<TITLE: Geography conference: Nature Meets Culture - Landscape and National Identity
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: regional studies
EVENT TYPE: conference presentation
FILE ID: CPRE040
NOTES: continuation of and continued in CDIS040, poor sound quality

RECORDING DURATION: 40 min 39 sec

RECORDING DATE: 7.11.2003

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: unknown

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 1

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Catalan; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50>


<S2> thank you very much <PREPARING OVERHEAD, P:09> i'd like to thank the finnish geographers' association and especially to er my good friend <NAME S1> for the invitation to give this lecture it's really a pleasure for me to be in tampere these days during the annual meeting of the finnish geographers' association i must tell you that finnish geography is more and more well-known in catalonia and that a number of (xx) , almost inexistent some er years ago , er between finland and catalonia is (gone) , as you may know , catalonia <P:11> catalonia has a population of six , million inhabitants over a territory of 22,000 square metres it's a stateless nation situated you can see in the map in the north eastern corner of spain , and as you may know the distinct catalan personality based on its own language culture history and pedigree was explicitly recognised by the spanish state in 1978 constitution catalonia galicia and the basque country were considered , historic nationalities , whilst status of autonomy , were later passed by referendum on a majority vote from respective populations , catalan language is used , everywhere by the indigenous inhabitants , but it's is spoken to somewhat lesser extent by inhabitants of other regions of the spanish state who mostly arrived in catalonia from the 1950s onwards and now make up about 40 per cent of the population , catalan is also spoken <P:05> in a dialectal , form in the valencian country and the balearic islands , autonomous communities spanish autonomous communities that maintains close historical and cultural links with catalonia , my lecture will not deal about catalonia as a whole this was just a brief presentation i gave you but about the role of landscape integration of national identity in general and in catalonia as a particular case study , my point is that in the catalan case the landscape was very relevant at the dawn of catalan nationalism in the late 19th century a nation that stressed the importance of mountains in the process of becoming the catalan nation , the ideological and symbolic nationalist landscape created at that time it is still employed nowadays , and it's still employed basically of course by nationalist political parties , the same landscapes , the same images are evoked wha- over and over century later by catalan nationalists , nevertheless a new discourse link to the territory and link to the landscape , is (valued) right now due to unprecedented , territorial conflicts after two decades of great economic development , under the government of a nationalistic political party , i wish to explore (xx) today , this new discourse , and these differences with the old and official one , still very influential (to the present) , but first of all let's see how the subject of nationalism is and should be approached through a political geography and (xx) generally speaking , the relationships between landscape and identity , and even (xx) , almost half of my lecture will be devoted to the state of the arts of old topics , the spanish nationalism has rarely encountered such an a- an appropriate moment as the present day , for the last several years we have been somewhat astonished to witness a true protrusions of nationalist ideologies , and parallel to these protrusions and that would be link to a decomposition of the whole system there has also been a revival of political geography as a tool with which to interpret the aforementioned system , and in recently political geography published almost exclusively on the field of a nation state a long standing tradition that was initiated in the 19th century by <NAME> , from that time on , and almost absolutely since then , the state has been the main object of study for political geographers , of course the state is one of the most interesting and influential politically organised spaces in the last two centuries , although it's neither the only one nor the only (xx) expression of political (democracy) aware of this situation political geography has widened its range of action in recent years , this renovation is also due to the incubation of most of the conceptual and methodological innovations in geography over the last decades , the political geography of the 1980s and 90s incorporated the rich debate on the reconsideration of the role of culture and on the the i- the interest in regional geography capable of linking particular to the general , on the other hand we have now entered an interesting process of reconsideration and reassessment of the role it plays in explanation of social phenomena , place is no longer depending for analysis exclusive to humanistic (emphasis) , postmodern and pre- (xx) geographers , geographers also use discourse , in this sense we are witnessing the configuration of a political geography based on a different conception of the notion of political space , this space is now understood as a collective action situated in a specific place , as a set of relationships between the (unions) groups and institutions that constitute a true political interaction , this political stage is conceived as a dynamic set of relationships based on distant (feelings) and translated into short term interactions , the new world map is conceived as a wide range of political spaces ranging from the stateless nations to more diffuse spaces of a religious or ethnic nature including city districts (liable to) complex spaces and regional entities of a suburb state nation , the current interest in the nationalist phenomena both minority and the state (nationally) , somewhat ignored in the recent years by political geographers with a few noble exceptions of course must