linguistically and they state that their language is oppressed, as confirmed in scholarly research (Amara 1999, 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2006b). In contrast, English is a language of linguistic vitality in Israel, and it is more visible than Arabic, but its presence too, is often met with
226 Judith Yoel opposition, in spite of its function as a main language in specific domains, such as advertising, technology, science, and international politics. Amidst the growing influence of the globalisation of the English language is evidence of glocalisation—a process that encompasses both the global and local simultaneously. In other words, the local language is favoured because widespread use of English implies betraying Hebrew. Language ideology in Israel is strong. Also related to a negative attitude towards English is the opposition of Israeli society to an Americanisation of its culture. Researchers note that on the one hand, English is attractive because it carries connotations of sophistication and success, yet it also carries connotations of tastelessness and a lack of authenticity (Azaryahu et al. 2000). 4.2. Opposition to the Policy about Road Signs The decision dictating reform on road signs was initially met with strong opposition. Among the most vocal were Arab politicians in Israel. Member of the Knesset, (MK) (the Israeli parliament), Ibrahim Sarsur stated (as translated from Hebrew into English) that the policy is an act of racism, plain and simple. I can’t find another term that can describe the moral deterioration of the transportation minister and unfortunately of the other ministers in the government too . . . The transportation minister is attempting to paint the road signs with his ideological brush. How did we arrive at the point when a simple road sign is seen as a threat the security of the state? It’s ridiculous; the spelling on the signs won’t change our identity. For us, Jerusalem will forever be al-Quds. (Freidman 2009a) There is no united linguistic front and the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights is in favour of preserving road signs in Arabic. Why not give Israeli Arabs the respect their language deserves? If we have Arabic on the road signs, why not use the proper and common names . . . Changing the name of communities on road signs will not make these towns less Arab or more Zionistic. (Israeli Ministry of Interior Decides to Judaize Arab Traffic Signs 2009) In a backlash, the United States subsequently announced the introduction of a project in the Palestinian Authority, whereby all road signs would appear in Arabic and English only, with no Hebrew (Shafrir 2012). In response to opposition, the Israeli Minister of Transportation, Yisrael Katz, declared that those opposed to the policy constitute only “a
Place-Based Identity in Israel 227 fringe minority” of the population, one that ‘is willing the accept attempts by anti-Israel and anti-Zionist elements to annul Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state’(Freidman 2009b). 4.3. The Use of Arabic for Road Signs The use of Arabic is not uniform when it comes to the display of language. Where it is expected that Arabs do not travel, Arabic does not appear. Towns and cities like Rosh HaAyin, Elad, Petah Tikwa (as written on the signs in English) are displayed in Hebrew and English only. Such is also the case at the airport, where signs (e.g., To all flights) appear only in Hebrew and English, and as drivers exit the airport, signs indicate the direction of specific towns in Hebrew and English, while in Arabic, only a general direction—south—is displayed. Within cities, like Haifa, where Arabs have traditionally resided for generations, arrows direct people to landmarks, but the Checkpost, a main junction and the Technion (Israel’s polytechnic institution) are marked in Hebrew only. Signs directing drivers to military bases are in Hebrew only as well. It is not unusual to see signs that have been defaced, with the Arabic font spray painted over, either by Jews who protest the display of Arabic or by Arabs who are unhappy with the non-Arabic name. The lack of visibility of Arabic on road signs was not unnoticed by Arabic-speaking participants in this study. They observed that Arabic was often absent from signs and noted that Hebrew names had replaced Arabic names. They commented on this (in English) I want to change the Arab names back to their correct form and add to it, in brackets, the way it is said in Arabic, so Israelis would know how it is pronounced [in Arabic], writing, for example, Nasirah in brackets, in Hebrew, next to Natseret in Hebrew. Another native Arabic speaker describes the effects of such signs, All of the signs on the main roads in Israeli leave a bad impression on me because all of the names of the Arab areas (e.g., villages, cities) are in Hebrew, written in Arabic [font], which alienates Arabs from their own history and culture. The signs, while written in a language they have mastered—Hebrew, do not display the names they use, and do not portray the location by the name they wish it to be identified with. Another participant noted, ‘The direct translations are awful and sometimes when you read signs, you do not understand them at first.’Participants said, for example that the road sign for Jerusalem, Yerusalin (in Arabic), is a “contrived” name, not used by any native speaker of Arabic. The name that they do use, al-Quds,
228 Judith Yoel appears in brackets, and ‘without the addition in brackets, no Arabic speaker would be able to make sense of the sign.’ Additional comments by Arabic speakers bring to light the clear distinction between two groups, an “us” (Arabs) and a “them (Jews).” One respondent says (in English), "Referring only to the Hebrew name is a political action aiming to marginalize and alienate Arabs in this country," which is exactly the opposite of what the government reform says it is doing—uniting the Israeli people. Respondents clearly took offence to signs as they perceive them to be associated with the national goals of the ruling right-wing government. A number of Arabic-speaking participants not only objected to the use of Hebrew for Arabic names but also expressed interest in bringing the two parties closer to one another, by writing signs in such a way that native speakers of Hebrew, the majority of whom know very little Arabic, could learn Arabic, and inferring that such a move could also teach them about Arab culture. One participant suggested (in English) that exposing native speakers of Hebrew to Arabic could be positive and asserted "Inserting more Arabic [on]to road signs will help to get the Israelis more familiar with Arabic, hence with the Palestinians living in Israel." Bamberg (2017) outlines three main dimensions of identity: a) agency vs. passivity, b) sameness vs. difference, and c) constancy vs. change. The identity of Arabs as it relates to road signs and all three of the aforementioned is negative. The majority of Arabic speakers are passive. Although they have political representation, many strongly believe that the Arab minority lacks a voice in Israeli politics. They are unable to reverse political decisions and changes that have been mandated. They frequently consider themselves victims of governmental policy, not participants in its processes. In an examination of sameness and difference, in some ways, they are equal to Hebrew speakers, for they are Israeli citizens with legal and civil rights, but they are also different, for they possess a different and distinct culture, heritage and language. This minority is further divided by religious, cultural, and political differences that reduce its power. Road signs are another way that native Arabic speakers perceive that the rights of Arabs go unacknowledged, specifically by a lack of recognition of their legal, minority and officially-recognised language. As reforms continue to be made to place names, this population expresses increasing dissatisfaction with what they perceive to be a weakening of their status and position in Israeli society. Their status changes with each new government and its policies. Their sense of stability is continually challenged by ongoing changes. As participants’ opinions about road signs emerge, so does their assertion of their identity. Respondents interpret signs as potentially being capable of distancing Arab culture from mainstream society. The strong, lexical items used by the participants when commenting on signs, words such as “alienate,” “marginalise,” “threat,” “our identity,” “history,”
Place-Based Identity in Israel 229 “culture,” and “Palestinians” contribute to their portrayal of who they are—a minority group within Israeli society that values their distinct culture and language and is emotionally connected to their land. Their choice of lexicon brings to light the fact that they do not feel recognised, or valued. Native speakers of Arabic speakers are well aware of the policy implemented by the government, even though they often do not recall being formally informed of this move. They observe and notice the changes made to road signs. They also know that this reform was prompted by a government policy, which they cite as confirmation that they are fundamentally under-represented in Israeli society. 4.4. The Use of English on Road Signs Israel encourages tourism, and while most tourists read English, Israeli road signs are in the process of being made as unlike English as possible, a process which the government justifies as saying that they should be like Hebrew. This includes, but is not limited to, preference for Hebrew names, and literal, direct transliteration from Hebrew into English, resulting in signs such as detention home instead of a jail. Word order is also changed. Because in Hebrew adjectives follow nouns, Dor Beach becomes Hof Dor. Additionally, Latin spellings, like Caesarea, have been replaced by Hebrew spellings, many of which are in clear violation of the rules of English, as evident in signs for Qesariyya, where the is not followed by a , and the has been doubled. Changes in conventionalised English spelling have resulted in forms not documented elsewhere, like Kibbutz, (a communal pattern of settlement unique to Israel), which has become Qibutz. Also seen is the addition of a syllable in English, one not present in Hebrew, as illustrated in the sign changed from Bat Shlomo to Bat Shelomo. As spelling changes, so does pronunciation, so Neve David, (the pronunciation once identical) has become Newe Dawid in English. Hyphens have been added, where not typically observed in English (e.g., Tel-Aviv), as have apostrophes, even before initial letters, as in ‘Isafiyya. Unconventional abbreviations impose structural patterns of Hebrew onto English, namely omitting vowels in the written form. Hence, the word, interchange, for example, has been abbreviated as INCHNG and quarter as QTR (in capital letters). Capitalisation has also been removed (e.g., nir david) and added to conform to syntactic patterns of Hebrew, as in Ein HaShofet, where the capitalisation of and indicate the presence of the definite article in Hebrew. Different names are sometimes displayed, so on the same sign, the Hijazi Railway, in English, seemingly refers to the railway that ran from Damascus, Syria to Medina, Saudi Arabia, and was dismantled in 1920 with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, while in Hebrew, it indicates the location of the Emek [Valley] railway, a working rail line, in operation since 2016. The many changes in English include an abundance of errors and inconsistency. A blogger notes that
230 Judith Yoel English place names ‘can make you crazy. If you’re lucky, the English version bears some resemblance to the actual place name—i.e., what people who live there call it’(Etzion 2009). Another journalist refers to road signs as, ‘the many bloopers dotting Israel’s roads.’Israeli road signs in English are commonly ridiculed by the public, by bloggers, and on online Internet forums. “An Insider’s Guide to Touring in Israel” ridicules a sign for the train (which is rekevet in Hebrew) in Tel Aviv, which reads RAKEVET in English (in capital letters) (www.insideout.com), As with Arabic, at times, English does not appear on road signs at all. Not everyone sees absurdity in English being made as unlike English as possible. One journalist justifies the2009 policy in the local press stating, ‘Israel has a very population that is united solely by the acceptance of Hebrew as the language of discourse and this should not be undermined’(Etzion 2009) (as translated from Hebrew). When questioned about road signs, English-speaking respondents indicated that they had indeed noticed the many unconventional spellings, but, without exception, they were unaware that this was the result of a conscious, governmental policy. Native English speakers were surprised to discover road signs were written as such deliberately, assuming that they were posted in incorrect English, as the result of poor English competence, poor translation or a lack of attention to detail. One individual asked, ‘Why are signs not written in the language of the alphabet they appear in, such as English, in English!’ Native English speakers indicated annoyance or found signs in English humorous. For example, one American said, the sign that reads ‘ducks farm [Duck Farm] rankles me every time, as it is wrong.’ Another person said, ‘When my husband and I saw the sign for Qesariyya, we were sure that the sign must have been posted by accident.’ Yet another participant noted that ‘warnings like “Danger of death” on electrical towers make me laugh, because I would never say that in English.’ Noticeably absent from the many comments are the previously observed, lexical items related to identity, “alienate,” “marginalise,” “threat,” “our identity,” “history,” “culture,” and “Palestinians.” The issue of place and identity is a complex one in Israel because it inevitably involves issues of not just space and place, but also complex issues of race and power. Native users of Arabic language belong to a variety of different ethnic and religious backgrounds each with differing levels of recognition and representation, and each with a different conceptualisation of their inclusion or exclusion from Israeli society, and each with a distinct concept of self. Tajfel(1978) defines social identity as that which is part of an individual’s self-concept and derives from his knowledge of his membership in a social group. Language as it is used and as it is not used in a certain locality fosters a sense of self (Tajfel 1981). English speakers who have chosen to relocate to Israel have had to consciously confront issues of identity, and negotiate where, when and
Place-Based Identity in Israel 231 how they fit into Israeli society. As they become increasingly integrated, identity conflict becomes less of an issue. Arabs, on the other hand, are continually forced to confront how they fit into Israeli society since social and political situations are dynamic. English speakers do not perceive road signs as an issue directly related to their identity; nor are they deeply or personally upset by the manner in which the English language is displayed. They are usually content that English is represented, despite it not being an official language of the country, and recognise that this is done mainly to promote tourism. Native English speakers in Israel are accepting of the fact that Hebrew is the dominant language of the country, and that use of Hebrew as a dominant language is an inseparable element of Israeli society. 4.7. Reasons for the Different Perception between English Native Speakers and Arabic Native Speakers The situation of Hebrew-like forms on signage, at the expense of another language, receives very different responses from native Arabic speakers in Israel than it does from native English speakers, the former perceiving their place and status in Israeli society as being challenged by signs. Despite being symbolic, signs are in fact tactile, tangible artefacts which display an underlying ideology. Signs represent locations and land, and land is the utmost value in the Middle East. Palestinians have . . . [a] prized possession of land, not only because of its economic value in a traditional, rural society, but also because of its social status and even the sense of identity and self-esteem they derive from it. (Peleg and Waxman 2011: 287) The relationship between place and identity extends beyond the literal concept of territory to other identity-related notions. Many other fundamental issues such as planning for the future, rural and urban development, modernisation, urbanisation, and housing are connected to the use of land (Amara and Schnell 2007). Arabs do not expect the government to supply them with a sense of citizenship, unlike Israelis (Amara and Schnell 2007). Land is at the centre of the Arab-Jewish conflict. For the Arab group, signs symbolise social inequality and the group’s disenfranchisement with the present situation. There are additional reasons why the same policy applied to two different languages, in similar ways, has different effects on the respective populations. The hegemony of Hebrew upon the Arabic language is a daily reality. The Arab population is also undergoing significant changes to its social structure, resulting in a shift from a more traditional and local identity to a more national one (Amara and Mar’i 1999), cited in Amara
232 Judith Yoel 2006a). Extended tribal family structure is being replaced by nuclear families (Amara 2006a: 4). As women enter the realms of employment and higher education, Hebrew becomes increasingly important. With concern for future upward social and professional mobility, some Arab children are now educated in Hebrew-speaking schools, hoping this will be advantageous. Significant changes to Arabs’ internal and external contexts affect language use, a primary marker of identity. Linguistic conflict between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel is a fact of everyday life for Arabic speakers. The results of a survey conducted in 2007, before the linguistic policy for road signs was implemented, found that 75% of Jewish Israelis report feeling disgust when they hear Arabic being spoken and 31% feel hatred towards the Arabic language (The Association for Civil Rights in Israel 2007). Feelings of fear and mistrust have led some Arabs to a reluctance to speak Arabic in public. Researchers of the Arabic language (Amara 1999, 2002a, 2002b, 2006b; Amara and Mar’i 1999; Saban and Amara 2002, 2003) have documented changes in Israeli language policy, which clearly point to a loss of the vitality of Arabic language. One journalist (Lieber 2016) observes that as used today in Israel, Arabic manifests an inequality that can potentially affect language use on a daily basis in the lives of Arab citizens. Even Palestinian municipalities, Lieber (2016) notes, use Hebrew in all official communication, documents, and contact with Jewish municipalities and social and cultural institutions.
5. Discussion and Conclusion In Israel, linguistic diversity can be perceived as a threat to national identity (Windisch 2004). This is evident in the reforms made to road signs since 2009, where the language policy introduced is an attempt to homogenise Israeli society. Signs are interpreted by native speakers of Arabic as a physical representation of historical events which have resulted in the appropriation and resettlement of their land and of ongoing tension. This affects their group identity. As events in the Middle East unfold, the individual’s dynamic sense of identity continues to be modified, with the reposting of road signs in Israel having a negative effect on this minority group. The State of Israel was established with a conscious and explicitly stated melting pot ideology. Immigrants were expected to acclimatise as quickly as possible and adopt the dominant Hebrew-only linguistic policy. Linguistic policy and language ideology and attitude are still very much at the forefront of Israeli culture. Until 1988, it was legal to post public signs in Hebrew only. Prompted by mass immigration from the Former Soviet Union (FSU), this has changed. There is a somewhat increased tolerance for diversity. New immigrants can now study the Russian language and Russian literature in high schools, write national matriculation
Place-Based Identity in Israel 233 exams in Russian, as well as the national university entrance exam (The Psychometric Exam), which can also be written in Arabic and English. But Hebrew is clearly still dominant, and Arabic, despite its official recognition, does not have equal status. In spite of the globalisation of the English language and the widespread use of English in many aspects of Israeli society, there is no intention to make English an official language. The globalised presence of English does not extend as far as road signs where the Israeli Ministry of Transportation supports and upholds monolingualism and maintains a monolinguistic policy in favour of Hebrew. Ideology, demographics, and the present political situation are reflected in road signs. They portray a reality and reflect linguistic, cultural, and social practices, establishing a visible reality. They play an important role in the individuals’ perception and construction of self, status and contribute to one’s role in society. Individual self-identification is affected by signage, much more so for speakers of Arabic than English. Israel diverges from the more common global trend of moving towards the use of English on road signs and is moving away from it. What is already a fragile linguistic balance between Hebrew and Arabic experiences another blow with the implementation of the 2009 linguistic policy, leading to expressions of disparity from an already liminal population, one that must continually negotiate their sense of identity. One respondent in this study stated that the use of Hebrew ‘is like the door of a house, through which everyone must enter.’Kariv (2012) states,‘[t]he Arab citizen is still required to leave his native tongue behind when he enters the public space.’ Arabic speakers are Israeli citizens with equal rights, including linguistic rights, but as non-members of the dominant language group, as non-members of the dominant language group, their official, minority language is under-represented, and this tests their sense of identity. Their identity is re-tested with each new political ruling and policy, resulting in further instability and insecurity. Displaying English on Israeli road signs does not contribute to an Americanisation of Israel; nor will it detract in any way from the vitality of Hebrew or Israeli culture. Likewise, using Arabic on road signs is not going to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The present assimilationist policy, however, does cause further detriment to a population which is already vulnerable due to their minority status and the ever-changing circumstances in which they live. The situation of liminality leads Arabs in Israel to feel that their ethnic and linguistic identity is under-represented, under-valued, and marginalised. Road signs could be posted to strategically contribute to the recognition of this group, and to acknowledge their language and culture. This would be one small step closer to recognising the multi-ethnic and multilingual nature of Israel. When accompanied by other significant steps, such as a teaching of respect for one’s identity and heritage and the promotion of coexistence, this would be an essential step towards a more positive outlook in this region for the future.
