Catalonia's human towers: Nationalism, associational culture, and the politics of performance

Abstract

Spain is facing the greatest challenge in the post‐Franco era to the nation's constitutional unity, as the Catalonian government in October 2015 issued a motion to unilaterally declare Catalonia's independence. The independence movement helped build support by using a 200‐year‐old cultural performance, the building of human towers (castells). The movement discarded other cultural performances (soccer, the sardana dance, and fire festivals), drawing from the human towers’ performative iconicity, associational culture, affective dimensions, and operative values to rally disparate social groups behind independence. In using human towers, the movement envisioned a solution to the ideological divisions of nationalist politics, but the instrumentalization of culture has a contradictory effect on politics. As European secessionist movements intensify, cultural performances reveal the objectives and risks of nationalist constructions. [human towers, associational culture, nationalism, performance, iconicity, Catalonia, Spain] Espanya s'enfronta al major repte de la seva unitat constitucional de l’època post‐franquista. A l'octubre del 2015, el govern català va aprovar una moció per declarar unilateralment la independència de Catalunya. Un esdeveniment cultural amb una història de dos‐cents anys, els castells, semblen haver‐se convertit en l'emblema dominant de la sobirania catalana. El moviment independentista ho prefereix a d'altres actuacions culturals, com ara la sardana, els festivals de foc, o esportives, com el futbol. La seva cultura associativa, les seves dimensions afectives, la seva iconicitat i els seus valors escènics fan que els castells serveixin per unir grups diversos, tot expressant la voluntat d'esdevenir una nació unida i sobirana. Alhora que el moviment casteller presenta una solució a les divisions ideològiques de la política independentista, la instrumentació política de la tradició cultural pot resultar problemàtica. Tanmateix, mentre els moviments secessionistes s'intensifiquen a Europa, la comunicació cultural identitària revela els objectius i els riscos de les manifestacions sobiranistes. [castells, cultura associativa, nacionalisme, performativitat, iconicitat, Catalunya, Espanya]

Where extremes meet: Sport, nationalism, and secessionism in Catalonia and Scotland

“…Human tower building is a two-hundred-year old traditional sport from rural Catalonia, which is lately booming as, among other things, a site of neighbourhood solidarity and Catalan 16 independentism (Vaczi 2016). What went unnoticed for the four hundred million television spectators of the Clásico worldwide was a gesture of identification with catalanisme through a traditional sport associated with the working classes and rural culture.…”

“…Jordi Pujol, the first president of the post-Franco Catalan government said this about football`s role under the repressive Franco regime : 'Barça is like other folkloric manifestations of our people-a reserve we can draw on when other sources dry out, when the doors of normality are closed to us' (in Burns, 2012: 245). More recently, the traditional sport of human tower building has become a particularly iconic encapsulation of secessionist sentiments (Vaczi, 2016). Sport therefore can be argued to act as an important signifier of autonomy for stateless nations such as Catalonia and Scotland (Boyle, 2000;Boyle and Haynes, 1996;Garcia, 2012;Iorweth, Hardman and Rhys Jones, 2014;McFarland, 2013;Nili, 2009;Vaczi, 2015).…”

¿Identidad dual? Una crítica metodológica a la pregunta Linz-Moreno como indicador estadístico de la identidad nacional

“…In order to make our point clearer, we summarize some of the knowledge produced within the academic sub-discipline of nationalist studies, with no intention of presenting an exhaustive review of the huge volume of social scientific literature on the topic, which, as Rogers Brubaker pointed out "has become unsurveyably vast" (Brubaker, 2009: 22); the purpose will rather be to introduce some essential, well-established, arguments that lead us to uphold the aforementioned critique to the dual identity standpoint. Let us start by stating the obvious, i.e., that nations are social constructions in constant discursive reconstruction (Wodak et al, 2009), which involve cultural practices (McCrone et al, 1995), the media (Eder et al, 2002), rites (Abélès, 1990), ceremonies (Balandier, 1994), performances (Vaczi, 2016), fictions and myths (Balibar, 2005), branding image (Dinnie, 2008), and many other everyday subconscious mechanisms (Billig, 1995: 93-127) built around some particular pre-existing diacritics (Barth, 1969) which are articulated around an on-going national project (Armstrong, 1982). It is well-known that language typically plays a central role as a diacritic for sub-state national projects in Spain -see Shabad and Gunther (1982) for the Catalan and Basque cases and Beswick (2007) or Beramendi (2007), for analysis on Galicia-but there is of course a difference between national languages and pre-national forms of talk.…”

Friend or Foe: An Analysis of the Contribution National Identity Hegemony Plays in the Acceptance of Asylum Seekers in Australia, Spain and Catalonia

“…It recognised cultural diversity and promoted social cohesion by outlining a set of programs, objectives and priorities, while defending the importance of the Catalan language to the region (Villarroya, 2012). On a community level, a cultural group named the Association of Castells maintain and promote the traditional cultural festivity of building human towers (Vaczi, 2016). The "Together we make a team" project was launched in 2009 to promote immigrant integration by encouraging them to taking part in popular cultural traditions (Villarroya, 2012).…”