be placed within this framework of thematic theoretical and methodological (xx) , fortunately the (xx) of nationalism is now being studied from different geographical points of view , and these include the national construction of a social space , the role of (xx) place the local local dialectics , the territorial and local impact of globalisation , nationalism and an equal development with regard to natural resources and (xx) , (xx) of states , the study of a culture and national territory (xx) and ensure everything that is implied by the consideration of territory as a basis and political resource for the national construction process in a long (xx) of states , contemporary political geography is therefore starting to offer interesting readings of nationalist phenomena , if this completes new , theoretical and methodological (components) that i have considered that nationalists are largely (at the) rhetorical form of ideology , or rather , if you like a territorial ideology , from my point of view , the nation's claim by nationalist are not only located in space and like any other social organisation influenced by geographical situation but and like other social phenomena nationalist claims specific territories as part of their own identity by emphasising their so-called particular exceptional and historical connection , one of the most characteristic features of the nationalist ideology movements is it's ability to re-define and politicise space by considering it as a distinctive historical (xx) , nationalist movements interpret and advocate space place and time and from there proceed to construct an alternative history and an alternative geography , it (goes) therefore that the geographical perspective is of great interest for understanding national . because these ideologies are structured , according to complex (xx) , the role played , by place is essential for the structuring of nationalist expression because as a form of political practice the strength of nationality varies precisely according to its ability to respond to the needs of a particular place , in this sense national , could even be interpreted as a political response determined by the local (environment) in which landscape plays a determining role as a expression of collective identities , as we now can see in the following nazis of a role of landscape in formation of national identity . landscape is a physical reality but it's also , a social product , it's also , and basically the cultural projection of a society on a specific stage , landscape not only reflects the world as it is , but it's also a construction , a composition of (outer) world it's also a way perceiving the world , landscapes involve a clear sense of belonging belonging to specific group and (confirms) the sign of identity , landscapes do not create territorial identity out of nothing , but out of the special significance confirmed on them by our culture , in short landscape is a concept hugely , impregnated to with cultural and above all ideological connotations , landscape can be either treated as a dynamic (pot) of symbols characteristic of the culture of the past and the present and maybe also the future , the semiotic legibility of a landscape can be (comforts) to a greater or lesser degree but it's always linked to the culture that produces symbols as we have just seen in a way in claudio minca's lecture in the morning , nationalist ideologies use a great number of symbols in building landscape and landscape symbols which tend to tighten the national ties by which the population can identify itself as a people or as a community , nationalist mythology has created a whole (xx) of lexis of collective identification in which place is understood as a leading area , a specific portion of space laden with symbols and acting as a transmission centre for cultural messages , we can indeed speak , in terms of a symbolic nationalist landscape , these landscapes these places of proactive nationalist identification are neither immanent nor imputable , they come and go like nations and (nationalists) , created in time and space , by way of illustration let us now consider mountains a hugely interesting landscape symbol to which we will return when we discuss the case at the end of a catalan nation <PREPARING OVERHEAD, P:14> mountains have , wide and variant material dimensions but they are also endowed with a spiritual and symbolical nature , societies that have long that have long (xx) in the vicinity of the mountain observing (the) over centuries have generated a whole universe of myth legends fables and symbols comparable only to the richness and diversity to those er other er areas like er mhm sea or desert to other (exceptional) landscapes , these types of landscape become two centres of significance and meaning , become symbols that express different thoughts ideas and emotions , in europe if you may know appreciation of hostile rough and rugged landscapes such as mountains or marshlands , is real- real- relatively recent , mountains were feared and avoided until the 18th century and only became fashionable with the 19th century aesthetic of the (xx) and the sublime , (we remember) the rise of (mountaineering) at this time , they were not (xx) building or (xx) space in which the origins of a nation's of a nation in particular (are sought) , the end of the 18th century witnessed the publication of newspaper books (xx) to the mountains high enough by <NAME> and his book on the alps , it is a (xx) fact that mont blanc hitherto commonly known as the accused mountain acquired this modern name with (xx) (piste) , on the other hand in 1792 <NAME> carbonnier , french published the first colour monograph from the pyrenees considered by the experts to be the first tourist guidebook on the centre of pyrenees and to a large extent one of first main geography books on this mountain range , <COUGH> carbonnier was an (serious) reader of rousseau and held the firm belief that mountain life is good for physical and mental health of human beings (seen) in the mountain weather the incarnation of men (and they) and they linked , by similar (xx) , carbonnier inspired great scientific interest (in buildings) at a time when the area was also