234 Judith Yoel
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10 Touring Amsterdam: Jews and the Tolerant City1 Gabriella Modan
1. Introduction The opening paragraph on the website of Amsterdam’s official VVV tourist agency describes the city thus: Amsterdam: Bruisend, Gastvrij en Tolerant Amsterdam is altijd al een bruisende stad geweest. Er heerst een open en tolerante sfeer: de Amsterdammer ontvangt iedereen die de stad bezoekt met open armen. Amsterdam: Effervescent, Hospitable, and Tolerant Amsterdam has always been an effervescent city. An open and tolerant atmosphere holds sway. Amsterdammers welcome everyone who visits the city with open arms.2 Amsterdam as a tolerant place is a widely held image of the city, both at home and abroad, and one that is promoted in both government and commercial tourism materials. Equally prevalent in the city’s tourism scene are tours with the theme of Jewish Amsterdam. Part of the reason for the prominence of Jewish Amsterdam in the touristic landscape is no doubt geographical. The famous Anne Frank House (where the Jewish Anne Frank hid with her family during the German occupation of World War II) sits on the Prinsengracht, a charming, picturesque canal that encircles the central city, where the majority of tourist attractions are located. Elsewhere in this area, the tourist is bound to come across other material references to Jewish life: souvenir shop postcards emblazoned with the word Mokum, the Yiddish-derived name for Amsterdam in the local dialect; a secondhand open-air book market in the centre of town with scores of books on Jewish topics; numerous buildings with Stars of David or other
238 Gabriella Modan Jewish-associated markings on the facades. And in the central city’s old Jewish Quarter, the Jewish Historical Museum, Portuguese Synagogue, and a number of monuments and memorials are all places of historical interest. If the geography of these elements of Jewish Amsterdam makes them amenable to touristic promotion, so too does their status as icons of the city’s history. Tourism materials highlight how Jews are bound up in the story that Amsterdam tells about itself as a tolerant place. This connection is illustrated nicely on two tourist websites–the first one advertising a guided tour of Jewish Amsterdam, the second from a Frequently Asked Questions page: The specific blending of Sephardi and Ashkenazi [Jewish] traditions has left an indelible impression on Amsterdam, despite the terrors of the Holocaust. We shall show you how Dutch tolerance applied to different religions, how the Jewish district has changed and how it survived the Nazis. Why is Amsterdam so tolerant? Historical reason: Amsterdam is a city where trade has always been more important than ideology or religion—overly strong views would only hamper relations. Too, Amsterdam is traditionally a city of immigrants. Jews from Spain and French Protestants found a safe haven, centuries ago. Underlying the connection between Jews and tolerance is an implicit construction of Jews as inherently vulnerable—in need of protection— and liminal—integral players in the history and culture of the city while at the same time distanced from the body politic. The phenomenon of tolerance necessitates such liminality, for if a group does not stand out as Other, there is nothing to distinguish it as an object of tolerance. As Kossmann (1984: 7) puts it, tolerance is ‘a dominant group allowing a non-dominant group to have views or ways of life that seem to deviate from the regular order of things’3 (See also Gijswijt-Hofstra 1989). Implicit in this account is a power relation between the tolerators and the tolerated. Mispelblom Beyer pointed out as early as 1948 that tolerance is the granting of favour, and it is the dominant group who determines the extent to which such favour is doled out to the tolerated. Additionally, that granting of favour can be used by the dominant group in the construction of their own self-image. In this chapter, I investigate how self-guided tours of Jewish Amsterdam construct Jews as liminal beings—outsiders and consummate Amsterdammers at the same time. Through the linguistic strategies of infrastructure reference, erasure, discursive anchoring, and Yiddish loanwords, and the focus on the pre-war and wartime period, the tours refract historical
Touring Amsterdam 239 and present-day understandings of Amsterdam’s Jews through the lens of the Holocaust (and to a lesser extent, the Inquisition). Consequently, Jews are portrayed as a vulnerable population, and this portrayal helps to produce Amsterdam as a tolerant city. Paradoxically, however, these same strategies also create a geography of absence; though the materials often talk of Amsterdam as a Jewish city, it is described largely as a city without Jews. It’s not surprising that Amsterdam is often cast as a Jewish city; after all, it was and is the city with the largest Jewish population in the Netherlands. But it’s not simply demographics that make Amsterdam a Jewish place. The Jewishness of Amsterdam is produced by both a material infrastructure (monuments to prominent and less prominent Amsterdam Jews who died in the Holocaust; streets, bridges, and squares named after Jews; buildings with Hebrew writing or stars of David) and a discursive infrastructure (novels, media, tourism materials, etc. about Amsterdam Jews). In tandem, the discursive and the spatial produce a particular positionality for Jews, and that positionality in turn helps to create a particular moral geography that aligns Jews with the city. As one participant in my research declared, “Jewish history is our history.” This depiction echoes a stance towards Jews that I had heard numerous times from nonJewish Amsterdammers when I lived in the city; when people found out I was Jewish, they often brought up the history of Jews in Amsterdam by lamenting the fate that befell “onze Joden,” or our Jews. Though this phrase casts Amsterdammers as embracing Jews as their own, the embrace is complicated and less than total; it’s laden with the weight of history, particularly World War II and the Holocaust, and tied up with the city’s identity as a place of tolerance. It’s an embrace at arm’s length, one that admits Jews tentatively into the body politic, while at the same time casting them as a group apart. During my fieldwork with Jewish and non-Jewish Amsterdammers in 2010, participants often encapsulated this stance by repeating the apocryphal slogan of the 1941 February Strike against the Nazis: Blijf met je rotpoten van onze rotjoden af (loosely translated, Keep your stinkin’ paws off our stinkin’ Jews) (cf. Sanders 2001). This ambivalent positionality echoes Turner’s description of liminality as “betwixt and between.” As Turner explains, It is interesting to note how, by the principle of the economy (or parsimony) of symbolic reference, logically antithetical processes of death and growth may be represented by the same tokens, for example, by huts and tunnels that are at once tombs and wombs, by lunar symbolism (for the same moon waxes and wanes), by snake symbolism (for the snake appears to die, but only to shed its old skin and appear in a new one), by bear symbolism (for the bear “dies” in
240 Gabriella Modan autumn and is “reborn” in spring), by nakedness (which is at once the mark of a newborn infant and a corpse prepared for burial), and by innumerable other symbolic formations and actions. This coincidence of opposite processes and notions in a single representation characterizes the peculiar unity of the liminal: that which is neither this nor that, and yet it is both. (1967: 99; emphasis added) Tourism as a genre of activity is similarly liminal for tourists (cf. Graburn 2018; MacCannell 1973); away from home and out of the normal constraints of daily schedules and modes of being, they are, in Turner’s words, ‘alternately forced and encouraged to think about their society, their cosmos, and the powers that generate and sustain them’ (Turner 1967: 105). Less straightforward, perhaps, is the way that objects of tourism—in this case, Amsterdam Jews—can also be constructed as liminal. As we will see, by focusing on World War II and the Holocaust, the tours in question discursively create a geography of absence (cf. Frers 2013; Wylie 2009), where Amsterdam Jews are stuck in a time-space chronotope of the wartime/Holocaust period in Amsterdam. In this chronotope where they were forcibly taken out of the routines and norms of their former daily lives, Amsterdam Jews became liminal beings. By focusing on this chronotope and in concert with other linguistic strategies, the tours then discursively reinforce Jews’ liminal identity as neither Amsterdammer nor outsider and yet both.
2. Historical and Sociopolitical Context 2.1. History of Jews in Amsterdam Some historical and geographical background is necessary to contexualise the tourism discussions of Amsterdam Jewish neighbourhoods and history. Since Jews migrated to Amsterdam at the end of the 16th century, they’ve held a position where they’ve been tolerated but not fully embraced. On one hand, Jews were granted a haven from the inquisition in Spain and Portugal and from pogroms in Central and Eastern Europe and they were not persecuted for their faith. On the other hand, they were denied full citizenship rights until 1796, and until the end of the 19th century, they largely lived in poverty in the city’s Jodenhoek, or Jewish quarter. The first Jews to come to the city were Portuguese and Spanish (Sephardic) Jews fleeing the inquisition. Many of them were fairly welloff and brought with them international trade contacts. With these contacts, Sephardic Jews made important contributions to Dutch economic interests during the 17th century, including helping to finance the Dutch West and East Indies Companies. Beginning around 1630, the Sephardis
Touring Amsterdam 241 were joined by Ashkenazi Jews expelled from cities in Central Europe and fleeing the Thirty Years’ War and Eastern European pogroms. These Jews, on the whole, were much poorer than the Sephardic Jews, though the economic position of Portuguese Jews was to diminish with stock market crises in the 1700s (Joods Historisch Museum 2007; Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003). By the 1700s, Amsterdam was one of the major centres of Jewish life in Europe, as well as the home of the biggest Hebrew and Yiddish printing industry, which was highly regarded throughout Europe for its publications as well as its distinctive typography (de Ruiter 2014; Joods Historisch Museum 2007). Jews belonging to the elite were also active in the civic life of the city, particularly in the domains of medicine and letters. By the end of the 18th century, Jews made up about 10% of the city’s population (de Ruiter 2014), with Ashkenazis—numbering about 20,000—having overtaken the 3000-person Sephardic community as the majority (Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003). The bestowing of full civil rights in 1796 began an era of increased integration for Jews that had profound linguistic effects (cf. Van Oostendorp 2007). In 1817, in a move intended to foster integration, King Willem I banned Yiddish from all synagogues and schools. The High Commission for Jewish Israelite Affairs (Hoofdcommissie tot de Zaken der Israëlieten, made up elite members of both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities) similarly pushed for the elimination of Yiddish from Jewish education and daily life, as they, too, considered speaking Yiddish to be detrimental to integration (Wallet 2006). This contributed to a fairly quick shift among Ashkenazi Jews to Dutch, as well as the introduction of many Yiddish loanwords into the Amsterdam dialect. (The Portuguese Jewish community had already shifted to Dutch by the end of the 18th century (de Ruiter 2014).) Throughout the 19th century, Jews, particularly Ashkenazis, remained very poor, and the population was centred in the Jewish Quarter. By the turn of the century, though, Jews began to participate to a much larger degree in the cultural and political life of the city; for example, they were instrumental in setting up the influential Diamond Workers Union4 as well as the seamstresses’ union, the country’s first women’s union. Jews were also active in the Communist and Social Democrat political parties. Henri Polak, a founder of the Diamond Workers Union as well as of the Social Democrat Worker’s Party (the predecessor of the current Labour Party (PvdA)), went on to become the first Social Democrat member of the city council and the first Social Democrat in the First House of the National Parliament. Starting in the 1920s, many Jews moved from the Jewish Quarter to the newly developing neighbourhoods in the eastern and southern parts of the city; by 1940, only 27% of the Jewish population could be found in the Jewish Quarter, while 30% lived in the city’s eastern neighbourhoods
242 Gabriella Modan and 40% in the Plan Zuid development in the south (Hendriks and Van Velzen 2004). Plan Zuid also became home to most of the thousands of German Jews fleeing the Nazi regime, including Anne Frank’s family. The Dutch authorities allowed into the country only German Jews seen as having the potential to contribute to the economy (Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003), and they declined to take any responsibility for resettlement, leaving it to local Jewish communities to step in (Hondius 1994). Hondius (1994: 48) notes that a ‘consciousness of differences, of a distance between Jews and non-Jews, increased during the 1930s, a period that marks to some extent a rupture in the process of assimilation and integration.’ Although many analysts note a rise in antisemitism at this time, this is not to say that Jews were excluded from civic life; they were active in the arts and cultural sphere, and the city had a number of Jewish aldermen. Jews also continued to be prominent in the trade union and social democrat movements. Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and started deportations to concentration camps in July of 1942, aided by a well-oiled Dutch bureaucracy and efficient transportation infrastructure (Hondius 1994; Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003). Only 10,000 of Amsterdam’s 70,000 Jews survived the Holocaust, most by going into hiding (Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003). Virtually none of the survivors returned to Amsterdam’s Jewish Quarter, partly because much of it had been demolished; instead, many settled in South Amsterdam. After the war’s end, Amsterdam’s surviving Jews faced what many scholars describe as a cold and bureaucratic reception upon returning home (cf. Gans 1994, 2010; Hondius 1994; Joods Historisch Museum 2007; Ten Have 2010). Many found their houses plundered; others were denied permission from the municipality to return to their homes, as non-Jewish Amsterdammers had been placed there during the wartime housing crisis. Some Jews had difficulty reclaiming property they had left with neighbours, and judges debated in court cases whether or not children who had been hidden in the care of non-Jewish Amsterdammers should be returned to their parents or surviving relatives (Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003). Not only were Amsterdam Jews made to pay back ground-lease taxes (erfpachten) 5 and other municipal fees for the time they’d been ‘away,’ but, unique among Dutch cities, in Amsterdam they were also made to pay late fees on ground-lease taxes (Piersma and Kempeman 2015). (This issue came to light in 2013, and in 2016 a public reparations fund was created to redress the payments.) Furthermore, local and national governments declined to provide any special assistance for returning Jews. Little was widely known about the concentration camps at the time (Hondius 1994; Ten Have 2010) and Jews faced incredulity and increased antisemitism from their compatriots, who themselves had experienced extreme hardship in the Hunger Winter during the last year of the war. Emblematic of this attitude is the
Touring Amsterdam 243 article from the resistance magazine De Patriot that Hondius (1994: 59) documents, wherein an anonymous writer opines, All the Jews who have come out of hiding owe their lives to Dutch people who sheltered them for humanitarian reasons, and who ran the risk of losing their homes, possessions, and lives. . . . The returning Jews may thank God for this assistance, and feel humbled. Maybe some superior people were lost because of all this. And this is something those who have returned need to keep in mind too; there is a lot to make up for. . . . Now the Jews must abstain from excesses and they should be constantly aware that they need to be thankful. They should demonstrate their gratitude by assuming responsibility for making amends to those who became victims themselves for helping Jews. They may thank God for their survival. It is also possible to lose one’s sympathy. . . . Truly, they are not the only ones who had a hard time and suffered. (Translation and ellipses as in Hondius 1994) In the later 1940s and 1950s, as more information came to light, the attitude of non-Jews towards Jews began to change, there started to be more understanding of what they had been through, and antisemitism became taboo. (For discussions of the psychological dimensions of this phenomenon, see Gans 1994; Herzberg 1978; Presser 1965) This era was marked by a distinctive silence, among both Jews and non-Jews, about the war and the Holocaust. As Van Vree (2010: 59) notes, memorialisation (novels and films, monuments, commemorations) that appeared in these years tended to focus on the fate of the Netherlands as a nation; the experience of Dutch Jews ‘was, as it were, woven into the national history, as illustration of German perversity and as exemplification of what was done to the Dutch populace as a whole’6 [Italics in original]. Many returning Jews dealt with their experiences and the post-war climate by turning away from Jewish practice and believing that assimilation was the best course forward. Nevertheless, Jewish institutions began to be rebuilt almost immediately (Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003). Starting in the 1960s, Jewish culture, history, and the Holocaust became part of public discourse in the Netherlands at-large among both Jews and non-Jews, and numerous monuments to the victims of the war began to be built or developed in this time period. For example, in 1960 the Anne Frank house became a museum, and in 1962 the Hollandse Schouwburg (Dutch Theatre), which had served as a deportation centre for Amsterdam’s Jews, was turned into a memorial and museum as well (Ten Have 2010). In addition, as Ten Have (2010: 239) notes, ‘a new, critical generation began to question the stances and actions of non-Jews’7 during the war. One outcome of this attention to the Dutch role in the Holocaust was the 1973 Act on Benefits for Victims of Persecution 1940–1945 (Wet
244 Gabriella Modan Uitkeringen Vervolgingsslachtoffers), which paid restitution to victims of persecution from the German and Japanese occupations of the Netherlands and former Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia), respectively (cf. Wallet and Berg 2010). Since the 1980s, Amsterdam’s Jewish community has continued to grow and diversify. Immigrants, particularly from Israel and the former Soviet Union, have increased the population’s size, and there is a wide array of Jewish religious and cultural organisations. Researchers have noted that the many Jews who don’t participate formally in community institutions nevertheless feel a strong sense of Jewish identity, which they may articulate through non-institutional means such as holiday celebrations. (Van Solinge and Van Praag 2010; Wallet and Berg 2010; Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno 2003). Currently, about 20,000 Jews live in greater Amsterdam, with many in the southern part of the city and the southern suburbs, where most of the city’s Jewish institutions are located. Jews live throughout Amsterdam, though, and remain active in the city’s cultural and political life. As was the case before the war, Amsterdam’s Jewish community is the largest in the country, though significantly smaller than the pre-war population of 70,000. 2.2. Jews’ Ambiguous Positioning Despite the relatively integrated position of Amsterdam’s Jews in city life, Jews continue to occupy a ‘betwixt-and-between’ position, as is the case of Jews in many other European and other locales (cf. Arkin 2013; Bauman 1989; Brink-Danan 2012; Brodkin 1998; Bunzl 2004; Frank 1997). The work of Dutch scholars including Evelien Gans, Ido de Haan, Lou Presser and Frank van Vree on the effects of antisemitism in the Netherlands after World War II lays a foundation for understanding how the Holocaust intensified Jews’ insider/outsider identity in the Netherlands and particularly in Amsterdam. Van Vree’s explanation of Jews’ wartime trauma as exemplifying the Dutch experience in general sheds light on the meaning of the phrase “onze joden” (our Jews) discussed earlier. As Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno (2003: 24) put it, Gradually the Shoah [Holocaust] . . . came to constitute part of a collective Dutch consciousness and developed into one of the society’s most important moral barometers. One could cynically say that the persecution of the Jews was taken over by Dutch society as their national trauma.8 Gans (1994: 30–31) takes this argument a step further. She notes that conflicts over such issues as the fate of orphaned Jewish children,9 the moral fibre of Dutch Jews who had fled to England, whether Jews knew
Touring Amsterdam 245 their place in society, and the virtues or evils of Zionism, became part of public discourse that non-Jews weighed in on. Echoing again the concept of “onze joden,” Gans remarks that one could posit, cynically enough, that the war and the Shoah created the conditions for a polemic on the position of the Dutch Jews . . . in a manner and to an extent that would have been unthinkable before the war. The Jews had become ‘public property,’ as it were. . . . There was almost nothing [about Jewish identity] that was not up for discussion. (Gans 1994: 31)10 In other words, Jews became public property in the sense that the business of Jews became everyone’s business, and that directly after the war Jewish topics gained a prominent place in public discourse. Gans provocatively calls non-Jews’ attitudes towards Jews gojse nijd– goyische11 envy, and she is particularly interested in later iterations of ‘goyische envy,’ in the 1970s and 1980s. She exemplifies this phenomenon with Jewish novelist Leon de Winter’s description of an interaction with a journalist who reputedly said to him, You all have the damn Holocaust, you all always have something to write about. But what you don’t think about is that I want a piece of that Holocaust, too.12 (Gans 1994: 13) Recalling Stoutenbeek and Vigeveno’s remark that Dutch society had taken over the Holocaust as its own national trauma, De Winter’s anecdote makes clear that the extent of this takeover has been less than total and that it comes not without quite a bit of ambivalence: As many historians of Dutch Jews and the War have remarked (cf. De Haan 2010; Gans 1994; Presser 1965), Jews’ experience during the war was—and was cast as—profoundly horrific but at the same time unique. Thus, though non-Jews took on the Holocaust experience as their own, the reality of their different experiences placed a limit on the extent to which they could claim the Holocaust. It is this limit, Gans argues, that creates envy, which she describes as anti-Semitic ambivalence towards Jews consisting of ‘contempt and aversion versus admiration, feelings of superiority versus fear and in particular envy versus one’s own powerlessness and insecurity.’13,14 Out of the tension between the adoption of the Jewish experience as part of the Dutch collective consciousness and the reality that the Jewish experience ultimately cannot be completely shared, comes the ambivalent positioning of Jewish identity as at once consummately Dutch and uniquely different, as well as eternally tethered to the Holocaust. In other words, Jewish identity is framed as caught in time and liminal.
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3. The Ideological Power of Self-Guided Tours As Thurlow and Jaworski (2010: 195) point out, writers of travel guides have to pick and choose which aspects of history, society, and environment to include or omit. Thus, characterisations of a given place ‘unavoidably privilege [. . .] certain versions of social, cultural, political, and historical reality over others.’ By assigning names to geographical areas and drawing attention to certain elements of the environment, tourism materials crystalise and promote particular perspectives circulating in local, national, or international milieus. Kirschenblatt-Gimblett (1988: 7) argues that the activities of tourism ‘stage the world as a museum of itself.’ We can think of a neighbourhood targeted for tourism as a museumised landscape. As KirschenblattGimblett explains, objects in museums gain their meaning through the process of detachment from their original environment and recontextualisation in the museum setting. In self-guided neighbourhood tours, detachment and recontextualisation take place discursively; the texts that draw attention to particular elements of the built environment separate those elements from their immediate surroundings and put them into new relationships with each other, as well as into relationships with larger themes articulated in the tour materials. In contemporary post-industrial cities, such staging is often explicitly used for economic purposes. This is certainly the case in Amsterdam, where tourism is an important and growing sector of the economy. In 2016, approximately 18 million people visited Amsterdam, spending a total of 6.3 billion euros (Van Benthem et al. 2017). Between 2007 and 2017, visitors to the city increased by 60%, and jobs in the tourism sector grew by 33% (Fedorova et al. 2017). As can be seen by the plethora of walking, biking, and canal tours of “Jewish Amsterdam” as well as the line snaking around the corner of the Anne Frank house every morning, Jewish sites in Amsterdam play an important role in the tourist economy. Their economic significance is made explicit in the 2012 press release announcing the creation of the Jewish Cultural Quarter, an alliance of the Jewish Historical Museum, Portuguese Synagogue, Jewish Children’s Museum, and the National Holocaust Memorial/Dutch Theater (Hollandse Schouwburg)15: Through this joining of forces, the Jewish institutions can present themselves as one force and compete with Jewish neighborhoods in, for example, Berlin, Paris, and Prague. Ashworth (1998) describes this process as museumification; the transformation of heritage into commodified landscape, or, put more simply, into capital. In this process, as Wheeler (2004: 23) explains in her study of a Cornwall mining town designated as a UNESCO heritage site,
Touring Amsterdam 247 particular visions of places become fixed, and the landscape ‘acts as a mechanism through which social memory is recalled and reproduced.’ For city administrations, self-guided tours are a useful means of promoting an official vision of a city due to both their standardised nature (the content stays the same no matter who is following the tour) and their ability to be read even by people who don’t end up following the tour. They thus serve as a discursive gateway to understanding the city, even for people who are just browsing in tourist information offices or surfing the web; they are likely to reach a wider range of people than just those who actually decide to go on tours. Pinder (2008: 11) writes that ‘the city and its streets are repositories of stories and spectres that may suddenly be actualized in the present’ (see also Edensor 2005). In the case of Amsterdam, the city is saturated with traces of the Jewish past, both organic—an organ grinder on a pedestrian shopping street playing the 1930s Yiddish cabaret number Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn, or buildings with Stars of David above the doorway—and self-conscious—the many memorials and plaques throughout the city, streets, plazas and bridges that the city has renamed after prominent prewar Amsterdam Jews. The materiality of the Jewish past—as well as the Jewish present—is thus embedded in the landscape for those who notice. The self-guided tours are a means through which the stories of Jewish Amsterdam are actualised, as people’s attention is discursively directed towards the objects in the built environment where they are walking.
