Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: easy questions and hard answers, what are they fighting about?
- 2 The political psychology of competing narratives
- 3 Narratives and performance: ritual enactment and psychocultural dramas in ethnic conflict
- 4 Loyalist parades in Northern Ireland as recurring psychocultural dramas
- 5 Where is Barcelona? Imagining the nation without a state
- 6 Digging up the past to contest the present: politics and archeology in Jerusalem's Old City
- 7 Dressed to express: Islamic headscarves in French schools
- 8 The politics of memory and memorialization in post-apartheid South Africa
- 9 Enlarging South Africa's symbolic landscape
- 10 Flags, heroes, and statues: inclusive versus exclusive identity markers in the American South
- 11 Culture's central role in ethnic conflict
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
5 - Where is Barcelona? Imagining the nation without a state
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: easy questions and hard answers, what are they fighting about?
- 2 The political psychology of competing narratives
- 3 Narratives and performance: ritual enactment and psychocultural dramas in ethnic conflict
- 4 Loyalist parades in Northern Ireland as recurring psychocultural dramas
- 5 Where is Barcelona? Imagining the nation without a state
- 6 Digging up the past to contest the present: politics and archeology in Jerusalem's Old City
- 7 Dressed to express: Islamic headscarves in French schools
- 8 The politics of memory and memorialization in post-apartheid South Africa
- 9 Enlarging South Africa's symbolic landscape
- 10 Flags, heroes, and statues: inclusive versus exclusive identity markers in the American South
- 11 Culture's central role in ethnic conflict
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
Summary
Introduction
Ethnic conflict is often framed around the most visible and mundane aspects of everyday life – customs such as food, clothing, and speech. These external manifestations of identity are readily contested when one group seeks to control the behavior of another. While the specific contentious behaviors that serve as focal points of contestation are rarely threatening in themselves, it is how they are interpreted that really matters, as each side understands action through psychocultural narratives replete with their version of the past and vision of the future.
In the contemporary world, language often marks the identity of the ethnic community or nation. Consequently, we often hear strong views about the need for official national languages and the importance of citizens speaking a single language despite the existence of many bi- and multilingual people and states. Why this is the case is a central question in this chapter. In considering the question of language use, we address how countries make decisions about what is to be their official language or languages; what is used in government institutions, educational systems, and public signs, and how these decisions are implemented. These issues can be, but are not necessarily, highly controversial. Even in places such as the United States where language issues seem relatively unproblematic to many, intense conflict can erupt over language questions as is seen in the widespread calls for “English Only” laws and attacks on bilingual education in recent years.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict , pp. 127 - 153Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007