used as a place for new cultural and social practises such as , (xx) theory and (hygienics) actively partaken of by many great intellectuals of the period including victor hugo , painters writers and guidebook authors also generated the images while popularising and highlighting certain places to the (xx) of others , thus certain landscapes or patch of land become true symbols of a nationalist ideology that evokes a national past of differently (needs of the models) , indeed nationalist sentiment is often expressed as veneration for the past a past that is naturally embodied in landscape , for nationally , more than for any other social phenomena the landscape is indeed the present day receptacle that contains the national past , thus the national landscape becomes unique distinctive with an identity linked to the collective memory , which is embedded in the soil , history nationalises a tract of land and infuse its most characteristic geographical features with mythical content and feeling of the sacred , landscape thus becomes the receptacle of the collectively shared consciousness , it is the expression of the homeland in the spanish sierra madre , (xx) , the whole (xx) is venerated and honoured above all they are symbols in the nationalist hierarchy and as symbol by (resonance) of collective identity and national identification , we have been looking at now that the (intolerance) of landscape in the process of constructing national identity , we have also seen how mountainous landscape is special relevant in this process on account of the enormous symbolic content with which is it is endowed , we shall now , see how all this applies to the catalan case . as mentioned , as mentioned previously the foundations for (xx) catalan nationalist thought were linked towards the end of the 19th century with the <FOREIGN>  renaissance </FOREIGN> in catalan called renaissance in english , it was a cultural movement promoted in the last quarter of the 19th century by the influential catalan bourgeoisie of the (xx) , indeed the landscape was to play an important role in the construction of catalan nationalist ideology , at the height of the nationalist renaissance , at the end as i said of the 19th century catalonia was sensitive to the new aesthetic and symbolic appreciation of landscape especially mountainous landscape that was sweeping the rest of europe or at least a big part of the rest of europe , the mountain thus became a key figure among catalan nationalist symbols part of the essential landscape which confers meaning on the (xx) terrain , in this context , mountains , were invested with a mythical (visionary) almost initially (xx) , the mountain was a symbol of purity and virginity , and the origins of the nations of the nation catalan nation were therefore to be sought in the pyrenees , montserrat , i don't know if you are familiar with the catalan geography <PREPARING OVERHEAD, P:06> montserrat that's the name of this mountain it's another mountain another sacred mountain situated to the southwest of barcelona was later to become the symbol par excellence for catalan homeland , allusions er to montserrat and the pyrenees abound in the works of the great catalan writers poets of the period and allegedly became quite often popular culture transmitted to children at home and in school <COUGH> the <FOREIGN>  renaissance </FOREIGN> the renaissance , therefore had wide (xx) and led to a period of cultural ideological and by extension political construction that characti- characterise the passage from the 19th to the 20th century , inspired by the mythical and mystical vision of a landscape many associations were founded to foster the scientific and cultural knowledge of mountains , in the sense hiking and hill walking were (relevant) activities that required the whole of inner exploration . a role of (rediscovery) , which on occasion led to significant (xx) such as the protection of the greek romanesque architectural heritage which was to discover to be sadly on (pillage) and great deterioration . the interior of catalonia and and especially the mountainous areas er it's full of these small romanesque er churches <PREPARING OVERHEAD, P:18> there are hundreds of them er in the er spread on the territory , however the nationalistic interpretation of landscape did not only give rise to the important cultural and political role of hiking but also covered other aspects of the arts and sciences not only architecture and geopolitics , during this period as so often happens architecture assumed a major symbolic role in the bourgeois homes of barcelona we find reproductions of mediaeval castles with dragon motifs and on gaudi's sagrada familia church the (xx) spirals refers us back once again to the (rugged) peaks of montserrat <PREPARING OVERHEAD, P:20> in the (xx) of the sagrada familia church , likewise the interesting field of geopolitics was greatly influenced by this identity that was embedded on landscape and of landscape and territory , many intellectuals were in favour of natural county (xx) french boundaries to replace the territorial division of provinces associated with the political centralism designed by the spanish state , the 1977 , the recreation of the catalan political institutions , after 40 years of franco's (revenge) and the triumph of the nationalist parties didn't bring about a renewal of the ideological discourse on identity but a revival of the old concepts of these concepts we have just seen , the continued discourse on mythical mainly mountainous landscapes in catalonia focused party attention when some natural open spaces were declared protected sites to great popular acclaim and deep patriotic satisfaction , the money for protection of these sites , (xx) management and the subsequent media publicity were used by the catalan government to gain environmentalist programmes for many years . the downside , of this policy as witnessed by the different (founded) laws is that many other spaces both great in natural and even historic but not essential , value , have been eclipsed in the process , left without government protection and considerably exposed to all kinds of environmental degradation and negligence , this mythicisation of the landscape