4. Data In order to examine how the relationship between Jews and the city is articulated and circulated at an institutional level, I focus on self-guided tours and other promotional materials (e.g., tourist magazines) published by city agencies such as the Tourism and Convention Board or Office of Economic Affairs or for sale in Amsterdam’s main tourist information agency, the VVV across the the Central Train Station.16 Six of the self-guided tours are of Jewish Amsterdam, one is of sites of Occupation and Resistance, and three are of neighbourhoods with a currently and historically large Jewish population. Two of these are of South Amsterdam and one is of the Plantage neighbourhood, southeast of the old Jewish quarter. In addition to the self-guided tours, I also examine a hip tourist magazine that reports on life in Amsterdam and local events.
5. Data Analysis 5.1. Infrastructure References As Cresswell (2010) has noted in his work on mobilities, walking ‘can be thought of as an entanglement of movement, representation, and
248 Gabriella Modan practice.’ One way that the self-guided tours achieve this kind of entanglement is through references to infrastructures such as streets and bridges. Infrastructure references guide the walker’s movements, detailing what paths to take, where to stop, in what direction to gaze. Additionally, infrastructure references constitute stops along the tour. References to named streets, plazas, or bridges in the tours thus serve both as means of conducting the visit (movement) and participating in tourism (practice) and as touristic representations in and of themselves. As Basso (1996) and others (cf. Blu 1996; Myers and Lampropoulou 2013; Nevins 2008) have observed, place names imbue space with cultural meaning; names serve as markers of community history and as symbols that reinforce or contest values within the larger community or society. When an element of infrastructure such as a bridge is given a historically or culturally weighted name, and a tour uses it as a conduit while simultaneously entextualising it as an object of the touristic gaze, the proprioceptics of bodily orientation while walking through that entextualised space heighten the affective proximity to the landscapes promoted in the guides. This is the point of pilgrimages to holy sites, where the proprioceptic and sensory practice of tracing a holy person’s steps heightens understanding of and intimacy with the site itself. As Wylie (2009: 278) has noted, this is what has been described in much contemporary geography scholarship on landscape as ‘contact, immersion, immediacy . . . co-presence of self and landscape.’ But Wylie notes that this merging of self and landscape does not get at the totality of the experience. Using the example of memorial benches along the coast of Cornwall, he observes that alongside the embodied intimacy, landscapes—particularly landscapes of memory—can create a disjuncture between self and place. Consider the following guidebook entry: Walk along the Mozes and Aaron Church to the Jodenbreestraat [lit. Jewish Broad Street] . . . . the Jodenbreestraat was once the vibrant heart of the Jewish Quarter. From the 18th century until the Second World War, the majority of this thriving shopping street with its lively street market was Jewish. The old street façade has now completely disappeared.17 In examples like this, the embodied intimacy of the self-guided tour is undercut as the tour-taker is confronted by the disjuncture between what they see before them and what is relayed in the text—a scene that can only be imagined. Rather than intimacy and alignment, then, the tourtaker is distanced from the people under discussion. A spectral landscape (cf. Maddern and Adey 2008) is created, in which the tour-takers’ present is haunted by traces of these former inhabitants, in the virtual absence of discussion of contemporary Jewish life in the city.
Touring Amsterdam 249 Infrastructural references are a means by which the past and the present are simultaneously brought together and distanced from each other, as in the entry that follows at a dock for sightseeing boats on a central city canal: Sightseeing boats on the Rokin: In their free time, the German soldiers behaved much like many other tourists in Amsterdam. Here, the text draws tour-takers’ attention to the sightseeing boats on the water in front of them. In so doing, as Maddern and Adey (2008: 292) remark in their discussion of spectral landscapes, ‘spaces and times are folded, allowing distant presences, events, people and things to become rather more intimate.’ But the contrast between the imagined time/space of the German soldiers and present-day tourists disembarking from the boats at the moment of the tour defeases that intimacy at the same time it is created. In this sense, we might say that a liminal moment is created where the tour-taker’s imagination destabilises their footing in the present and they exist in the space between that present and the imagined past of the German soldier-tourists.18 Along with boats, the tours also reference trams that still run along the same routes today: On the eve of the war, around 15,000 German-Jewish refugees lived in Amsterdam, most of whom were upper-middle class. The Beethovenbuurt was the neighborhood of choice predominantly for business people, artists, and intellectuals because, with a bit of imagination, it resembled the genteel Kürfurstendamm. Tram 24, which to this day connects the Beethovenbuurt with the center of town, was even nicknamed “the Berlin Express.” And in another tour, When line 9 came, we ran out the door, each with a baby under our arm. We ran alongside the tram and got in at the next stop, wheezing, and out of breath. Where the examples above contrast present infrastructure uses with past ones, in the entries below, spectral landscapes are created through references to infrastructures that have lost their function or that no longer exist. For example: Embedded in the pavement between the Jewish Historical Museum and the Arsenal building is a piece of tram rail, a lone reminder of a once vibrant Jewish street. In contrasting aspects of the present-day landscape where tour-takers are standing (e.g., “sightseeing boats on the Rokin,” the Jewish Historical
250 Gabriella Modan Museum) with descriptions of infrastructural elements in these spaces in the past, the tours layer the present-day landscape and the spectral landscape on top of one another. Jews are firmly anchored in the spectral landscape, however, thus what we can think of as a chronotopic (space-time) displacement is accomplished.Chronotopic displacement of Jews from present-day greater Amsterdam to the pre-War Jewish Quarter occurs through tense contrast—contrasting of a present-tense sentence with a past tense one—or simply use of past tense. This is particularly striking in the tours for Amsterdam Zuid, a neighbourhood that currently has a high Jewish population. (Examples are from two different tours.) Older Amsterdammers reminisce back to the vibrant atmosphere of a time past when many affluent Jews had moved to the area, making up around half of the population in 1924. For more than 350 years, Amsterdam was a center of Jewish life, and its Jewish community was a major contributor to the city’s vitality and prosperity. Even the few references to the current Jewish population in the neighbourhood are framed through the lens of the past, specifically the lens of the Holocaust. For example, in the description of an elegant shopping street in the Beethoven neighbourhood, a reference to present-day Jews in the neighbourhood is sandwiched between discussions of the Holocaust, with no further elaboration about contemporary Jewish life in the neighbourhood: Of the in total 80,000 Jewish Amsterdammers, only 5000 survived the concentration camps. After the war a large number of them returned to Amsterdam Zuid. Because of this, the Beethoven neighborhood has kept more of its Jewish identity than the severely damaged Old Jewish Quarter or Transvaal neighborhood, where, along with the Jewish population the original atmosphere of the neighborhood has completely vanished.
5.2. Erasure Another feature of the data that contributes to the spectral landscape is erasure (Irvine and Gal 2000). Texts often articulate the Nazi’s mass murder of the Jews through a grammar of non-agency (cf. Ehrlich 2001), thereby both reconfiguring murder as simply a disappearance, as well as erasing the events of the Holocaust. This is the case in the aforementioned example, where the Holocaust is alluded to through a reference to
Touring Amsterdam 251 how many Jews survived concentration camps, without any propositions in the example or elsewhere in the tour discussing how and by whom Jews in Amsterdam were rounded up, deported to the Westerbork transit camp, and ultimately taken to concentration camps. The non-agentivity is heightened in the last sentence of the earlier example with the unaccusative verb vanish to describe what happened to both the Jews and the neighbourhood’s atmosphere. We see similar strategies in the three tour-stop entries that follow, where implicature or presupposition are used to convey information about Jews being sent to concentration camps and what happened there, why Germans were passing regulations in Amsterdam, and the tragic reasons why Jews did not return from concentration camps. Markets were held daily, with the exception of Saturdays, when merchants observed their day of rest. After the war, the market remained, however much of the original charm was gone due to the loss of so many Jewish merchants.19 The [diamond] industry flourished in the 19th century. However, after the Second World War, Amsterdam lost its dominant position in the diamond world. The role was shifted to Antwerp as labour was cheaper, and because the majority of Amsterdam’s trained workforce never returned from the German concentration camps. [A] romantic and multi-faceted neighborhood, where Rembrandt roamed, where 18th century housewives fetched their spices at Jacob Hooy’s [spice shop], where people worked and lived and to which thousands of Jewish compatriots never returned. In this last entry—the opening sentence of the tour—both the Holocaust and Jews are erased through both the presupposition (rather than proposition) that Jews never returned, and through the lack of a proposition to set out the fact that they had lived in the neighbourhood in the first place. In implicating or presupposing the events of the Holocaust (especially when they are left off-record) and the fate of the city’s Jews, these texts present the events of the Holocaust as given knowledge, a commonground understanding of Dutch and Jewish history. This strategy accomplishes two things: first, omitting mention of how the Holocaust played out in Amsterdam makes it possible to avoid mentioning the actions of non-Jewish Amsterdammers during the occupation—actions that have come under increasing critique and scrutiny in recent years (cf. De Keizer and Pomp 2010; De Haan 1997; Timmerman 2007). Second, because it is left unmentioned, the reader must actively engage prior knowledge to
252 Gabriella Modan generate the implicature that this is about the Holocaust. (And a reader without such knowledge will not be able to fully comprehend the texts.) Through this active implicature generation, the primacy of the Holocaust paradoxically becomes heightened even as it is left out of the story. The omission thus increases the monolithic identification of Jews with the Holocaust (cf. Modan and Shuman 2010). Another form that erasure takes is the omission of the Jewish identity of Amsterdammers who are mentioned.Take this entry for the Harmoniehof, a particularly picturesque Amsterdam Zuid street: In earlier years a remarkable number of shopkeepers and teachers lived on this street, but they’ve made way for writers. Among others, Mensje van Keulen, Chaja Polak, Lisette Lewin, Jan Donkers, Helga Walop, Ileen Montijn, Barber van der Pol, Martin Schouten, Vera Illés en Robert Vuijsje live in these calm and inspiring surroundings. Although 40% of the authors on this list are Jewish, this entry neglects to mention not only that Chaja Polak, Lisette Lewin, Vera Illés, and Robert Vuisje are present-day Jewish writers but also that they write about Jewish themes from an explicitly Jewish perspective, and that they all are known as Jewish writers (cf. Blok et al. 2007). Inclusion of this information could have destabilised the pre-war/wartime Jewish chronotope. Erasure also occurs by means of a focus on building features, without reference to the people who frequent or frequented the buildings or the activities that take/took place inside them, as in this description of the Uilenburgersjoel (synagogue): On your right, at no. 91, is a former synagogue dating back to 1766. If the gate is open, feel free to take a peek inside. The synagogue’s exterior is still beautifully intact. Left unexplained here is why the gate might be open. In contrast, the stated objectives of the foundation that runs the synagogue make clear that the synagogue is still very much in use: The Jewish roots of the Uilenburgersjoel [synagogue] are honoured. The synagogue exudes two hundred and fifty years of Jewish history and rituals. Shabbat services are held several times a month, Jewish holidays are celebrated, and there is space for Jewish classes and Torah studies. The synagogue welcomes the liberal as well as the orthodox currents within Judaism. In the few instances where these tours mention the current activities of Jews in the buildings in question, the people who conduct the
Touring Amsterdam 253 activities are backgrounded, as in this description of the Portuguese Synagogue: For two hundred years it was the largest synagogue in the world and to this day this building fulfills a religious function for SpanishPortuguese Jews. . . . The teba, or the elevated podium from which the Torah is read aloud, belongs on the west side. The hechal, in which the Torah rolls wrapped in brocade covers are kept, on the east side. Both are made from costly Brazilian hardwood. In the first sentence of this entry, the Jews who form the synagogue’s congregation or otherwise participate in events there are represented in a benefactive agency role (‘this building . . . fulfils a religious function for Spanish-Portuguese Jews’), subordinated to the matrix-clause subject the building. In the sentences that follow, the congregants’ agency is completely obscured through passivisation; left unmentioned is the person who is reading the Torah and who is keeping the Torah rolls on the east side. 5.3. Discursive Anchoring: The Jewishness of Amsterdam Despite the erasures and chronotopic displacements detailed earlier, the tours evidence a discursive anchoring of Jews in the city. Though examples like the Portuguese synagogue entry noted earlier grammatically obscure the Jews who use the synagogue, at the same time such entries implicate Jews’ centuries’ long tenure and continuity in Amsterdam. In other ways, although the tours paint Jews as vulnerable Others, they also discursively tether Jews to the city, and the city to Jews. One of the most intriguing examples of this ambivalent tethering is a tour guide entry on the Grenspaal (boundary marker) monument. On one side the monument commemorates the protest movement of the 1970s to end urban redevelopment that was tearing up the central core of the city and the old Jewish Quarter. The other side displays the poem Amsterdam by the Jewish Dutch poet Jacob Israël de Haan. The guidebook reproduces the poem as part of its entry: Die te Amsterdam vaak zei “Jeruzalem” En naar Jeruzalem gedreven kwam Hij zegt met een mijmrende stem “Amsterdam, Amsterdam” He who in Amsterdam oft said “Jerusalem” And, driven, to Jerusalem came Now says in pensive tongue [lit: voice] “Amsterdam, Amsterdam”
254 Gabriella Modan This multivalent monument highlights the ambiguous positioning of Jews in tourism texts, belonging and yet not belonging at the same time. On the monument itself, Jews are linked with the sociopolitical life of the city and its history of social movements and fights over infrastructure through the simultaneous inscription of De Haan’s poetry and the demise of urban ‘renewal’ on the same monument. This connection is reinforced in the guidebook through the reproduction of the monument’s inscriptions. The De Haan poem, however, as well as the explication it receives in the guidebook, is complicated: On the one hand, the monument honours a Jewish Amsterdammer who has the status of a renowned Dutch poet. However, the guidebook describes De Haan as a ‘Jewish poet who was murdered in the former Palestine in 1924’ (emphasis added), thus discursively distancing De Haan from Amsterdam, just as the poem itself does by placing the protagonist as well as the poem’s deictic centre in Jerusalem. Within the lines of the poem itself, the protagonist’s connection with Amsterdam is foregrounded through the framing accomplished by the poem’s first line. However, ultimately the poem is about a Jew who was driven to emigrate to Jerusalem. ‘Driven’ here is multivalent; the drive may be read as internal, in the sense of a longing for Jerusalem, as well as external, in the sense of ‘driven out,’ echoing Jews’ diasporic history. This history is also alluded to by the additional meaning of gedreven in Dutch as ‘floated’; in this sense, the line could mean ‘and to Jerusalem came drifting,’ a possible allusion to Jews’ expulsions from numerous locales.20 The climax of the poem is the protagonist’s longing for Amsterdam, the city he was originally driven to leave. This poem is representative of De Haan himself, who, like many other Dutch Jews who had emigrated to Israel, had planned to move back to Amsterdam. The poem’s placement on the monument thus inscribes into the landscape of the old Jewish Quarter, a Jewish identity that is simultaneously aligned with and disaligned from both Jerusalem and Amsterdam. With the poem’s appearance in the guidebook, this betwixt and betweenness becomes part of the Jewish positionality that the tour creates. Like descriptions of the Grenspaal monument, tour entries on the Spinoza monument also link Jews to the ethos of the city. This monument commemorates the Portuguese Jewish Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In the case of the Spinoza monument, the connection helps to scaffold the image of Amsterdam as a tolerant city. As one tour explains, The monument to the right of the bridge is the Spinoza monument. Spinoza stood for freedom of speech, tolerance and religious freedom. Nicolas Dings’ sculpture is meant to render a connection between Spinoza’s philosophy and the city today.
Touring Amsterdam 255 5.4. Yiddish Loanwords Another strategy that constructs an equally multivalent connection between Amsterdam and Jews is the use of Yiddish, which is a key source of loanwords in the Amsterdam dialect. Some words appear over and over, a form of commodified entextualisation that often co-occurs with descriptions of the integration of things Jewish into the larger culture; thus, Yiddish loanwords help to market the city as a multicultural, open, and tolerant place. Looking at the distribution of Yiddish loanwords in the lexicon of Amsterdam Dutch, it is notable that these loanwords have been deeply incorporated into the lexicon of everyday life. They signify the name of the city itself and its dialect (Mokum and Mokums, respectively, from the Hebrew/Yiddish makom, meaning place), as well as such basic words as water, wine, face, guy, friend, family, goodbye, or, before the Netherlands converted to the Euro, units of money.21 (see Beem 1974) Because poor neighbourhoods were the incubator for the spread of Yiddish loanwords into the local dialect, the words have a working-class or folksy, down-to-earth connotation. Using Yiddish loanwords constructs a speaker as an authentic, born-and-bred Amsterdammer, often with a working-class orientation or allegiance if not actually a workingclass background. Yiddish loanwords have become enregistered as integral elements of what is referred to as plat Amsterdams, or ‘vulgar Amsterdamese’ in the sense of ‘vulgar Latin.’ At least in unmarked cases, using Yiddish loanwords conveys no sense of Jewish identity. In ethnographic interviews, I asked both Jews and non-Jews to imagine that if they were on a bus and heard someone behind them using words like mokum, majim, gozer, or ponem,22 what kind of person they would picture. Every single person responded immediately with, “someone from Amsterdam,” “an Amsterdammer,” or “someone born and bred in Amsterdam.” When I asked specifically if it would be more likely to be someone of a particular ethnicity, age, gender, or any other social category, the only tentatively affirmative answer I received was that perhaps it would be someone with a lower level of education or someone older. The way that Yiddish is used in tourism materials constructs the language, and by extension Jews, as both insiders and outsiders. What the uses have in common across the documents is that Yiddish is one of the mechanisms that bind the history of Jews to that of the city. For example, The Jewish name for Amsterdam is Mokum, and means ‘place’ in Hebrew.23 Amsterdam was the city for the Jews, and everything outside was the Mediene (country or province). This use of language shows how significant Amsterdam was to the Jews and influences are
256 Gabriella Modan still seen today. The word mazzel, for example, is used to wish someone luck,24and mesjogge means totally nuts. Jewish humour is very prevalent here, with jokes often made about Sam and Moses [Sam en Moos]. And where would we be without the Jewish foods we’ve become so accustomed to? Osseworst (oxen sausage) is just as integrated into our diets as meikaas (‘May cheese’—a young cheese made when the cows have eaten the first grass of the spring) or pekelvlees (salted beef25), pickled onions and gherkins. Here we see a slippage between Amsterdam as important for Jews and Jews as important for Amsterdam, and this slippage is accompanied by a subtle shift from past to present tense;Amsterdam was the city for the Jews, it was significant for them, presumably before the war. But while the present moment is depicted in the excerpt, Jews are discursively absent from it; it’s only traces of their culture—language, humour, and food—that have survived and been integrated into the daily life of the “we” in present-day Amsterdam. The use of Yiddish here is double-edged. At first glance, it seems that the text is universalising Yiddish words as the birthright of all Amsterdammers. But describing Mokum as the Jewish name for the city, rather than the name for the city in the local dialect, re-ethnicises Yiddish. The invocation of Yiddish can also be found in a trendy tourist magazine called Amsterdam Magazine. Alongside articles like “Pimp My Bike” and “10 Ways to Impress a Dutch Girl” is a Dutch A-Z guide. Among the guide’s Dutch icons including T for tulips, W for water management, windmills, and wooden shoes, and the three Xs of the Amsterdam city crest, we find Y for Yiddish. Like the infrastructure and erasure examples discussed earlier, the magazine’s description of Yiddish (erroneously) connects Yiddish with the World War II era: Many words from the Amsterdam dialect originate from the Yiddish language. Examples are mazzel (lucky), mesjogge (crazy), nebbisj (unlucky person), achenebbisj (poor, messy)26 and koosjer (in order, all ok). Before WWII, Amsterdam was home to a large group of Jews whose mother tongue was Yiddish. Here, the positioning of Yiddish among other local and national icons in the A-Z guide and its description as part of the local dialect makes the language, and by extension the people associated with it, part of the local fabric. At the same time, however, the temporal placement of Jews in the pre-war past and the (off-record) connection of Jews with an abject past, defeases the connection between Jews and the city and, as in the previous example, re-ethnicises Yiddish as something Jewish. The mention of the pre-war period (“before the war”)— which again tethers Jews to the Holocaust—is particularly striking,
Touring Amsterdam 257 given that Amsterdam’s Jews had stopped speaking Yiddish by the end of the 19th century.
5. Conclusion Frers (2013: 433) remarks that ‘absence arises in the experience; it is a relational phenomenon that constitutes itself in corporeal perceptions. Someone has to miss something for it to be specifically absent.’ The corporeality of following a self-guided tour—gazing at the canals where German soldiers passed the time, walking on the streets and bridges where where Jews later murdered by Nazis used to walk, feeling the rush of air as the 24 tram goes by—coupled with the act of reading the tours and taking in the discursive framing therein, folds time upon itself to make the tour-taker feel the absence of Amsterdams’ Jews. As Wylie (2009: 279) puts it, ‘all the traces of presence of those now absent are worked in a way to show, synchronously, the absence of presence’—in this case, a constructed lack of Jews in the present moment and ‘the presence of absence’27—the palpable, haunting feeling that people are missing. This geography of absence helps to constrict and fix the narrative of Amsterdam’s Jews, forever associating them with the Holocaust and thereby constituting them as an intrinsically and eternally vulnerable people. In turn, this narrative works as part of a discursive infrastructure that undergirds and helps to market Amsterdam as a pre-eminent place of openness and tolerance. The emphasis on the pre-war/wartime period keeps the story of Jews and Amsterdam tidy, unencumbered by the details of the cold reception that Amsterdam Jews received when they returned after the war and the antisemitism in Dutch society then or in ensuing years. One might indeed describe non-Jewish Amsterdammers’ stance towards Jews at that time and, in some ways, up to the present moment, as one of tolerance. It is not tolerance in the sense of openness, however. Rather, tolerance in this sense is putting up with someone or something while not wholly accepting it, for a group that is fully accepted becomes part of the polity and does not stand out as a candidate for tolerance. From this perspective, the connection between tolerance and Jews in Amsterdam tourism texts is quite telling and entirely consistent with the liminal position that these texts construct for Jews. In Turner’s view, liminality serves a function for the society-at-large, as well as for those in liminal positions during rites of passage. For Turner, the liminal position is temporary, and it creates an opportunity for change and growth for those in the temporary liminal space. This is not the case for the Jewish liminal positions that we have seen in the tourism texts. Additionally, for Turner, liminality serves the interests of those in liminal positions as well as those of the larger society. In the case detailed here, however, Jews’ liminality serves only the interests of the dominant culture. Liminality
258 Gabriella Modan works towards creating a self-image of tolerance for the dominant group, for tolerance necessarily relies on the liminality of the Other. Critical for Amsterdam’s identity and an inherent part of the city fabric yet present only in their absence, Jews in these tours are fixed as betwixt and between.
Notes 1 I’m grateful for comments on this chapter from Marco Last, as well as Rudi Gaudio, Jenny Leeman, and Roberta Piazza. Many thanks also to the scholars at the Meertens Institute, Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies at the University of Amsterdam, and Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam who helped me think about Jews, language, and Amsterdam, including Marc van Oostendorp, Frans Hinskens, Jan Rath, Markha Valenta, Nico Besnier, Vincent de Rooij, and Barak Kalir. As always, all inaccuracies remain my own. 2 Since this data was first collected, the Amsterdam VVV’s website has been subsumed by the city’s newer I Amsterdam tourism website, which no longer carries this text. However, the text has been copied and is currently displayed verbatim on multiple Netherlands government and commercial tourism websites, giving it a stronger web presence. 3 “Dat een dominante groep aan een niet-dominante groep toestaat meningen of bestaansvormen te hebben die van de gewone orde schijnen af te wijken.” 4 Although workers in the diamond industry were overwhelmingly Jewish, it was Christian diamond workers, who overall had the least specialised and thus lowest paying jobs in the industry, who began the strike that spurred the formation of the trade union (van As 2014.) It was the Jewish Henri Polak, however, who was instrumental in the formation and development of the trade union itself. The union is considered to be the country’s first comprehensive modern trade union, responsible for the 8-hour workday and a number of other workplace rights. 5 In Amsterdam, much of the land is owned by the city, and property owners pay a tax to lease the ground that their property sits on. 6 Werd als het ware ingeweven in de nationale geschiedenis, als illustratie van de Duitse perversiteit en als exemplificatie van wat de Nederlandse volksgemeenschap als geheel was aangedaan. 7 Een nieuwe, kritische generatie begon bovendien vraagtekens te plaatsen bij de houding van de niet-Joodse Nederlanders. 8 Gaandeweg ging de Sjoa . . . onderdeel uitmaken van een collectief Nederlands bewustzijn en groeide het uit tot een van de belangijkste morele ijkpunten in de samenleving. Cynisch gezegd werd de jodenvervolging door de Nederlandse samenleving als nationaal trauma overgenomen. 9 Whether they should remain with the families who hid them during the war or be raised in a Jewish milieu. 10 Men zou kunnen stellen dat, cynisch genoeg, de oorlog en de shoah de voorwaarden geschapen hadden voor een polemiek over de positie van de Nederlandse joden . . . op een manier en in een mate als vóór de oorlog ondenkbaar zou zijn geweest. De joden waren als het ware ‘publiek eigendom’ geworden. . . . [Er was] bijna niets dat niet ter discussie stond.” 11 Goj, an Amsterdam Dutch loanword from Yiddish meaning gentile (nonJew), has a somewhat negative valence, just as the equivalent loanword in English has.
Touring Amsterdam 259 12 “Jullie hebben die verdomde holocaust, jullie hebben altijd wat om over te schrijven. Maar waar jullie niet bij stilstaan dat is dat ik ook een stuk van die holocaust wil.” 13 Minachting en weerzin versus bewondering, superioriteitsgevoel versus angst en in het bijzonder de nijd versus eigen onmacht en onzekerheid. 14 It’s worth pointing out here that the non-Jews Gans writes about are specifically members of the dominant group of ethnic Dutch residents of the country, rather than other ethnic minorities. 15 The National Holocaust Museum joined the Quarter upon its opening in 2016. 16 One of these tours was collaboratively published by the Anne Frank House and Office of Economic Affairs, another was commercially published. All others were published by city agencies. 17 For the sake of space, I use English translations of the data unless the details of the Dutch grammar are important to the analysis. 18 Although not the focus of this chapter, it is this liminal space in which transformation can occur for tourists, sensitising them to everyday life of pre-war Jews as well as to anti-semitism; this has the potential to promote the kind of social integration that Turner claimed was made possible by liminal rites. 19 Also striking here is the portrayal of Jews as a vehicle for creating neighbourhood charm and atmosphere. 20 My thanks to Marco Last for this last point. 21 Majim, jajm, ponem, gozer, gabber, tof, misjpogge, and joetje and meier, respectively. 22 Amsterdam, water, guy, and face, respectively 23 Although this text refers to Hebrew rather than Yiddish, I include it in my discussion of Yiddish because mazzel made its way into Mokums via Yiddish, not via Hebrew. 24 Actually, it is more often used as a way to say goodbye (de mazzel). 25 Corned beef would be a more accurate translation. 26 A more accurate translation would be pathetic; it is also used as an exclamation of pity. 27 Emphasis in original.
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11 The Politics of Mental Health: Alienation and Community in Inner-City London Eva Oddi
1. Introduction Mental health occupies an increasingly significant place in modern culture and has become a key factor in both political and social rhetoric. One of the key points of discussion has been an attempt to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illnesses. Numerous campaigns have been launched in the past five years by charities, celebrities, and politicians calling for people to talk more openly about the experience of mental health. While this work is commendable, there has yet to be a satisfactory acknowledgement of a disparity in the experience of health based on socio-economic factors. In addition, although there is a better general understanding of well-being and mental health, there is still insufficient focus on the disabling effect of living with a severe and enduring mental illness (from hereon SMI), and the immense impact this has on a person’s ability to work. These campaigns have undoubtedly raised awareness and introduced a more empathic view of disorders, such as depression and anxiety. However, the focus remains on the individual experience of illness and can gloss over the experience of wider social structures, such as the impact of drastic cuts to services and assistance or the introduction of draconian health assessments. The shame attached to long-term unemployment and welfare claiming is also insufficiently addressed as part of reducing stigmas around mental health. As a mental health frontline worker, a considerable portion of work is spent addressing issues related to welfare or housing. This ranges from trying to understand how to navigate the dense bureaucracy encasing state benefits to then be able to support others to make claims and advocate for themselves, to supporting clients struggling with the emotional impact of being unable to work. In The Hub, a recovery centre for people with enduring mental health conditions, where this study was carried out, most people were financially dependent on some form of welfare and had experienced long-term unemployed. The majority had precarious living situations with many people falling back into crisis due to cuts to benefits, which, in some cases, lead to evictions or homelessness. This chapter analyses interviews with people accessing
264 Eva Oddi The Hub and focuses on their attachment to this space where they receive support. The interviews presented here offer a snapshot into the destructive effects of reducing crucial resources such as welfare and funding for support services. The east London borough of Hackney is one of the areas of London which has experienced the fastest levels of gentrification, which can be broadly defined as ‘the process of middle-class residential expansion into hitherto working-class areas’ (Hamnett 2003: 159). In 2010, it was ranked the second most deprived local authority in England, just four years later in 2015, it had moved to 11th (Hackney Council 2016: 17). House prices now average almost £600,000, more than six times the amount of the average wage in the borough and are now the most expensive in the UK relative to wages (Cox, 2017). There is a fast-growing disparity between the areas of the community that still experience high levels of poverty and the newer, richer demographic which can be highlighted through the difference in each groups’ experience of mental health recovery and well-being.
2. Ethics and Anthropology: The Study’s Context Medical anthropology serves to understand illness as is perceived in relation to culture; the focus on individual welfare fostered by psychiatry and self-care rhetoric has obscured the impact of political and societal violence and its impact on mental health (Cohen et al. 1996, p. 54). Widespread political instability has brought with it endemic numbers of people suffering with conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress, which form part of a vicious cycle of social discontent. Health is often thought of as ‘a simple fact of nature’; however, a more political anthropology can provide an alternative view of such commonly accepted views (Fassin 2007: 256). There are two dominant approaches in the political anthropology of health; the first is a constructivist approach, which provides a description of how objects of health or illness are constructed through experience and knowledge (Lock 1988 cited in Nunes 2014: 3). The second emphasises the social conditions that foster poor health, ‘thus drawing attention to disparities and violence that show up in the body’ (Farmer in Fassin 2007: 253). This research predominantly follows the latter category, although a social construction of health and illness will also be discussed. This research also responded to the interdisciplinary ethnographic genre of ‘Public Anthropology’ and its call to conduct a more socially motivated research. This style of ethnography is motivated by a ‘moral obligation’ to concern itself not only with subaltern strands of society but also with sectors of power which have engrained structures of oppression and domination within modern society. (Purcell 2000: 31–32). In using individual examples and experiences of people living with enduring
The Politics of Mental Health 265 mental health problems, the direct impact of wider policy decisions, such as funding cuts, are brought to the surface. Post-modernism and its influence on ethnographic anthropology brought with it a call for researchers to adopt a ‘self-conscious reflexivity’ (Bourgois 1996: 13). In the specific case of this study, my position as a worker within the Hub charity meant that the fieldwork would benefit from the existing worker- client dynamic. Bloor (2004) outlines a major critique of carrying out qualitative research within social and community services. He adopts a Foucauldian view of pastoral care and the notion of ‘clinical gaze,’ in which clinicians focus on ‘illness’ making the patient feel as though they are defined by their diagnoses and thus dehumanised; on these grounds, Bloor argues that the analysis of the behaviours of people with an SMI contributes to the exertion of power through surveillance. Following this argument, it is more beneficial to highlight the strategies of resistance participants adopt against the disciplinary power of ‘experts,’ rather than assisting in the extension of power over them (Bloor 2004: 318). This research does not seek to depict participants as victims, rather it hopes to offer an alternative insight into the correlation between economic and cultural change. It, therefore, challenges the perception of participants as passive dependent subjects, while the use of qualitative methods facilitates a level of self-representation, which depicts participants as independent agents with agency navigating faceless bureaucratic systems.
3. Methodology: Ethnographic Methods This research was carried out in a small mental health charity in Hackney where I worked as a frontline worker for 18 months. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five clients who were recruited following conversations which occurred through participant observation in The Hub. The only criteria for participants to be included in the study were to be living in Hackney and to have an SMI. SMI’s are characterised by their lengthy duration and the disability they produce which severely impedes on daily functioning. These illnesses often produce psychotic symptoms, and include disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Bhevolution.org, 2016). Although unemployment and an engagement with the welfare system were also common themes, this became a point of enquiry once the study had already started and it became clear this was a ubiquitous experience for participants. Frontline work shares many of the same characteristics of ethnographic work and it has even been suggested that outreach workers and practitioners use qualitative methods as a paradigm for their work practices (Shaw 1996 cited in Bloor 2004: 321). The semi-structured interviews replicated the structure of a support meeting. This meant that ‘probing’ techniques, as outlined by Bernard (2006: 218), were often not necessary
266 Eva Oddi and participants developed the ‘flow of information’ without needing to be verbally prompted. However, this also raised questions over the validity of positioning of a worker as a neutral observer as discussed in the ethics section. Anthropologists, such as Abu-Lughod (1990: 13–14), have highlighted the need for anthropology to distance itself from the epistemological stance of objectivity and to adopt a more reflexive and textual rhetoric. The position of the researcher is inevitably biased; this falls into a wider debate within the social sciences about epistemological knowledge and the validity of claiming neutrality over the subjects we study. In this instance, a level of subjectivity was beneficial to the research. An understanding of the increase in pressure on the charity sector, specifically those working to support mental health, is vital to demonstrating the impact of cuts to funding at a time when demand is higher than ever. The interviews were designed to cover specific themes even in the absence of set questions that would restrain the direction the participants wanted to take. Participant observation of service users at The Hub allowed the identification of emerging patterns of discourse within the space and discussions among participants. Fieldnotes were recorded over a period of six months and clients were aware that research was being conducted. Ethical approval for the study to be carried out was obtained from relevant parties and recordings were kept on a dictaphone in a locked pedestal. Participants, who are referred to by pseudonyms, signed a consent form and were aware that they would be able to withdraw from the study at any point. Qualitative methods, such as ethnographic research, contribute to an understanding based on experience, emotion, and social interactions. An account of everyday life at The Hub and day-to-day life there offered insight into the experiences of people living with an enduring mental health condition and the importance the space held for those accessing it.
4. Background and Rationale: The Political Economy of Mental Health 4.1. The Hub: Living With a Severe and Enduring Illness in Hackney On a quiet street next to the entrance of the hospital, sits The Hub. A small leafy patio, which could be mistaken for somebody’s front garden leads to the entrance. A handwritten sign sellotaped to the door reads ‘please knock loudly, doorbell not working!’. To the side of the door are a herb garden and a small plastic greenhouse filled with sprouting seedlings. In the summer, the front door is left open, and for a large part of the morning, the sunlight hits the sofas in the main area.
The Politics of Mental Health 267 The space is often described as ‘homely’; the front door opens onto a large seating area of sofas and armchairs; there is a large dining table and an open kitchen. Every Friday at lunchtime, all the tables are pulled together for the weekly lunch, which is long and leisurely and often provokes lively discussions. The space is adorned with plants, paintings, portraits, and photos. Posters and leaflets with information on local crisis services are also strategically positioned around the centre. Daisy had been accessing the service for around eight months when I first interviewed her and was often vocal about her anxieties around having to leave the space. (1) Researcher: What do you like about coming to The Hub? Daisy: Being around safe people. I can be honest about my depression, it’s a safe space to speak about these things. I come here to stop myself from isolating. Before I came here I just went to work, nothing else. Didn’t interact with anyone, I made a cocoon around myself. I feel like the isolation came after my Dad passed away, and a relationship went wrong. I shut myself off from socialising. I used my job as an outlet and then it stopped being an outlet and became like a prison. I needed to keep paying the bills. Now, instead of neglecting my health, I’m going to keep a balance. I’m not going back to full-time, I’ll do volunteering, keep doing other things. Not go back into my cocoon. The Hub is run by a small local mental health charity and is a drop-in space used to run group sessions, which people access as part of their ‘recovery journey.’ These groups can be therapeutic, creative or skillsbased and include cooking, gardening, and art therapy. SMI Clients are offered a two-year service during which time they are able to access the centre for 100 hours. These hours are used as currency to access the wide variety of groups, the drop in or speaking one-to-one with a Support Co-ordinator. There is a communal space in the middle of the centre with individual side rooms for private meetings, which clients have jokingly referred to as ‘confession booths.’ The communal sit-down lunch offered every Friday, strongly evokes the routines and activities usually reserved for families and loved ones. The space layout and the inclusion of photographs and artwork by clients also contribute to the homely atmosphere. In the interviews, the frequent references to the ‘family feel’ of The Hub demonstrate the healing effects of community while highlighting the lack of this outside. Hackney is one of the London boroughs with the highest number of lone households, and many of the Hub clients were living alone. Loneliness
268 Eva Oddi was also cited as one of the aspects of SMI participants felt most affected by. (3) Researcher: How much do you think loneliness and isolation plays a part in mental health? Antonia: A lot, you can be around people who understand you and still feel isolated. Because when you go home, shut that front door, there’s nobody. I used to ring people and just cry down the phone. I used to see visions and stuff. But people got fed up with me so I don’t do that anymore. If they ask me if I’m ok I just say yes or no. Coming here and doing courses helps. People get it. I have something to focus my mind on and take it off other things. The comparisons Antonia makes between the ‘outside world’ and The Hub demonstrates the healing effect the space has had on the isolation she previously felt as a result of her mental health. Whereas before there was ‘nobody’ and she learned not to rely on people as they ‘got fed up’ with her, she now has access to a place where ‘people get it.’ She has found her own form of therapy, where she can ‘focus her mind’ and gain a sense of comfort through shared experience and understanding with others at The Hub. In Hackney, one-fifth of the population suffers from a diagnosed mental health problem. The borough also has a higher rate of new cases of psychosis and hospital admissions for mental health compared to other similar areas (Mind 2017: 8). Homerton is the district within Hackney where both The Hub and the hospital are based. It has a long-standing reputation for violent crime and deprivation and is one of the neighbourhoods in the borough to have least benefitted from Hackney’s regeneration. According to the Index of Multiple Deprivation, Homerton is one of the highest ranking districts. It has the worst levels of child poverty in Hackney and the highest number of socially rented households; also the estimated rates of depression within Hackney are twice as high as the national average and are likely to be even higher in Homerton due to underreporting, which is consistent with deprived areas (City of London and Hackney 2016: 164–170). The importance of social space in contemporary society is vital, and often ‘embodies or signifies sites of both material and symbolic political struggles’ (McNeill 1999: 2). Lefebvre has suggested that ‘just as everyday life has been colonised by capitalism, so too has its location—social space’ (Lefebvre 1974 cited in Elden 2007: 5). The high value of social space is clear in a regenerated Hackney where there is an abundance of activities aimed at improving ‘well-being,’ such as yoga, healthy food shops, and meditation classes—though these are largely inaccessible
The Politics of Mental Health 269 luxuries for many people accessing statuary services. The increased focus on this aspect of health within the framework of capitalism and consumerism juxtaposed against the removal of funds for free crisis and support services raises many questions. Most pertinently, whose mental health is being prioritised and why? 4.2. ‘Time to Change’ and Reducing the Stigma Among the most widely known and successful campaigns aiming to break the taboo of mental health are the Heads Together campaign and the Time To Change campaign, which aims to ‘end mental health discrimination and stigma’ (Time To Change 2017). Led by charities, these conversations have helped shift what is a deeply private experience into public spaces, facilitating an improved understanding of mental health. Antonia, along with many other clients at The Hub, spoke about the effects of the stigma and also raises a crucial point around the lack of aftercare and support for people once they are exited from a service. (4) Researcher: What would you like from the future? Antonia: More people, like celebrities, and people like us here, to talk about mental health. To show that we are not all axe-wielding schizophrenic murders or whatever you see on TV. We are just people who have an illness and are just trying to get through our lives. I would like more understanding, more facilities, and more funding. And to get more work set up for people once they leave here. If they go out there to work they need help to fall back on, because they could relapse at any time. If they can’t have a worker after they leave because of funding, then at least have a number so they can talk to someone. Politicians have also begun to recognise the importance of addressing mental health. In February 2016, the British prime minister, Theresa May, adopted the rhetoric of the campaigns and pledged to ‘tackle the stigma’ surrounding mental health problems, describing it as one of the ‘burning injustices of our time’ (Gov.uk 2017). In a speech delivered to the Charity Commission, the Prime Minister unveiled her vision for a ‘shared society,’ which aimed to bring together charities and governing bodies to tackle the mental health epidemic. She condemned that ‘people with mental health problems still do not receive the same treatment as those who have a physical ailment’ (Gov.uk 2017). However, less than two months later, the government also announced it would be cutting Personal Independence Payments (PIP) to those suffering from psychological distress. PIP is a points-based welfare payment to help those living with a long-term
270 Eva Oddi disability or illness. Depression is currently the leading cause of disability affecting around 4.4% of the world’s population (WHO 2017). In this instance, the actions taken by the government to better mental health did not align with the rhetoric they were seen to be promoting. Instead, the burden onto charities and the NHS was increased thus portioning the responsibility of the endemic onto these organisations without offering any additional resources or funding. While the number of referrals for charity mental health services is rapidly increasing, the provisions to run them have been slashed (Mind 2016). Frontline services are carrying the burden of cuts to social and charity services, as well as welfare provisions for people suffering from severe mental distress. Workers are stretched, and services become time limited to allow more people access to them. A one size fits all, impersonal approach is used to plug gaps and stretch limited funds to accommodate the growing demand. People are encouraged to seek help and ‘speak out’ but once they do, they may face waiting lists of over a year for talking therapy and will find that there is minimal support available (Mind 2013). Most participants at The Hub, who have been accessing mental health services in and around Hackney for years, agreed that there has been a general improvement in attitudes and approaches to mental health. There is still work to be done in acknowledging that social class needs to be factored into the equation in order to gain a nuanced understanding of the experience of living with an SMI. The drastic cuts to services disproportionately affects those from poorer socio-economic backgrounds who are not able to afford private therapy or treatments, further stigmatising and thus alienating individuals who are excluded from the working domain. 4.3 Unemployment, Welfare, and Living With an SMI Piven and Cloward claim that ‘market incentives are weakest at the bottom of social order’ and the welfare system has created a strand of society they name the ‘dependent poor’ (1993: 165). They argue that any suggestion at the inadequacy of the welfare system is misinterpreted as ‘ingratitude’ and is often greeted with accusations of laziness or selfinterest (hence the common rhetoric of ‘scroungers’ claiming money from the ‘taxpayer’). This serves to rationalise the notion of meritocracy, in a society that thrives on market-based values. Piven and Cloward’s argument highlights stark inequalities within the job market; however, it also contributes to a false understanding of welfare recipients as passive and without agency or direction. Vocabulary such as ‘dependent poor’ aligns too neatly with the language used by both New Labour and the Conservatives at the time of the Welfare Reforms in 1997 (JRF 2004). Both sides described a culture of dependency supported by the argument that people lose their motivation, employability falls, they socialise with other
The Politics of Mental Health 271 unemployed people, become passive and are institutionalised (O’Connor 2002: 161). The welfare system is thus linked to a decline in work ethic, which is attributed to the claimants’ supposed detachment from work ethics and ‘mainstream living’ (O’Connor 2002: 162). However, this did not correspond with the findings from interviews and participant observation at The Hub with people receiving welfare support. The people interviewed were all very active, either in looking for work or volunteering, or attending groups to learn new skills. Kenny was working on setting up his own card making business, Antonia had just enrolled on a bakery course which also teaches business and entrepreneurial skills, Daisy was volunteering as a befriender to isolated people in the community. I was aware throughout these conversations that my position as a worker meant that clients potentially felt a requirement to explain what they were doing in terms of employment, as this is one of the key areas covered in individual meetings to record progress. However, the significant levels of activity among people at The Hub recorded through participant observation did not correlate to the rhetoric of ‘passive’ or ‘dependent.’ This was underpinned by a fear of ‘doing nothing,’ which also did not fit with the ‘passive subject’ outlined earlier. Inactivity was in fact widely recognised as a relapse trigger. (5) Kenny:
‘No matter how unwell I feel I will force myself to come on a Friday. If I don’t feel well when I get here I’ll leave but I’ll always make that effort. That structure has really been supportive to me.’