has also had geopolitical effects by establishing a barely (escaped) landscape , if underestimated , the (xx) of catalonia is not (particularly) associations the catalonia post-med (xx) mediaeval is not mythical epics they're like (farm) catalonia the southern territories that have remained under the moorish domination for almost five centuries , thus southern areas these catalan southern areas devoid of identity value are the site of the only nuclear power stations in catalonia and of the largest petrochemical plant in the nation , the area southwest from <NAME> although the ebro , the largest river in spain flows through it , (one-million-six) or 80 per cent of all wind power stations could be placed in the area , with the most haunting landscape and also by mental impacts , the romantic interpretation of the landscape may be an efficient means of rational environmental policy with ideological overscores but on the other hand this policy has neglected a large section of (xx) , pragmatism provided the arguments for intense accelerating government development schemes that while (xx) in the national identity of spaces have transformed many of the customs and manners of the catalan territory from the cost lines to the mountains , during these last 20 years , 25 years , however this (double) discourse implemented over the long period of (xx) economic growth , has shown has shown how , the contradictions inherent in the territorial (model) and has given rise to an unprecedented number of territorial and landscape disputes with the regional government , by way of illustration there have been massive mobilisations against the state and basically the regional government and er actions er like er or mhm promotions like the national hydrological plant and the wind power plant , there has been massive mobilisations against other projects <PREPARING OVERHEAD, P:06> other projects like the creation of golf courses marinas building states , power lines (xx) and so on , this degree of unrest that (xx) , seems since the mid 1970s when the (xx) of the franco regime created a favourable and most (xx) against the degradation of the territory , as one more aspect of the struggle for democracy , over these last decades , basically also the last two decades in general the tension between a strong landscape oriented ideology and (xx) that largely ignore this (dissidence) make it rich east (xx) , even that time honoured compromise policy between (selected foundation) and the economic (xx) of the landscape has given a way to the later , (xx) of the (xx) . although different nature scope and expression of this conflicts shared enough common factors to allow a structural analysis over and beyond a specific (xx) of each situation . (xx) example the press is almost every week full of er these er mhm , social , problems <P:05> and i just want to point at some of these of these er mhm . some of these er er these er er specific erm of these er er the expression of these common factors that (xx) some of them , the first factor is the (xx) importance given to classic ideological principles when local environmental issues are at stake , people will defend their immediately immediate surroundings their local issues , their own local landscape attacked by the continuous spread of building and new high-rise , it's true that elements of anti-globalisation ideology are present different ways in these conflicts but they are not the the most important . second the landscape argument is based in disguise of mobilisations although , of course it's not the single one , sometimes the landscape produces an expression of territorialized identity far removed from the official identity landscape , this is exactly what has happened in the south of catalonia i mentioned before , where in last few month new little nations appeared , er er new little nations never existing before , like <NAME> , people from the south , <NAME> people and so on , new denominations which make explicit use of a territory bound identity , in fact many of the protest and demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people have come from the southern lands of catalonia the lands (xx) on the essential catalan landscape . three there is a clear detachment from the traditional language and political structures , the mobilisations are organised by groups that unite people from a wide range of social and cultural backgrounds in common defence of a particular place , the political parties have been out-played to the extent that that they are all or almost all , seen as part and parcel of an aggressive territorial development policy and they comp- er and they are seen also as accomplice in the national landscape policy of deceit , this is phenomenon occurring in times where political commitment is lacking and both beyond the small environmental movements of the last 70s and the beginning even the beginning of the 80s , nowadays it encompasses very (xx) and huge population spectrum , and fourth these mobilisations clearly point to the existence of a landscape classes in catalonia , the widespread humanising of the territory has rendered the whole landscape (vulnerable) to the dynamics of equalisation and (xx) education , any part of the country can no come under pressure to provide the space needed for a new leisure centre or a communications junction point , even some spaces that have been heavily protected by virtue of their national identity value have now , (xx) and eventually (xx) of their original symbolic significance , in short , landscape associated with the traditional catalan nationality is been questioned , catalan nationality that relies on landscape as its ideological corner stone has been damaged , in short part of this ideology implies the projection of a territorial and landscape imagery it stands for reason that the imagery will now have to be reconstructed , the intensive territorial conflicts of the past ten 15 , years has generated a new discourse linked to the territory and the landscape full of contradictions with the old one and the next coming years will be crucial to see how these contradictions how this tension between two different landscapes discourses is resolved , thank you </S2>
<APPLAUSE>