(6) Antonia: Since I’ve come to Hackney I’ve accessed services like Leigh House [a local mental health drop-in service], but it’s no longer there anymore they’ve closed it down. They are turning it into a job centre. I know! Basically, some services are no longer there, they’ve gone. I’m accessing this and Core Arts, but at Core you have to pay if you don’t have any hours left. So there’s not really much to do if you have mental health, like at the weekend. Weekends are when people start being on their own and the thoughts start coming back into your head. There is a strong focus on creative and meaningful activities at The Hub; learning a new skill, developing a hobby and having a role within the space, for instance, befriending new attendees or helping clear up after the communal lunch. Clients also often cite the importance of social interaction and peer support, which is clearly used as a tool for recovery for many people. These are also other benefits usually associated with employment. Research by Niamh O’Connor (2002) also found many
272 Eva Oddi welfare claimants perceived higher self-esteem and confidence as advantages of employment. This aligns to the ‘dominance of ideas and discourses about work being good and part of one’s contribution to society’ (O’Connor 2002: 165). Furthermore, it is telling of the stigma associated with welfare, which is present even among those who claim due to illness. John has a diagnosis of depression, anxiety, behavioural disorder, and personality disorder. He used to work as a civil servant but left his job due to poor health. He receives Employment Support Allowance (ESAsupport for those unable to work due to illness or disability) but had his claim for PIP declined. (7) John: The point I made before is that when I was working as a civil servant and I had money coming in, they [the bank] relied on me because they wanted my money. But when you’ve got nothing they don’t want to know, you’re just someone that’s using their service. You’re just there to collect your benefits. I’m on ESA, been on it since February. I’m going to try and apply for PIP again, I tried once already but I didn’t get it. I don’t know why, maybe because I didn’t turn up with scruffy clothes reeking of BO [body odour]. John describes the difference in how he was perceived by society as he shifted from ‘contributing’ to his bank account to ‘receiving’ benefits. The individualistic outlook promoted by neoliberal ideology breeds a competitiveness which is crucial to the enforcement of a liberal ideology of labour and success within this framework. ‘Driven’ and ‘ambitious’ personality traits are glorified creating a spectrum through which it becomes easy to perceive those who do not work as weaker and less able. The discourses outlined at the start of this section direct the focus on to the individual and O’Connor (2002) argues they are used to justify policy interventions targeting specific strands of the community. If the problem lies in the culture and behaviour of benefits claimants, the solution is ‘to focus on claimants’ (2002: 170). If the problem is accepted to be fuelled by a disparate labour market, then we must look at wider societal and political structures. Examining the subjectivities created by the welfare system allows us to approach the ‘discursive division of the subject as dependent or independent’ (O’Connor 2002: 159). In this instance, the widespread perception of a ‘dependant’ strand of the population aligns with the neoliberal condemnation of a lack of economic competitiveness, which is crucial to sustaining the ideology. Politics is embodied into the private sphere of the body and the rhetoric surrounding welfare, from both sides of the political spectrum, serves to stigmatise subjects.
The Politics of Mental Health 273
4. In Between Two Worlds: Social and Medical Perspectives of Mental Health 4.1. The Power Implications of a Medical Perspective It is widely accepted that mental health conditions are influenced by social factors as well as biomedical ones. This section looks at the implication of both narratives and how a condition which shifts between medical and social spheres, as well as public and private ones, affects identity and self-perception. A dependency on medication was central to many conversations at The Hub and was often discussed during group work in that space. During one group conversation at the centre with five clients, there was an animated discussion around the implications of being dependent on medication. The clients described feeling resentful at having to take state-altering medication (which made them drowsy or hungry), while also feeling scared at the prospect of coming off it. These considerations raise questions over the validity of a purely medical treatment, underlining the need for a holistic form of support to be made available. This type of support needs to extend beyond a medical narrative, which prescribes a certain subjectivity onto the ‘unhealthy’. Antonia, like many others, has been on medication for years but felt it wasn’t until she had talking therapy and started attending The Hub that she was able to break the cycle of hospitalisation. Talking therapy is an expensive luxury and extremely difficult to access free of charge. Many people at The Hub have been on waiting lists for public funded therapy for over a year. Concerns were also raised over side-effects which people did not feel were adequately explained to them, again lamenting the lack of choice and offers of additional support. Antonia has been taking antidepressants for 12 years and developed Type-2 diabetes shortly after starting a prescription of Olanzapine, an antipsychotic prescribed for Schizophrenia. Studies have shown the drug increases the risk of developing Type-2 diabetes by up to 41% (Lambert et al. 2005: 1). (8) Researcher: How long have you been on medication for? Antonia: I’ve been on medication for my depression since October 2009. At the time I needed it but now I feel like talking therapy, which I’ve had over the years, alongside the meds has helped. But my medication has given me diabetes type-2 and I’ve put on a lot of weight. The leaflet says it ‘may’ cause diabetes. I guess I’ve just been one of the unlucky ones. I still take it, because it calms me down. I was on 20, now I’m on 15 (mg). Another psychiatrist moved me from 20 to 5 and I crashed. No one saw me for over a month,
274 Eva Oddi I was so scared I was going to relapse, I thought I was going to have to go back to the hospital. I went back to my psychiatrist and he said I could go back onto 15 but not 20, so within 2–3 weeks I was back to my normal self. He said he could change it to a different anti-depressant but it may give me this or that, so I’m just going to stick to my Olanzapine, and I’m taking something for my diabetes to control it. I have regular blood tests and it’s stable. I’d rather take it and keep my sanity. Even though I’ve put on weight, I have a fat stomach and people are always asking me if I’m pregnant. I’d rather look like this and keep my sanity. It calms me down, it helps with the voices. Antonia also spoke of the triggers for her illness as a combination of physiological and psychosocial factors and constructs herself as a person resulting from a number of family preconditions. (9) Antonia: We had it in our family, my brother was Schizophrenic. So is my half-sister and so am I. I also had post-natal depression after I had my daughter, really badly for a year. And I’ve had some bereavements, mental and physical abuse. I’ve had lots of things going on in my life being a single parent and bringing up four children was very difficult. The pain experienced through illness often provokes more concern and recognition than socially inflicted pain. A medical diagnosis can, therefore, legitimise a state of suffering, as it brings the social into the scientific realm, which has a more clearly defined framework for discomfort and pain. If mental health conditions influenced by external issues are categorised solely as medical ailments, they can be distanced from sociopolitical factors. Thus, the illness is situated within the individual and the impact of economic and social alienation downplayed, rendering it something to be fixed privately. Politics moves from the public to the private sphere whereby many of its effects are subsequently hidden. Even therapeutic treatments, notwithstanding their benefits, can foster a space in which the focus on the individual is accentuated, rather than the impact of the pressures of the larger market society (Esposito and Perez 2014: 415). The medical anthropologist Didier Fassin (2007) outlined a ‘politics of the living,’ in which a moral economy underlies decisions made by societies on the basis of compassion and empathy. He stresses the need to focus on ‘power of life’ as a development from Foucault’s theory of ‘Biopower.’ Foucault theorised that a management or ‘power over life’ is exerted onto individuals through a series of institutions which for centuries have
The Politics of Mental Health 275 adopted a politically focused ‘management of life’ (Foucault 2004 cited in Fassin 2007: 257). For example, the government’s recent exclusion of ‘psychological distress’ from the criteria for claiming the higher rate of PIP (discussed earlier) has left many people with significantly less income and also undermined the disabling effects of mental illness (Mind.org. uk 2017). It has also been argued that the Work Capability Assessments (WCA), carried out by private firms to decide an individual’s eligibility for Employment Support Assistance (ESA), reinforces the stigmatisation of mental health. A study of the experiences of WCAs among people with mental health conditions demonstrated that the structure of the assessments lead to deterioration in mental health, which in some cases was irreparable. Findings also showed that participants believed a lack of physical symptoms of illness, in addition to unemployment, lead to being socially perceived as slackers. In extreme cases, assessments have led to increased suicidal thoughts. (Marks and Cowan 2017: 22). Marks and Cowan also found that the majority of those who were found fit to work had the decision overturned if they appealed, which raises questions over the reliability of the procedures as well as their economic efficiency (2017: 15). Fassin theorises that as a body transitions from having a ‘political life’ to a ‘biological life’ so do the rights of the individual (Fassin 2007: 259). If a biological life carries with it a more defined set of human rights to be adhered to, biomedical power can account for an increased acknowledgement of pain and suffering. In the transcript that follows, John describes relief at receiving a diagnosis for a condition which has impacted his relationships and social life. (10) John: I’ve been diagnosed with having a personality disorder and that kind of summed things up for me because I’ve had it really difficult the past few years. I can’t hold down relationships with people and now it makes sense. I’ll get really depressed and I can’t communicate with people. I find it helpful. I knew there was something wrong in there but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I suffer from depression and anxiety and I’m also dyslexic. I’ve also just been given a diagnosis for behavioural problems which also makes sense. I didn’t have a very good childhood growing up. However, the benefits of this transition into the biomedical sphere are limited with psychological conditions due to the lack of physical manifestation of illness. The structure of welfare processes, such as the WCA outlined earlier, reinforces this sentiment. Assessors often override recommendations from doctors, health practitioners, and community outreach workers in deciding that a person suffering from an SMI is fit and capable for work. X-rays and diagnostic tests with physical, tangible results
276 Eva Oddi generally bypass the act of ‘describing’ in a medical conception of suffering. This makes it particularly difficult to communicate the suffering and pain caused by ‘invisible’ conditions which are diagnosed namely through narrative. It has been argued that biomedical approaches to the body serve to alienate an individual from society through the construction of ‘abnormality’ (Hill 2013: 1). The purpose of the biomedical practice is to produce ‘healthy’ individuals or return them to their ‘normative states.’ This perception of abnormality was repeatedly referred to throughout conversations I had with people at The Hub. In the excerpts that follow, the participants construct themselves as other than the ‘normal’ people living in ‘normal’ society. Such form of negative ‘self-othering’ (Riggins 1997) and self-denunciating being the reflection of the ‘unhealthy’ label attached to them. (11) Antonia: People with mental health are not normal now. They are not back to how they were before the depression, so going back into society and mixing with others who are. you know, normal it’s difficult. It’s difficult to do things like go to the cinema and focus. I just leave. My brain just switches off. (12) Kenny:
You don’t have to go further, they include you in everything. They are very good with me, and they are very good with people with mental health issues. Very accepting, as long as you don’t hurt anybody, like in normal society. [Speaking about the community in his local pub]
The engrained references to ‘normal society’ signal an acknowledgement of the position of outsider. At the same time, however, Kenny seems to have internalised the exclusion; as he refers to his acceptance into a community space, like a pub, as conditional on the basis he adheres to normative behaviours—e.g., ‘don’t hurt anybody’—he establishes a parallel between that norm regulating the conduct of people struggling with their mental health with that of ‘normal society.’ (13) Antonia: You know, I feel embarrassed having mental health. I feel ashamed, like I’m not normal anymore. I haven’t had a boyfriend for a very long time; my youngest son is ten; me and his dad aren’t together anymore; he didn’t want to know me. I haven’t had romance for a long time; I’m not the same anymore. Antonia uses temporal references to speak of her own exclusion from what she terms ‘normal society.’ She does not feel the same as she once
The Politics of Mental Health 277 did. Here she speaks of a lack of relationship and connection as part of her loneliness; the dominant feeling is that her single status is part of and simultaneously dependent on her ‘abnormality.’ The inclusion of human experience to theoretical analysis adds texture and depth to accounts of lived experience. In order to understand its social implications, illness must be understood from the patient perspective rather than that of the medical practitioner. Although there are studies which examine the experience of loneliness (Putnam 2001; Elliot and Lamert 2008 cited in Franklin 2009). However, these arguments tend to focus more on socio-spatial factors, such as the loss of a meaningful bond or physical isolation, rather than the recurrent alienation increasingly experienced as a result of engrained cultural and political structures. For example, to be surrounded by a close group of friends or family, or to be involved in a community can be more isolating than physical solitude if it highlights a comparison between health and illness, to be perceived as ‘normal and abnormal.’ The Hub is a space where people can feel part of a community and feel ‘normal.’ The effects of peer support on recovery are palpable and demonstrate an insufficiency of this from the ‘outside world.’ Within the space, people can focus on supporting others and find comfort through shared experiences and identities. The high value that public space has gained also gives the illusion of scarcity, that there are not enough spaces to go around. New spaces which now dominate a regenerated Hackney and claim to improve well-being are not aimed at or accessible to most people using The Hub. Through participant observation, I noticed that clients were constantly justifying their use of the space, notwithstanding they were completely entitled to use it; ‘I need to be here because of this’ or ‘I will leave as soon as I have done that.’ This tied into the idea that they were ‘taking’ from society, which strengthens the stigmatisation of mental health for those who are unable to pay for activities aimed at recovery and well-being. This marginalisation could be used to strengthen campaigns such as ‘Heads Together’ to shed light on the experiences of those whose voices are not often represented.
5. Conclusion: Social Interaction as a Tool for Recovery The data presented underlines a need for an acknowledgement of individual socio-economic experience and for disproportionate trends in mental health to be explored in more detail. This could be facilitated by a more holistic approach to recovery from psychological distress, such as the care and support found in spaces such as The Hub. Graeber (2012) has argued that the rituals of bureaucracy are rarely documented by anthropologists, but the implications of bureaucratic institutions and the way they are navigated by people are a crucial insight into understanding ‘areas of violent simplification’ (Graeber 2012: 106).
278 Eva Oddi Mental health and the political economy are inextricable, but the effects of this remain largely hidden. A medicalised view of mental health means that feelings of social discomfort, such as loneliness, can now be categorised as part of a medical condition and thus something to be ‘dealt with’ by the individual. The transformation of feelings of social discomfort into medical ailments encourages individuals experiencing feelings of marginalisation to ‘cure’ these feelings and experience their own alienation as a personal problem to be discussed in private in a consulting room. Subsequently, the problem remains in the private realm rather than the public arena and a neoliberal culture of self-care is reinforced. Themes such as alienation, illness, and the stigmatisation of unemployment all contribute to an embodied identity of ‘abnormality’ among people with a severe mental illness. These factors help to occlude the individual from society, thus increasing their status of outsider. The lack of aftercare which was referred to by participants, mental health advocates and workers at The Hub also signalled a state of liminality. The transitional nature of support services and lack of stability impedes recovery and fosters a cyclical process. Many of the people I spoke to described experiences of being hospitalised and subsequently discharged with no support available for this ‘in-between’ stage. As a result of this, people were often hospitalised repeatedly. This process contributes to the alienation of people from society and the workforce. When asked how they broke this cycle, all participants cited the addition of a socially centred therapy and the feeling of community. Daisy described the healing effects of community and how this ultimately helped her: (14) Daisy: When you are at home on your own, stuck in your own head you have to force yourself to get out of it. I would hate for anybody to feel like I felt like in the past, I want to help others to not feel like that that’s what I try to do here, help others if they are feeling down. In my support group, run by a life coach and a psychotherapist, we do a live video stream every week. They say there is nothing better than community, being completely honest with each other, able to talk to one another, you’ve all gone through the same things at different times and there is nothing more healing than community. An increased awareness and understanding surrounding mental health is clear and perceived by clients at The Hub. However, ‘stigma’ manifests itself through other channels for those with a condition that impedes on the presumed functions of a neoliberal subject and their contributions to a market society. The shame associated with poverty, unemployment and claiming welfare is still rife as can be seen through the participants’ accounts of marginalisation. The difference in how people
The Politics of Mental Health 279 gain a state of ‘well-being’ is exemplary of this. Social interaction at The Hub holds an exclusive value as there is a shared understanding of this unique experience of alienation. Individuals accessing this place feel they are not engaged in the ‘normal’ community; however, it became apparent that a significant tool for recovery at The Hub was the formation of social bonds based on a sense of shared understanding. Unsurprisingly, one of the main challenges facing Support Coordinators at The Hub face is facilitating an easy exit from the service. I asked Kenny about what he got from the service and he told me, (15) ‘I know it’s a bit of a cliché but everybody talks about it being like a family and that sense of continuity is good I think. That’s why I’ve told you, I don’t want to leave. I’d probably be able to leave but I don’t want to lose this space.’ For Kenny and others, the space is invaluable. These spaces are becoming increasinglyhard to access, and the ones that still exist are time limited, instilling a sense of temporality and insecurity in those using them. Mental health is justly positioned as an increasing public health concern and the reaction of the stigma surrounding illness is a step in the right direction. We now need to develop this discussion to look at other deeply entrenched stigmas, such as unemployment and poverty and how these disproportionately affect already marginalised groups within the community.
Interviews Kenny—interview dates: 01/08/17 and 07/08/17 Antonia—interview dates: 01/08/17 John—interview date: 04/08/17 Daisy—interview dates: 07/26/17 and 11/08/17
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12 ‘Offshore’ as Marginality: Exploring the Panama Papers and the Feasibility of PostNational Sociolinguistics Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk 1. Introduction Our title presents a dilemma in framing ‘offshore’ as marginality if we consider the global storm that offshore activities sparked in the aftermath of the Panama Papers leak. Marginality is conventionally insignificant, remote and often unknown or unrecognised or unregistered on and by the mainland or metropolis. In a similar way, liminal spaces fail to be recognised despite the important activity that takes place there. In this chapter, we propose to explore how these offshore activities enable us to reconfigure marginality and the liminal as a site of sociolinguistic action and interest. Ohmae’s (1994, 1995) thesis about the end of the nationstate initiates a framework for understanding the interlocked destinies of the countries and offshore jurisdictions that we shall mention in our discussion and how these in our view are constituted into both a single economic system and a network of diverse yet reconcilable value systems and discourses. In this chapter, we focus on the media reaction to the release of the socalled Panama Papers. These papers are documents leaked to the media in 2015. Coming from the legal firm of Mossack Fonesca in Panama (for map see Figure 12.2.b), the documents contain confidential legal and financial information about the firm’s clients, including holders of government offices, wealthy individuals and offshore entities. Mossack Fonseca is itself an offshore firm, describing itself as the world’s fourth largest, that renders all kinds of services to more than 140 offshore firms and 140,000 clients. The clientele included 12 national leaders and 143 prominent politicians. Journalists spent one-year analysing the papers which contained 11.5 million files amounting to 2.6 terabytes of data. The leak, and the analysis, began to be reported in April 2016. As is often the case with leaks, the files were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which passed them on to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). According to The Guardian, ‘Three hundred and 70 reporters from 100
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 283 media organisations have spent a year analysing and verifying the documents’ (Garside et al. 2016). Although the Panama Papers scandal allegedly has a global spread, the scope of our presentation is confined to Nigeria, Ghana and the UK. The rationale for this is the belief that due to their historical connection, the three countries have interconnected fiscal and sociopolitical systems resulting from colonisation and then subsequently flows of development aid and looted funds. The history of looted fund repatriation from Europe and especially the UK to Nigeria lends credence to our belief. Such a conviction lends support to Omoniyi’s (2010) argument that the sociolinguistics of colonisation and the sociolinguistics of globalisation are not only interconnected but also that the former actually set the parameters for the operations of the latter. A further reason for including both Ghana and Nigeria is the presence of the actions of former Presidents of both countries in the Panama Papers (see the following). Focusing on these three countries also means exploring English language-based discourses. In rationalising our choice of countries we are mindful that discourses exist in languages other than English in these countries but on the themes that are of interest to us here, such discourses lie outside our scope.
2. Theoretical Framing A project of this nature is unavoidably multitheoretical in framing considering the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary relevance of its core themes: information, funds, global corruption, marginality, politics, and transnational social actors. The Panama Papers’ scandal constitutes a site of both affirmation and interrogation of the integrity of several of the theoretical arguments that have dominated sociolinguistic scholarship from the turn of the century. Our intention in this chapter is to put the spotlight on some of these through analysis of texts generated by the global media around and on the activities that comprise the scandal. Guarded information is leaked through an anonymous source and becomes available to a media agency and subsequently made available to different recipients from whom it was primarily intended to be hidden for fear of sanction. The Panama Papers is the first of a growing number of scandals. Alleged Russian complicity in the determination of the outcome of the November 2016 U.S. elections, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange and the recent release of The Paradise Papers all contribute to an emergent public consciousness around leaking of hitherto guarded or secret information. The dominant themes seem to be those related to politics and finance with glocal dimensions (Robertson 1995). We shall consider three paradigms—Arjun Appadurai (1996), Monica Heller (2011) and Tope Omoniyi (2013)—and discuss them in what follows.
284 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk 2.1. Appadurai’s Scapes Appadurai (1996, 2006) discusses the five dimensions of globalisation in terms of five kinds of flows which he termed scapes: ethnoscape, technoscape, financescape, mediascape, and ideoscape. He notes that the first three dimensions are interconnected and are best analysed together. Ethnoscape pertains to the flow of people (migration), technoscape refers to the new technology-enhanced cultural exchanges and interrelationships, and financescape is synonymous with the global flow of capital in the form of loans, investments, aid etc. Mediascape refers to the multiple media forms and outlets operating beyond the control of any single nation-state and with a capacity to invent imaginary worlds, or in allusion to the lingo of post-election discourse of U.S. politics’ ‘alternative worlds’ which in traditional parlance is synonymous with false worlds. Ideoscape refers to the flow of ideas and ideologies which manifest as driving force behind 'cross-border movements' of all sorts. Different audiences may have different interpretations of the version of reality presented to them. All in all, the five scapes are characterised by wanton fluidity in their flows. Whether as a haven for northern tax evaders/avoiders or as a loot hideaway for corrupt southern politicians and their proxies, offshore is a site of multiple and interconnecting discourses. 2.2. Heller’s Paths to Post-Nationalism (2011) Let us begin by articulating the rudiments of post-nationalism in sociolinguistics. In traditional micro-sociolinguistic scholarship, the investigated contexts were speech communities and membership was determined and distributed based on patterns of speech behaviour. Regional and social class variations were identity markers in the classics like Labov’s (1972) New York City study, Walt Wolfram’s Detroit study (1969) and Peter Trudgill’s (1983) Norwich study among others. In macro-sociolinguistic studies, we encounter the nation-state as the frame for discussions of national language policy, language maintenance and shift, nation-state language identity politics, language endangerment and culture preservation and such other themes. Often these studies are framed intranationally and/or nationally (see Fishman 1991; Clyne 1991). From the World Englishes field, standard and non-standard, native, and non-native varieties of English have also been used as identity tags. Braj Kachru (1992) designed the canon for this field in which varieties of English are identified with individual countries—Nigerian English, British English, American English, etc. This resonates with the themes and language experiences that Monica Heller addresses in Paths to Post-Nationalism as it touches on the destabilisation of the traditional in modernity. In a section on ‘critique and ontology,’ Heller (2011: 34ff) registers her preference for what she calls ‘reflexive knowing’ when analysing the
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 285 relationship between knowledge and power. She dismisses essentialism but emphasises that the researcher must embrace critical reflection and be aware that constructing knowledge is engaging in relations of power. The leak of the Panama Papers constructs knowledge through the release of information and in some sense destabilises the existing relations of power as a consequence of the questions and sanctions that follow. 2.3. Omoniyi’s e-Borderlands (2013) This framework is particularly poignant because the principal subject of our discussion involves global financial information flows that seem to fall outside the purview of individual nation-state jurisdiction. Following the Wikileaks scandal, Omoniyi (2013) suggests that our understanding and conceptualisation of borderlands have been altered for good with reference to the incapability of nation states to maintain sole-authority for the dissemination of information. Since Wikileaks, we have had Edward Snowden and of course Mossack Fonseca. Omoniyi remarks that: The creation of new ‘borderlands’, new zones of contact and hybridity are expected consequences of previously non-existent dynamics of social mixing in which the cultural properties introduced into the mix derive from several traditional cultural quarters. In other words, they are normative rather than unusual or abnormal social processes. Let us proffer a working definition for e-borderland. First and foremost, as with all other ‘e-’ prefixed concepts and activities—e-mail, e-commerce, e-‘xyz’—it is a virtual and digital environment that is characterized by ‘rapid and disturbing social change where conventional social formations and institutions are being deconstructed’ (Hawisher and Selfe 2000: 279). (Omoniyi 2013: 207) The document trawl of the Mossack Fonseca leak includes emails between intermediary firms and individuals in Nigeria and the Fonseca firm in Panama. It thus clearly originates from an e-borderland. Indeed, not only are the documents in electronic form but some of the entities involved are also primarily instantiated in this space. Because the offshore is an area of both activity and flows, it fits well into Omoniyi’s definition of an e-borderlands as ‘a zone of contact between contiguous group or community networks in what Ohmae described it is the “New Continent” ’ (2013: 208). It is a social space that is potentially global, imagined inasmuch as it has no identifiable geographic location, in which local individuals, groups and/or institutions with citizenships spread across more than one conventional nation state or territory, constitute a virtual
286 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk community and, as stakeholders, interact wholly or partially in online networks. (2013: 208) By bringing these three approaches together it is possible to consider the liminal and e-spaces and practices that originate from and inform identities and practices of individuals and the nations they may call home. While Appadurai draws our attention to flows across multiple dimensions, Heller advocates critical reflection in our analysis and production of knowledge and Omoniyi reminds us that our liminal spaces are doubly minimal. By definition, e-borderlands are both outside nations and easily identifiable with geographical locations; nevertheless, they can be charted in terms of flow, what count as knowledge and power as well as being connected to both language and practice. The three paradigms thus work together in a complementary manner and allow us to explain how offshore is both a symbolic and social space (Bourdieu 1993).
3. Methodology First, a decision had to be taken about the scope of the study. The Panama Papers was a global scandal by its scale. The immediate dilemma then was the irony of specifying country contexts for our investigation in a study that proposes to explore themes in post-national sociolinguistics. This is a conundrum that confronts globalisation research today. The reality is that social actors are physically located in time and space in spite of the capacity they may have to register multiple presences in other remote locations and time zones facilitated by technology. What research has not rigorously established is if there are differences between activities defined by the nature of each of the presences whether virtual or real especially in relation to financial and information flows. We employed the LexisNexis news media database in constructing a corpus of news reports from Major World Publications (MWP) in English within a week of the scandal (3–10 April 2016) in order to gauge the immediate reaction to the revelation. This returned 500 articles and a half a million word corpus. As this was considered too much to analyse in detail, the corpus was limited to the 100 most recent articles in order to avoid initial reports on the leak itself so as better to consider more developed commentary, especially from those not involved in the initial year of analysis. This produced a corpus of 108,143 words. The first result was that the documents in the corpus had a largely Western focus.1 A separate MWP search, looking for items only from Nigeria returned only one article from The Daily Independent. Contrary to the/our expectations the search did not return Premium Times which our research revealed was the only Nigerian newspaper that had been involved in the one-year long investigation by 100 media organisations globally. This,
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 287 in our view, may be a footnote on the limitations of building a corpus using LexisNexis. This finding led us to employ Google Search to harvest Premium Times publications2 on the Panama Papers for the same period as a supplementary data corpus. Similarly, due to LexisNexis not returning articles about the second African country, Ghana, and because a former Ghanaian President was mentioned in the Panama Papers a third mini sub-corpus was developed from reports and comments posted on Ghanaweb.com.3
4. Data Analysis This section is divided into five subsections: a. Definition of OFFSHORE b. Offshore as a hiding place c. Offshore/offshoring as deliberate act of avoidance/evasion—action [moral/legal] d. Offshore as elite practice e. Individual as the state We begin with a definition of ‘offshore’ from the Oxford English Dictionary in order to show that this concept is positioned in relation to something else: the mainland or shore. Directionality is also indicated. Whatever the offshore is, it is not where the centre or shore is. a) Definition of “Offshore” Offshore Pronunciation /ˈɒfʃɔː//ɒfˈʃɔː/
Adjective & Adverb 1. Situated at sea some distance from the shore. as adjective ‘offshore islands’ as adverb ‘we dropped anchor offshore’ More example sentences 1.1 (of the wind) blowing towards the sea from the land. as adjective ‘offshore winds’ as adverb ‘weather forecasters say the cyclone should move offshore’ 1.2 Relating to the business of extracting oil or gas from the seabed. as adjective ‘a safety regime for the offshore industry’ as adverb ‘the trainees will eventually work offshore’
288 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk 2. Made, situated, or registered abroad, especially in order to take advantage of lower taxes or costs or less stringent regulation. as adjective ‘offshore accounts’ 2.1 Of or derived from a foreign country. as adjective ‘American offshore politics’
Verb [WITH OBJECT] Move (some of a company’s processes or services) overseas. ‘he predicts that 750,000 UK jobs will be offshored in the next ten years’ Pronunciation offshore /ˈɒfʃɔː//ɒfˈʃɔː/ (Oxford English Dictionary) b. Offshore as a Hiding Place Transparency International (T.I.), an international NGO working against corruption, describes corruption as a ‘global problem’ and undertakes an annual ranking of corrupt countries using its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). In the countries at the top of the ranking, usually corruption is systemic. By this we mean that public sector operations and operatives are inextricably entangled in corruption. Figure 12.1 shows T.I.’s global scale of corruption for 2015. Its report claims that 141 countries made the rankings. There has been some controversy around the measurement of corruption, and in our view, a fundamental flaw of the tool is the representation of corruption as a discontinuous process that can be defined by nation-state boundaries. The lighter regions on the map in Figure 12.1 are deeply engrained in the processes that account for the rest of the most corrupt regions through the activities of multinationals like Enron Corporation which although registered in the United States was the centre of Nigerian barge scandal in 1999 involving the Nigerian energy sector player Y.F. Power. T.I. cites the example of Sweden as ranked third among the supposedly clean countries yet TeliaSonera a Swedish-Finnish firm is embroiled in a multimillion-dollar bribery scandal in Uzbekistan ranked 153rd on the T.I. index. The data also suggest that corruption is salient in relation to the Panama Papers. Focussing on headlines and lead sentences from the data demonstrate the focus on illicit activity, secrecy, and subsequent exposure. 1. Panama Papers: Hidden family assets of Nigeria’s Senate President, Saraki, uncovered in tax havens Premium Times 4 April 2016.
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 289
Figure 12.1 Corruption Perceptions Index Map (2015) Source: Transparency International accessed 3 May 2017, www.transparency.org/cpi2015 ?gclid=CNL5pveJv9ICFSsz0wodi4ACEg
[www.premiumtimesng.com/panama-papers/201222-panamapa pers-hidden-family-assets-nigerias-senate-president-saraki-uncov ered-tax-havens.html]. 2. ‘An African Union panel on illicit financial flows has called for firm and comprehensive action against the world’s tax havens and financial secrecy jurisdictions.’ Premium Times 4 September 2016. [www. premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/201505-panamapapers-africanunion-panel-wants-nigeria-countries-take-firm-action.html]. 3. EXPOSED: #Panama Papers: The Nigerian lawyers who acted as intermediaries for Mossack Fonseca. Prime Times 11 July 2016 Hassan Adebayo In the three headlines from Prime Times (Nigeria) the words/phrases ‘hidden family assets,’ ‘uncovered,’ ‘illicit financial flows,’ ‘secrecy jurisdictions,’ ‘EXPOSED’ are all drawn from the same semantic field and suggest a degree of seediness. They all relate to corruption and tie the Nigerian stories to the data that Transparency International uses for computing its Corruption Perceptions Index. In contrast, the headlines from the British newspaper stories locate the Panama Papers stories in a liminal zone between legal and illegal transactions conveyed metaphorically by the contrast between tax avoidance and tax evasion. We shall expand this line of argument in the next section. While Bukola Saraki as president of the Nigerian Senate is condemned for the involvement of his wife in hiding assets and requested
290 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk to resign from the presidency of the Nigerian Senate, David Cameron’s father’s investment in Panama, Jersey, and Geneva only led to accusations of double standards against the Prime Minister. The background to this was a June 2012 statement that David Cameron had made in an ITV News interview on a charge of ‘legal’ tax avoidance against British comedian Jimmy Carr who had benefitted from the K2 Tax Shelter Scheme4: People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes. That is wrong. There is nothing wrong with people planning their tax affairs to invest in their pension and plan for their retirement—that sort of tax management is fine. But some of these schemes we have seen are quite frankly morally wrong. (Wintour and Syal, 2012) This statement makes offshore/offshoring a moral rather than a legal question. It also relates to identity as an immoral (or amoral) act that is not subject to the same critique as an illegal one. The K2 Scheme is an offshore trust based in Jersey (Figure 12.2), the biggest of the Channel Islands, to which earnings are redirected from the UK and from which payees then get low-interest loans that are subsequently written off against their deposits. We would argue that the UK mainland and Jersey as a consequence of these transactional flows between them may be described as organically
Figure 12.2a Map of Jersey Source: Wikipedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jersey_location_ map_EN.svg [accessed 27 February 2018]
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 291
Figure 12.2b Map of Panama Source: Map Open Source (nd) www.mapsopensource.com/panama-map.html [accessed 17 February 2018]
connected; K2 members belong to communities of practice (wealthy artists and entertainers, etc.) operating on the mainland but are unified by their membership of the trust in Jersey. On Jersey’s official website, its tourist board describes it as a ‘natural sanctuary,’ a descriptor that some might interpret as less of an indication of a pristine landscape and more as an allusion to its use as a tax haven. It may be that such an escape reduces or removes the accountability of the individual to the tax man. Other offshore jurisdictions mentioned in the Panama Papers include the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands and, of course, Panama. Figuress 12.2a and 12.2b show the offshore locations we focus on in our paper. c. Offshore/Offshoring as a Deliberate Act of Avoidance/ Evasion The reports about Western leaders mentioned in the Panama Papers are constructed around tax avoidance which under the laws of most Western countries is not an illegal activity. Nevertheless, some countries’ leaders were held accountable for their actions according to a range of narratives. The former British Prime Minister David Cameron was implicated through participation in the operations of his father’s (Ian Cameron) business Blairmore Holdings incorporated in Panama (in 1982) but located in the Bahamas in which he held shares. In contrast to tax avoidance, tax evasion is a criminal offence in the UK. It is described as ‘exploiting a tax advantage that Parliament never intended’ according to www. parliament.uk (2015).5 Figure 12.3 shows a word frequency analysis of major world English language press in the first week of the breaking of the Panama Papers
292 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk
10
2016 5
accounts also
camerons'
april asks avoids banks' benefit block brish bst busy calls
coming
company
corbyn country date david
documents
firm first fonseca funds globally going governments' guardian havens icelandic including informed interests internaonally invesgators invests islands issue just labouring english family father financiers
laws' leader leaks'' likes lists making media ministers' moneyed mossack mr names naons needs new news newspaper now
offshore ones panama papers''
party pays people pm polics president
prime publicly published quesons relaves reports
return revealed revelaons rights ruling seng shares shows stang
taxes
think
mes
trusts' type uk using words worlds years'
Figure 12.3 Week 1 Panama Paper Media Word Cloud
scandal in April 2016. Simply comparing the font sizes of the items in the cloud, taxes (60) appears at the top, while panama and offshore followed with 37.5 in joint second. Camerons is on the next level at font size 37. In actual count, ‘Cameron’ and its variants occurred 2,990 times in the database. His political portfolio occurs far fewer times than his name does. There are at least two narratives of identity at play here. Because of the involvement of Cameron’s father, one identity is grounded in family relations and the individual person. But as Cameron was Prime Minister, there is another narrative that emerges. It is in the context of the depth of involvement of David Cameron in the Panama Papers revelations that we must understand the reactions of sections of the public, particularly The Opposition as they call to question his integrity as Prime Minister in the extract that follows from The Guardian Online (9 April 2016—BYLINE: Jamie Grierson): Cameron takes blame for mishandling of Panama Papers revelations; Prime minister tells Conservative forum he should have handled revelations about shares in father’s offshore fund better. Calls grow for Cameron to publish tax affairs. Terrible week ends with calls for resignation. Fallout from the Panama Papers so far The leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn remarked saying ‘It is now clear that the prime minister has misled the public about his personal involvement in offshore tax avoidance schemes,’ the Labour leader said late on Friday. ‘It took five weasel-worded
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 293 statements in five days for the prime minister to admit that he has personally profited from an undeclared Caribbean tax haven investment deal.’ After years of calling for tax transparency and attacking complex offshore tax arrangements as ‘morally wrong’, the prime minister has been shown to have personally benefited from exactly such a secretive offshore investment. The Labour Leader’s statement constitutes a criticism of moral integrity and demands accountability for this failing. It is noteworthy that his statement collocates David Cameron’s individual agency (personally benefitted) with his public office (prime minister) in the linkage to ‘secretive offshore investment.’ This is how the rationale is established for the specific kind of accountability which is demanded: a call for resignation. The symbolic space of the offshore and the activities that take place there has come crashing into the real political social space. d. Offshore as Elite Practice We shall introduce this discussion of offshore as elite practice with a recent media story. After President Barack Obama left office as POTUS, the media reported his family holiday with British business mogul friend Richard Branson on his privately owned Necker Island.6 Offshore spaces attract the political and business elite as offshore investments do. The way the offshore is presented has consequences for the perceived identities of the people involved. The two extracts that follow convey the sort of elite taste associated with offshore holdings. 4. He [Rasheed Gbadamosi] paid a staggering N836.8 million ($2.6 million) for the penthouses located in a swanky tower in Panama. According to the leaks, sometime in early 2008, the former minister approached Gilberto Aleman, a Panamanian real estate broker, to help him secure two posh penthouses owned by Nicolas Corcione, owner of Ciclones Corporation Inc, and Cosmopolitan Corp, the companies under which the properties were registered. 5. Valued at N436,800,000 ($1,365,000.00), Penthouse 1, the first penthouse Mr Gbadamosi bought, is located in Ocean Park Tower 2, and consists of a surface area of 537.33 square metres, on floors 35 and 36 of the Tower. The costs of the two penthouses referred to in the extracts earlier are beyond the affordability of any public servant within their legitimate earnings. Note that Mr Gbadamosi was a member of the political elite at the time the transaction was conducted. These narratives construct an elite identity by providing great detail about the properties, including
294 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk their price, dimensions, and brokers (Taylor, 2010). The very real social space is created in the symbolic space of news reporting. Keeping with the theme of political elite, Ghanaweb.com reports from the Panama Papers that former Ghanaian President (2001–2009) John Agyekum Kufuor’s son (John Addo Kufuor) contacted Mossack Fonseca right after his father was re-elected for a second term in 2004 and retained their custom only shutting down the operations of the offshore company at the expiration of Kufuor’s tenure as President. Although the laws of deductive logic will challenge both the son’s action and any allegations of the father’s corruption., such an inference is easily backed up in African (Yoruba specifically) saying Aje ke lana, omo ku leni, tanio mo pe aje lo p’omo’. The idiom is glossed as ‘the witch cried yesterday, the child died today, who doesn’t know that the witch killed the child.’ That is, while former President Kufuor was not a client of Mossack Fonesca, it is reasonable to think that this relationship (and the associations made on its basis) was simply delegated to his son. Ghanaweb.com ran an article ‘Panama Papers: 38 Ghanaians Listed’ in its General News section on 21 April 2016, 18 days after the scandal broke. Between April 21: 15.25 and 22.04 (7 hours circa) the article had attracted 91 comments from mostly Ghanaian readers judging by the names. There were an additional ten comments on 22 April and two more on 23 April that made a total of 103 comments in all. The bulk of the comments pitched one political party against the other (mainly NPP/ NDC) and treated the principals as party representatives rather than private individuals. In other words, responses to the Panama papers were ethnicised and politicised—they became measures of the good guys and bad guys of Ghanaian politics. This designation sets out clearly who is accountable and who is not. The focus was not on the nature or scale of the scandal but on the integrity of the political party that President Kufuor represented rather than on the morality of his family/proxy’s actions. This leads us to the final argument of our presentation: the representation of individual agents or groups as the state. e. Individuals as the State When leaks like the Panama Papers are published with the portfolios of the agents involved, the latter become representatives of the state as a legal entity for organisations like Transparency International. The rationale for this is that the space constituting the field (Bourdieu 1993) of activity revolves around a public institution. The strategy is thus to foreground the individuals’ roles as agents of the state in order to give an indication of the probable source of the riches. Here, the narrative of identity connects the individual to the state. This connection both provides an explanation for their wealth and a justification for its condemnation. The
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 295 following extracts from a corpus constructed from English Language World Major Publications on the leak exemplify our claim. 6. A $2 billion trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend—a cellist called Sergei Rolduginis—at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore [OUR EMPHASIS]. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013, Putin’s daughter Katerina got married. 7. Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president, and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson 8. In the UK, six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to British political parties have had offshore assets. 9. The families of at least eight current and former members of China’s supreme ruling body, the politburo, have been found to have hidden wealth offshore. 10. The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has called on Dr Bukola Saraki, the president of the Senate to tow the path of honour by resigning. The call is coming on the heels of the latest revelations from the Panama Papers leaks about assets confirmed to be proceeds of corruption belonging to the Saraki family. 11. Panama Papers: I won’t resign, Senate President, Bukola Saraki says [PT 4 August 2017 www.premiumtimesng.com/panama-papers/ 201462-panamapapers-i-wont-resign-senate-president-bukolasaraki-says.html] 12. A former Minister for National Planning, Rasheed Gbadamosi, owns two expensive and luxurious penthouses in Panama, a notorious tax haven. Mr Gbadamosi, writer, businessman, and bureaucrat, who was recently appointed co-chairman of the Lagos at 50 planning committee, bought the two properties in 2008 while serving as chairman of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA. In all seven extracts presented earlier, the official or political status of the individuals constitutes the identity ascribed to them. Some of the cases involve proxies (i.e., friends and family members as fronts), but we note that these are also identified directly with the portfolio of the principal agent: Russian president’s best friend, Putin’s daughter, son of Egypt’s former president and so on. These are in bold fonts in the extracts. In Extracts 8 and 9, we do not even find out the persons involved beyond the generic descriptors ‘six members of the House of Lords,’ ‘three former conservative MPs,’ ‘dozens of donors,’ and ‘families of at least eight current and former members of China’s supreme ruling body, the politburo.’
296 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk The linkage of these politicians with ‘offshore assets’ is ironic if we consider that ‘asset’ has a positive connotative property. In contrast, in Extracts 10, 11 and 12, the Nigerian politician and bureaucrat have the combined honour of identification by portfolio and their given names: ‘Dr Bukola Saraki, the president of the Senate,’ ‘Senate President Bukola Saraki,’ and Minister for National Planning Rasheed Gbadamosi’ (see also examples 4 and 5). It is particularly interesting that the latter is a renowned playwright best known in the country for works such as Echoes from the Lagoon (1973) Trees Grow in the Desert (1991) and Sunset over Nairobi (1992). Yet, this successful writer’s identity and the fact that he was a successful industrialist are glossed over to foreground his political appointment as a government minister. While it would be possible to hold an author and business person accountable, to call on a government minister for redress is both more effective and more political.
5. Discussion First, the dictionary definitions of ‘offshore’ in our data are largely locative—away from shore, seabed drilling, abroad, originating away from land—thus they give no indication of the politics we have unveiled in interpreting the reactions to the Mossack Fonseca documents. In the analysis of the reportage, it is possible to see that ‘offshore’ takes on new meanings. This can be discussed in terms of Bourdieu’s (1993) distinction between social space and symbolic space. In terms of the former, we have in the offshore a metaphor for the conventional relationships we are accustomed to in the trading of goods and practices; in the social distances between traders and their clients, producers, and consumers; public officials; and the citizens they betray and rob. Most of these transactions are transnational and generate post-nationalism discourses that hold the web of relationships together. But they originate in local contexts. In the symbolic space of the offshore, we see a recreation offshore of the elite mainstream power base. Although as a geographical expression offshore may be inconsequential relative to a mainland, the narratives that have been leaked in the Panama Papers reconfigure offshore as a symbolic space of power. It transforms the erstwhile marginal space into a rallying point for global capital and global elite. In fact, Lonely Planet describes Panama as ‘a humming metropolis.’ The challenge to ‘reality’ and the representation of offshore as imagined and marginal can be tied to the following factors: 1. The creation and operation of shell companies 2. The use of proxies as fronts 3. The contracting of specialist consultant firms
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 297 These factors together create the Eldorado that the majority of the citizens located on the mainlands to these offshores cannot access except in dreams and fantasies. The physical characterisation of the offshore islands in paradise-like terms is an attempt to extend access and membership to others in the same class who do not as yet have a foot-hold but have the means or are in the process of acquiring it. Participation in offshore activities is a lifestyle that forms part of a peculiar habitus. The three factors also underline the confusion around how to categorise offshore/offshoring/offshorers. Are we dealing with dishonesty, immorality or illegality? Interestingly, these judgements are situated in specific and territorialised cultural value systems and consequently may vary from place to place and from group to group. At this point, we call up Heller’s thesis that ‘the sociolinguistics we have inherited was shaped by modernist nationalism’ (2011: 7). Her discussion of whether her North American students have a right to ask questions about Japanese gender relations is situated in a post-nationalism sociolinguistics in which discursive spaces, participants and resources are conceptualised as ‘linkages and trajectories, of webs, rather than in terms of, say, rooted or fixed objects or even levels’ (2011: 11). As we have pointed out, there were 100 media organisations involved in the Mossack Fonseca files investigation over a one-year period. These organisations are registered businesses in specific countries, but their reports were unavoidably glocal in outlook. This media ‘joint task force’ creates the impression of a global media united by mutual interest in defence of a universal moral order. The Nigerian and Ghanaian media organisations we have drawn our data from provided global summaries which showed the scale of the scandal. In contrast, they also provided minutiae information about the local individuals and law firms that acted as intermediaries7 for Mossack Fonseca and were therefore implicated in the scandal. This we acknowledge is in conformity with Alan Bell’s (1984) notion of audience design. British news consumers are not necessarily interested in the activities of a Nigerian politician unless they are shown to directly violate British values and traditions. 8 The borderless world that Ohmae (1994) theorised is seen in action through the flow of fiscal instructions by emails and transactions between cooperating juridical systems that are subject to different nation-state bye-laws. The register of businesses and other investments in the offshore locations comprise names that are explainable within the framework of Appadurai’s (1990) ethnoscape and financescape. As Omoniyi argued, contrary to Ohmae’s claim, e-commerce knows no boundaries and we know that ‘policies and practices which facilitate its operations are also subject to some nation-state laws and these are crafted in specific languages using the framework of specific literacy cultures’ (Omoniyi 2013: 207). We have not explored the coverage of the Panama Papers scandal in any of the indigenous language media of the two postcolonial countries
298 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk in the study. Due to the perspective and politics that this may bring, it is possible that this would have added a different dimension to the liminal space of the offshore. We have also not attempted to distinguish between genuine profit-driven e-commerce and looting and plundering of public funds. The difference between them is fuzzified by their shared connection to offshore. The web and trajectories of participants, as well as resource distribution of the Panama scandal, are further complexified when the offshore shell companies purchase property in choice locations in the metropolis as fronts for their principals who are named as directors. In our view, such actions may be described as mainlanding and cleansing transactions which we consider to be the flipside of offshoring transactions. As we illustrated with the K2 Scheme, immoral Trust payments to Jersey return to the UK mainland in the guise of low rate interest loans which are subsequently written off. Thus, in a sense, offshore holdings also function like a refinery in which crude funds are processed and then returned to the mainland as legitimate stock.
6. Conclusion Having considered the different meanings of the ‘offshore’ in relation to media commentary on the Panama Papers, it is clear that it is a complex liminal space. The data show that the offshore is a space in which assets can be hidden and otherwise questionable activities can be engaged in. It is a space, however, only available to some people and these people are engaged in particular kinds of activities. The Jersey that locals inhabit and interact in is not the same as that used by clients of its indigenous financial and legal firms. The activities of leading national figures (from around the world) nevertheless tethers the offshore to nation states. The identities that are constructed for these elite actors in the commentary on the Panama papers are all the more powerful as they are juxtaposed with their status within their respective nation states. Morality and legality slip in and out of focus and the fascination with the particular assets that elite individuals hold is double-edged: it serves to position them in both concrete and yet banal terms. This constant shift of focus, from the individual to the official, from the abstract to the concrete, are consequential to the liminal statues of the offshore. The offshore is, after all, neither a nation nor a locale. It is a liminal space which receives and transmits flows from both. In the light of the foregoing analyses and discussions, we shall conclude with the following thoughts beginning with a survey we conducted as an aside to the study we have reported here: 1. The outcome of a survey conducted in two undergraduate classes in London (UK) and Ibadan (Nigeria) suggests that globalism as an ideology must be treated with caution rather than as a fait accompli.
‘Offshore’ as Marginality 299 Sixteen students enrolled in a higher education Level 2 module Language in the Media at the University of Roehampton in London were asked if they had heard about the Panama Papers scandal. No one in the class had. A group of Year 2 Sociology of Communication students at the University of Ibadan was asked the same question. Only 4 out of 96 had heard of the scandal. Interestingly, all 96 responded in the negative when asked if the matter concerned them. 2. There are two interesting observations to make from the survey. The idea of a mediascape comprised of a global consortium of media practitioners and offshore law and accounting firms servicing multinational clients’ transnational interests fit the framework of a postnational sociolinguistics. But the students in Ibadan and London who were unaware of and unfazed by the Panama scandal may represent a class located outside of any of the scapes that frame the scandal. They could be operating within a different value system in which the semiotics of scandal is differently processed (if it is processed at all). That is, it may be that the students were unsurprised at the actions of the elite or simply indifferent to these issues of global finance. Nevertheless, we see this as a form of ideoscape. It is worth noting that the attitude of disconnection or nonchalance they articulated in their response to the scandal transcends the nation-state and therefore also fits the framework of a post-national sociolinguistics. 3. Offshore is dynamic whether as a space, an activity or as a subject. Its dynamism sees it shift back and forth between the inconsequential margin and the powerful centre as the ethnoscape, financescape, and technoscape respond to tensions originating on the mainland and sometimes offshore too. It is a liminal space, betwixt and between the local and the national but connected to both. Either way, the ripple effect is never contained within the offshore state or the mainland states in which the different actors are located. Certainly, our work on offshore and on scandals and leaks remains very much a work in progress. Moreover, the precise contours and preoccupations that post-national sociolinguistics will have are not yet clear. However, given the endurance of the ‘nation’ as a concept and as a recognised space, it is crucial that attention is paid to the marginal, the liminal and the relationship between the offshore and the ‘nation.’
Acknowledgements This paper was the last joint work of Tope Omoniyi and his student Lulasz Daniluk. Unfortunately, Tope could not deliver it at AAAL as he was already unwell. The chapter was later finalised by Lukasz with the help of his new supervisor Professor Annabelle Money to whom we are very grateful.
300 Tope Omoniyi and Lukasz Daniluk
Notes 1 An article from The Ghana Herald was returned as part of the initial 500 article corpus. But it dated from April 8 and so was not included in the final corpus of 100 articles. 2 www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/208848-exclusive-saraki-markothers-trouble-presidency-orders-probe-nigerians-named-panamapapers.html 3 www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID= 432742&comment=0#com 4 www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18521468 5 www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmpubacc/393/ 39305.htm 6 Richard Branson purchased Necker Island for US$180,000 in 1979. 7 www.premiumtimesng.com/panama-papers/206719-exposed-panamapapersnigerian-lawyers-acted-intermediaries-mossack-fonseca.html 8 As was the case with the arrest, trial and sentencing in London as was the case with the arrest, trial, and sentencing of a Nigerian ex-state governor James Ibori to a 13-year jail term in 2012 for fraud. www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldafrica-17739388. Accessed 15 March 2017.
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Contributors
Mike Baynham is Emeritus Professor of TESOL at the University of Leeds and a co-investigator of the AHRC TLANG Project. His research interests include social perspectives on literacy, language and migration, and migration narratives. He is currently writing a monograph for Routledge with TK Lee on translation and translanguaging. His core publications are: Baynham M, Hanusova J. 2018. On the relationality of centres, peripheries and interactional regimes: Translanguaging in a community interpreting event. AILA Review. 30(1), pp. 144–166 and Baynham, M. & T. K. Lee (forthcoming) Translation and translanguaging. London: Routledge. Dominic Bryan is Reader in Anthropology in the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests include the politics of rituals and symbols in Northern Ireland, and other divided societies. Lukasz Daniluk completed an MA in Audiovisual Translation focusing on video game localisation at the University of Roehampton. He is currently enrolled on a doctoral programme and conducting an ethnographic study of rap and hip-hop culture in the Polish diaspora in Britain, as well as Polish hip-hop culture in Poland. In his study, he investigates the influences to which Polish youth are exposed in Britain. His joint article appeared in 2017. A. Matamala, P. RomeroFresco, and L. Daniluk, “The Use of Respeaking for the Transcription of Non-Fictional Genres: An Exploratory Study,” Intralinea 20. Gemma Davies is the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Technician in the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University, Lancaster. Her research interests cover several areas of applied GIS, including food security, journey-time exposure to air pollution, and mobility. Anna De Fina is Professor of Italian Language and Linguistics in the Italian Department and Affiliated Faculty with the Linguistics Department at Georgetown University. Her interests and publications focus on identity, narrative, migration, and super-diversity. She is co-editor of the series Encounters (Multilingual Matters) and Narrative,
Contributors 303 Discourse and Interaction (Routledge). She has published 9 volumes and 50 chapters and articles in internationally renowned journals. Her publications include the edited volume Diversity and Super-Diversity. Sociocultural Linguistic Perspectives (with D. Ikizoglu and J. Wegner, Georgetown University Press, 2017), Identity in Narrative: A Study of Immigrant Discourse (John Benjamins, 2003), Analysing Narratives (co-authored with Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Cambridge University Press, 2012), and the Handbook of Narrative Analysis (co-edited with Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Wiley, 2015). David Divita is an associate professor in the Department of Romance Languages at Pomona College in southern California. His interests include the linguistic and semiotic dimensions of age and aging; the experience of belonging, displacement and long-term multilingualism; and the politics of memory—in particular as these phenomena operate among populations with national and affective attachments to contemporary Spain and France. His articles have appeared in Journal of Sociolinguistics, Journal of Linguistics Anthropology, and Critical Discourse Studies, among others. John Dixon is Professor of Social Psychology at the Open University, Milton Jeynes, after working at the universities of Lancaster, Worcester, and Cape Town. His work focuses on the dynamics of intergroup contact, prejudice, place identity, and segregation in historically divided societies. His publications include Racial Encounter: The Social Psychology of Contact and Desegregation (2005, Routledge), co-authored with K. Durrheim, and Beyond Prejudice: Extending the Social Psychology of Intergroup Conflict, Inequality and Social Change (2012, Cambridge University Press), co-edited with M. Levine. He has also published on the relationship between place identity, segregation, and social change among which A. Di Masso and J. Dixon (2015) More Than Words: Place, Discourse and the Struggle over Public Space in Barcelona. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 12, 45–60 and J. Dixon, K. Durrheim, and A. Di Masso (2014). Identity Threat and the Transformation of Place: Desegregation, Re-segregation and Social Change in Historically Divided Societies. In G. Breakwell and R. Jaspal (eds.), 2014 Identity and Social Processes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Christina Higgins is a Professor in the Department of Second Language Studies and Co-director of the Charlene Junko Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole, and Dialect Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She researches multilingual practices and identities in schools and society from discourse analytic, ethnographic, and qualitative perspectives, studying how multilingual people make use of their linguistic repertoires. Her current research explores how multilingual families
304 Contributors in Hawai‘i express stances towards maintaining and revitalising their family languages across generations. She is the editor of Language, heritage, and family: A dynamic perspective, a special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language (2019). Bree T. Hocking was a Research Associate in the School of Psychology at the Open University, Belfast, during the writing of this chapter. Her work focuses on spatial politics, identity, public art, and the anthropology of tourism in post-industrial/post-conflict landscapes. She is the author of The Great Reimagining: Public Art, Urban Space, and the Symbolic Landscapes of a ‘New’ Northern Ireland (Berghahn Books, 2015). Jonny Huck is a Lecturer in Geographical Information Science in the Department of Geography at the University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include the representation of vague entities in geographical information science and the application of emergent technologies to geographical problems, particularly in the context of health and post-conflict societies. He is a specialist in working in remote and un-mapped areas of the world, including northern Uganda and NorthEastern India. His most recent publication is: Exploring segregation and sharing in belfast: A PGIS Approach, published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Neil Jarman is Director of the Institute for Conflict Research, Belfast. His research focuses on such issues as street violence, police reform, hate crime and migration in the context of peace-building in Northern Ireland. He also works internationally across Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia in promoting standards on the right to peaceful assembly and protest. Michele Koven is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. She also holds courtesy appointments in the Department of Anthropology, Department of French and Italian, Center for Writing Studies, and the European Union Center. Her research has addressed the relationships between identity and language practices in migrant communities, with a focus on how bilingual speakers enact multiple, culturally situated identities. She is the author of Selves in Two Languages: Bilinguals’ Verbal Enactments of Identity in French and Portuguese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007, as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. Website:https://illinois.academia.edu/MicheleKoven Maria Eugenia Merino Dickinson is Senior Professor of Linguistics and Discourse Analysis at the Teacher Training Programme, Faculty of Education, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Chile. Her research area is intercultural relations with focus on prejudice and discrimination
Contributors 305 against indigenous groups. She has conducted various national research grants on the discursive construction of ethnic identity among urban Mapuche and on the narratives of migrant Mapuche in Santiago about the recreation of cultural activities within urban areas. She has published extensively in Latin American and European journals, and in books such as Van Dijk’s Discourse and Racism in Latin America (Rowman & Littlefield), in Spanish (Gedisa Editorial) and Portuguese (Contexto Editorial). Gabriella Modan is a Professor in the Department of English at the Ohio State University. She works at the intersection of sociolinguistics and cultural geography, focusing on linguistic constructions of ethnicity, gentrification, and urban identity. She is the author of Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place, as well as book chapters and articles in such journals as Language in Society, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, and Journal of Planning Research and Education. Eva Oddi holds a master’s in Anthropology from the University of Sussex. She manages the youth services at a mental health charity in Hackney. She has direct experience working with people affected by homelessness, long-term unemployment, and mental health. Her research interests include the anthropology of health and well-being, and the politics of urban space and ethnographic methods. Tope Omoniyi was Professor of Sociolinguistics and Director of the Centre for Research in English Language and Linguistics at Roehampton University. His main research interests were language policies, practices, and development issues in sub-Saharan Africa. In this, he explored the politics of colonial and indigenous languages, and their roles and statuses in the development project, as well as language and identity, with a focus on popular culture—African hip-hop and youth identity, Nollywood, and the African diaspora. He published in the areas of borderland sociolinguistics, language policies, politics and education, language and identity, language, and popular culture, especially hip-hop and Nollywood films, and World Englishes. Tope Omoniyi died recently and suddenly, and this book is dedicated to his memory. Roberta Piazza is Reader in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sussex. Her interests range from anthropological linguistic studies of identity in contexts of marginality (Marked Identities coedited with A. Fasulo) to pragmatics, stylistics, and media discourse (The Discourse of Italian Cinema and Beyond, Telecinematic Discourse co-edited with M. Bednarek and F. Rossi; Values and Choices in Television Discourse co-edited with L. Haarman and A. Caborn).
306 Contributors Her work has appeared in a number of international journals. She’s working on a monograph on the discourse of marginal identities for Bloomsbury. Marc Scully is a Lecturer in Psychology at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. He completed his PhD research on ‘discourses of authenticity and identity among the Irish diaspora in England’ at the Open University in 2010. He subsequently worked as a Research Associate and Project Manager on the Impact of Diasporas on the Making of Britain research programme, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and based at the University of Leicester. His research takes a social psychological approach to questions of place, identity, and belonging, particularly in the context of historical and contemporary migration/diaspora as in M. Scully (2015) ‘Emigrants in the Traditional Sense’? Irishness in England, Contemporary Migration and Collective Memory of the 1950s. Irish Journal of Sociology, 23 (2), 133–148 Brendan Sturgeon is a Researcher at the Institute for Conflict Research, Belfast, Northern Ireland. His research interests include segregation and policing in post-conflict societies: Bree T. Hocking, Brendan Stur geon, Duncan Whyatt, Gemma Davies, Jonny Huck, John Dixon, Neil Jarman & Dominic Bryan (in press): Negotiating the ground: ‘mobilizing’ a divided field site in the ‘post-conflict’ city. Mobilities. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/17450101.2018.1504664 Duncan Whyatt is a Senior Lecturer in GIS in the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University, Lancaster. He has research interests in both the natural and social sciences: Huck, J. J., Whyatt, J. D. and Coulton, P., 2014. ‘Spraycan: A PGIS for capturing imprecise notions of place’. Applied Geography 55: 229–237 and Huck, J. J., Whyatt, J. D., Sturgeon, B., Hocking, B., Davies, G., Dixon, J., Jarman, N. and Bryan, D. 2018. Exploring segregation and sharing in belfast: A PGIS approach. Forthcoming in Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Judith Yoel is a Sociolinguist and a tenured Lecturer of Linguistics in the English Language Department of two colleges in Israel, Oranim College in Tivon, and Gordon College in Haifa. Her research interests include linguistic landscapes, English as globalised language and signed languages. Her publications include research on attrition in signed languages, language contact in signed languages, and localised and globalised language use and material culture as in J. Yoel (forthcoming) The Localised Use of Language in Material Culture: A Case Study, A Kibbutz. In L. Aronin, (ed.) Multiculturalism and Multilingualism, Heidelberg: Springer Editors.
Index
Adey, P. 248, 249 agentivity 4 – 5, 26 Agha, A. 18, 45 – 46, 48, 58, 66 alienation 4, 157, 176, 180, 274, 277 – 279 Althusser, L. 98 Amara, M. 225, 231 – 232 Amsterdam 8 – 9, 237 – 259 anthropology 5, 43, 45, 47, 59, 209, 264 – 266 antisemitism 9, 242 – 244, 257 anxiety 4, 86, 263, 264, 272, 275 Appadurai, A. 9, 283, 284, 286, 297 Arabic 8, 218 – 220, 222 – 233 Arabs 110 – 111, 117, 119, 122, 123, 125, 128, 135, 219, 220 – 228, 231 – 233 Ashworth, G.J. 246 authentic 21, 23, 28, 33, 34, 149, 152, 153, 155, 160, 162, 194, 195, 255 authentication 19, 28, 195 – 196 authenticity 10, 21, 30, 33, 152, 153, 159, 161, 162, 195 – 196, 226 Azaryahu, M. 226 Bakhtin, M.M. 5, 17 – 18, 45 – 48, 66, 122 Bamberg, M. 8, 17, 109, 110, 114, 121, 123, 228 Basso, K. 43, 45, 248 Bauman, R. 45, 59, 195, 244 Bedouin 222 Belfast 7, 166 – 171, 174 – 175, 178, 180, 182, 185, 187 – 188 Bell, A. 297 Ben-Rafael, E. 221 Ben-Rafael, M. 221 Bhabha, H.K. 139, 147 Bigon, L. 218, 219, 223, 225
bilingualism 93, 207, 217, 218, 225 Billig, M. 45, 47 Blackwood, R. 219 Blommaert, J. 2, 6, 18, 19, 43, 45, 50, 66 Blu, K.I. 248 borderland 285 – 286 Boym, S. 6, 65 Bucholtz, M. 2, 16, 109, 195 – 196 business plan, the 85, 90 – 93, 95, 97 – 99, 102 calibration 66, 79 Cameron, D. 2, 45, 47, 58, 290 – 293 Capps, I. 16, 17, 115, 120, 124, 126, 138 Chatterjee, A. 113, 138 Christians 87, 258 chronotope 5 – 7, 10, 15, 17 – 19, 23, 25 – 28, 30, 33, 34, 45 – 47, 49, 58, 66, 71, 75, 77, 240, 252 collective memory 157, 160 colonization 36, 194, 283 communitas 4, 114, 127, 132 community 4, 6, 16, 21, 26, 32, 33 – 34, 36 – 39, 65, 69, 74, 77, 79 – 80, 83 – 84, 86 – 88, 90, 94, 102, 113, 117, 126, 132, 137, 158, 166 – 168, 171, 174 – 178, 180 – 182, 184, 186, 188 – 189, 198, 208 – 209, 221 – 222, 241, 244, 248, 250, 264, 265, 267, 271, 272, 275 – 279, 285 – 286 conflict 7, 162, 166, 167, 170, 171, 175, 178, 186 – 188, 220, 231 – 233 Cornish/Cornwall 5, 7, 147 – 163, 246 – 247, 248 counterurbanisation 148, 151 Cresswell, T. 43, 59, 181, 247 cultural brokering 88
308 Index Dahamshe, A. 218, 219, 223, 225 Dailey-O’Cain, J. 2, 17, 43, 85, 114 Deacon, B. 147 – 150 De Fina, A. 3, 5, 6, 8, 16 – 19, 66, 109, 113, 116, 122, 201 deictics 25, 43, 48, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58, 69 De Mieroop, D. 113, 116, 122, 123, 138 depression 263, 264, 267, 268, 270, 272 – 276 Derrida, J. 3, 109, 114, 139 desire 5 – 7, 10, 42 – 59, 129 – 131, 151, 169, 181 diaspora/diasporic 4 – 7, 44, 46 – 50, 53, 54, 57 – 59, 66, 85, 109 – 117, 124, 127, 129, 132, 136 – 140, 150, 156, 254 disability 265, 270, 272 discursive anchoring 238, 253 – 254 displacement 3, 19, 26, 113, 139, 182, 250 diversity 86, 221, 232 Dixon, John 1, 2, 3, 7, 147, 166, 167, 169, 180, 182, 184, 185 dominant 8, 19, 80, 98, 120, 124, 175, 194, 196, 223, 225, 231 – 233, 238, 251, 257 – 259, 264, 277, 283 Druze 222 Duranti, A. 43, 119 Durrheim, K. 1, 2, 3, 147, 169, 180, 182, 184 ea 8, 197 – 198, 201 – 202, 205 – 206, 208, 212 Eckert, P. 45 Eksner, H.J. 3, 114, 139 English 7, 8, 85, 88, 115, 130, 140, 147 – 150, 155 – 159, 162, 163, 194, 196, 198, 199, 202, 207, 211, 212, 217 – 219, 222 – 233, 258 – 259, 283 – 284, 286, 287, 291 – 292, 295 enregisterment 18, 48, 54, 255 entextualisation 255 environment 21, 26, 86, 88, 117, 153, 169, 174, 178, 184, 193 – 194, 198, 204 – 206, 246, 247, 285 epistemologies 5, 194, 196 – 197, 201, 210, 212, 266 erasure 238, 250 – 253, 256 essentialism 151, 285 ethics 264, 266, 271
ethnic: ethnicity 1, 112, 124, 255; ethnic group 16, 33, 110, 128, 138 ethnographic 20, 49, 64, 67, 147, 152, 154, 163, 255, 264 – 266 ethnography 264, 279 Fabian, A. 3, 168, 179 Fassin, D. 264, 274 – 275 Fasulo, A. 1 – 2 festival theory 163 Fetzer, A. 117 Fludernik, M. 124 footing 151, 201, 202, 203, 209, 211, 249 Foucault, Michel 274 – 275 framing 43, 157, 254, 257, 282, 283 Freidman, R. 219, 220, 226, 227 Frers, L. 240, 257 Gal, S. 250 Gans, E. 242 – 245 García, O. 92 Georgakopoulou, A. 16, 17, 66, 109, 114 Georgiou, M. 109 Giddens, A. 2 globalization 2, 112, 124, 217, 219, 226, 233, 283, 284, 286 Goffman, E. 43, 122, 201, 221 government policy 167, 229 Gramsci, A. 115 Hale, A. 149, 150, 152 Hall, K. 2, 16, 109, 195 – 196 Hall, S. 2, 16, 98, 112, 113 Hanks, W. 43, 45, 47, 48 Haviland, J. 17, 48 Hawaiian 8, 193 – 212, 214 Hebrew 8, 9, 218 – 233, 238 – 245, 247, 250 – 259 hegemonic 115, 116, 124, 126, 129, 138 Heller, M. 283, 284, 286, 297 heritage 6, 8, 83 – 91, 93, 101, 112, 120, 148, 153, 207, 212, 218, 222, 228, 233, 246 Hilary Dick 46 historical narratives 15, 132, 138, 149, 155 Holocaust 238 – 240, 242 – 246, 250 – 252, 256, 257, 259 homeland 42, 46, 48, 50, 53, 54, 57, 58, 109, 110, 112, 156
Index 309 Hondius, D. 242 – 243 Honolulu 205 identity 1 – 3, 5 – 10, 15 – 21, 24 – 28, 30 – 34, 42, 44 – 46, 50, 52, 56, 57, 74, 79, 87, 88, 91, 97 – 98, 102, 109 – 111, 113 – 116, 124, 126 – 132, 134, 147, 148, 150 – 163, 166 – 170, 174 – 175, 178 – 188, 195, 200, 205, 210 – 212, 217 – 233, 239, 240, 244, 245, 250, 252, 254, 255, 258, 273, 278, 284, 290, 292 – 296; identity brought about 17; identity brought along 17, 88, 102; place identity 1 – 3, 5, 7 – 10, 151, 166, 168 – 170, 174 – 175, 178 – 188 identity marker 221, 284 immigrant 6, 28, 59, 65, 76, 78, 223, 224, 232, 238, 244 implicature 251 – 252 indexical 42, 43, 47, 48, 50, 57, 59 indigenous 15, 18, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 110, 117, 122, 125 – 126, 128, 129, 148, 193, 196, 212, 214, 297 – 298 inner-city London 263 instability 219, 233, 264 interpellation 92, 102 interpreting 83, 93, 296 intersubjectivity 47, 122 Irvine, J.T. 47, 250 Israel 8, 10, 218 – 233, 244, 253, 254 Jaworski, A. 246 Jews 8, 9, 218 – 233, 238 – 245, 247, 250 – 259; Ashkenazis 241; Sephardic 240 – 241 Johnstone, B. 43 Kachru, B.B. 284 Kaminoff, R. 3, 168, 179 Kariv, G. 233 Kiesling, S.F. 113, 115, 117 Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, B. 246 Korpela, K. 132, 169, 178 Kulick, D. 2, 45, 47, 58 Labov, W. 15, 17, 284 Lacanian 53 Lampropoulou, S. 248 land 8, 19, 20, 23, 26, 34, 36, 131 – 133, 150, 155, 193 – 198, 201, 202, 204, 205, 208, 211, 212, 220 – 222, 229, 231 – 232, 258, 296
landscape 68, 77, 167, 168, 170, 174, 178, 179, 185, 188, 194, 196, 218, 219, 221, 237, 246 – 250, 254, 291 language: attitude 219, 222 – 223; conflict 220 – 221, 232; ideology 221, 226, 232; planning 219; policy 5, 8, 232, 284; reform 222, 232 Lanza, T. 219 later life 6, 64, 79, 80 Lefebvre, H. 43, 268 leisure spaces 166, 168, 170, 174, 187, 188 Lempert, M. 43, 59, 66 Liebscher, G. 2, 17, 43, 85, 114 liminal/liminality 3 – 7, 9, 15, 33, 65, 66, 80, 87, 109, 112, 114, 118 – 120, 126, 133 – 135, 139, 147 – 148, 153, 163, 167 – 168, 170, 187, 193, 205, 233, 238, 240, 245, 249, 257, 282, 286, 289, 298, 299 Linde, C. 116 Lindström, J. 109 linguistic landscapes 221 – 222 linguistic policy 232, 233 Linn, A. 45 Li Wei 92 loanwords 238, 241, 255 loneliness 267 – 268, 277 – 278 Lowender Peran 152, 153 – 155, 163 Maddern, J.F. 248, 249 mānaleo 194 Manning, P. 112 Mapuche 4, 5, 15 – 16, 19 – 34, 36 – 39 marginality 222, 282, 283 marginalization 5, 150, 160, 162, 195, 277, 278 master narrative 115, 121 – 122, 126, 129 Mavroudi, E. 112 – 113, 124 McCarty, T. 193, 196 membership 25, 119, 120, 126, 127, 221, 230, 284, 291, 297 mental health 9, 263 – 279 mental illness 263, 275, 278 Miglbauer, M. 113, 138 migration 3, 5, 6, 11, 19, 20, 36, 45, 64, 66, 79, 87, 93, 112, 124, 148, 284 minority 5, 86, 128, 139, 150, 163, 171, 193, 222, 225, 226 – 229, 232 – 233 minority language 5, 150, 222, 233
310 Index Mishler, E. 17 mobility practices 2, 8, 19, 70, 170, 174, 180, 193, 195, 204, 212, 232 modernisation 219, 231 Motha, S. 45 multiculturalism 255 multilingualism 205 museumification 246 Myers, G. 248 narrative 3, 8, 9, 15 – 18, 21, 23, 25, 28, 32, 34, 66, 73, 76, 96, 97, 113, 115 – 119, 122 – 126, 129, 132 – 135, 136, 138 – 140, 148 – 149, 155 – 156, 158 – 161, 163, 174, 175, 177, 180, 182, 186, 199, 202, 205, 208, 257, 273, 276, 292, 294; genre 91, 92, 102, 240, 264 nationalism 284, 296 – 297 nation state 46, 112, 113, 118, 284 – 285, 288, 297 – 299 neoliberalism 272, 278 Nevins, E. 248 non-agentivity 251 Northern Ireland 4, 166, 168, 170, 171, 189 Nostalgia 6, 10, 44, 57, 65 – 67, 71, 71, 74 – 80, 195 Ochs, E. 16, 17, 47, 115, 120, 124, 126, 138 off-record 251, 256 offshore 9, 282 – 299 older age 65 ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i 8, 193, 194, 198, 199 Omoniyi, T. 5, 9, 283, 285 – 286, 297, 299 oral 6, 20, 66, 92, 100, 112, 115; personal experience 67, 160 Orellana, M. 3, 114, 139 Palestinian 221, 223, 226, 232, 233 Panama Papers 9, 282 – 283, 285, 286 – 289, 291 – 292, 294, 295 – 299 Pan-Celticism 149, 152 parks 7, 166 – 168, 170 – 175, 178 – 180, 184 – 188 Payton, P.J. 147, 148, 149, 151 peace walls 170, 182, 188 pedagogical attitude 120 – 121 Peleg, I. 231 performance (public) 64, 71 performative 71, 122
peripherality 147 – 148, 151, 152, 162 Perrino, S. 18, 45, 48, 59, 66, 122 personhood 18, 45, 49, 58, 66, 70 Piazza, R. 1 – 2, 5, 10, 80, 121, 258 Pinches, A. 226 Pinder, D. 247 place 2 – 3, 5 – 10, 18 – 19, 23, 34, 42 – 54, 57 – 59, 65 – 66, 70, 74, 75 – 76, 80, 85 – 86, 91, 101, 102, 112, 113, 134 – 139, 147 – 148, 151, 161, 163, 168 – 170, 174 – 175, 178 – 182, 184 – 188, 193 – 201, 207, 208, 221, 223, 230, 231, 237 – 239, 245, 246 – 248, 255, 257 place attachment 49, 57, 169, 174, 180, 188 place names 219, 228, 230, 248 positioning 8, 17, 28, 48, 53, 88, 109, 110, 113, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121 – 127, 132, 138, 151, 157, 159, 201, 202, 206, 244, 245, 254, 256, 266 postcolonial 65, 139, 162, 297 post-conflict city 166 post national sociolinguistics 286, 299 power relations 152, 180, 221 practice: discourse 98, 102; social 2, 233 precarity 83, 160 presupposition 251 Prince, G. 17 Proshansky, H. 3, 168, 179 Quilaqueo, D. 20 Rampton, B. 46 recovery 113, 263, 264, 267, 271, 277 – 279 regionalism 85, 148, 221, 284 representation 69, 71, 75, 110, 122, 140, 219, 221, 223, 228, 230, 232, 240, 247, 265, 288, 294, 296 revitalisation 8 revival 148 – 150, 155, 159, 160 Ricoeur, P. 17 Riggins, S.H. 126, 276 road signs 8, 217 – 233 Roma 4, 6, 83 – 89, 91, 101, 102 Saban, I. 232 Schegloff, E. 43, 48 Schieffelin, B. 47 Schiffrin, D. 16, 113 Schnell, I. 220, 231
Index 311 sectarianism 166 – 168, 171, 175, 179, 182, 185, 188, 189 segregation 8, 166, 170, 174 self 1 – 4, 10, 48, 58, 109, 115, 120, 138, 153, 169, 170, 178, 180, 202 – 203, 205, 206, 209, 221, 230, 233, 248 seniors 64, 68, 76 Silverstein, M. 43, 45, 47, 48, 59 social division 167, 168, 170, 187 social enterprise 85, 88, 90, 101 social psychology 147, 154 socio constructionism 1, 2, 16, 43, 264 solidarity 67, 80, 156, 162, 221 sovereignty 8, 36, 166, 194, 197, 201, 206, 208 – 210 space 1 – 10, 15, 17 – 20, 23, 30, 39, 42 – 51, 58 – 59, 66, 69, 70, 80, 83 – 91, 102, 112 – 113, 117, 137, 139, 147 – 148, 153, 155, 161, 163, 166 – 168, 170 – 171, 175, 177, 178 – 182, 184 – 188, 194, 219, 230, 233, 240, 248 – 250, 257, 259, 266 – 269, 276, 277, 279, 282, 285 – 286, 293 – 294, 296 – 299 spectral geography 248 – 250 stance 69, 70, 77, 79, 114, 116, 121, 122, 126, 127, 129, 136, 137, 152, 197, 239, 257, 266 status 4, 8, 28, 33, 78, 110, 111, 116, 118, 122, 127, 128, 133, 134, 147, 148, 150, 152, 155, 163, 193, 205, 212, 218, 220, 221, 225, 228, 231, 233, 238, 254, 277, 278, 295, 298 stigmatisation 275, 277, 278 stories 15, 16, 19, 26, 89, 116, 155, 196, 199, 201, 212, 247, 289 storytelling 15 – 18, 23, 25, 28, 45, 201; world 5, 17, 19, 22, 23 story-world 5, 17, 19, 22, 23 subjectivity 58, 139, 266, 273 Tajfel, H. 230 Takahashi, K. 45, 47 Taylor, S. 294 territory or territoriality 19, 20, 28, 36, 38, 39, 148, 166, 167 – 170, 177, 178, 180 – 182, 185, 187, 189, 212, 220, 231, 285, 297
threat 166, 169, 174, 175, 182, 222, 226, 228, 230, 232 Thurlow, C. 246 time 3 – 10, 15, 17 – 19, 42 – 51, 53, 58 – 59, 65, 66, 69, 70, 74, 75, 80, 112, 113, 240, 242, 245, 249, 250, 286 tolerance 9, 120, 232, 238, 239, 254, 257 – 258 Torgovnik, E. 226 tourism 5, 57, 110, 148, 150, 151, 229, 231, 237 – 240, 246 – 248, 254, 255, 257, 258 translanguaging 83, 92, 102 transnational 80, 109, 112, 113, 283, 296, 299 Tsagarousianou, R. 113, 139 Turner, V. 3 – 4, 65, 109, 112, 114, 127, 132, 139, 239, 240, 257, 259 typonyms 224 unemployment 20, 203, 263, 265, 270, 275, 278 – 279 UNESCO 84, 127, 246 urbanisation 148, 151, 219, 231 urban policy 166 – 189 van Gennep, A. 3, 4, 109, 114, 139 van Leeuwen, T. 117, 121, 123, 128, 138 Vertovec, S. 112 walking interviews 7, 174 Waxman, D. 231 welfare 263 – 265, 269 – 272, 275, 278 wellbeing 36 – 38, 166, 169, 170, 178, 197, 198, 163, 264, 268, 277, 279 Wikileaks 285 Willett, J. 148, 150, 151 Woldmariam, H. 219 Wong, L. 194, 195 Wylie, J. 240, 248, 257 Yiddish 237, 238, 241, 247, 255 – 257 Yitzhaki, D. 225 Zimmerman, D.H. 2, 88