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

RECORDING DURATION: 20 min 25 sec

RECORDING DATE: 7.11.2003

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: unknown

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 5

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

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

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: unknown

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: unknown

S5: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: unknown

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S1> it's now time for us to continue with the programme , it's my pleasure , to introduce to you , our second , keynote speaker for today , professor <NAME S2> . he's a professor of of human geography at the university of girona , in catalonia spain , he is also , long time dean of the faculty of arts in that university , professor <NAME S2>'s main areas of interest include history of geographical thought and mythical geography and his recent research , has focused on the history of the concept of landscape . professor <NAME S2>'s recent publications include books on nationalism and territory and an edited volume on , focusing on spanish colonialism in morocco , now professor <NAME S2> the floor is yours </S1>

<PRESENTATION CPRE040 by S2>

<APPLAUSE>
<S1> thank you , professor <NAME S2> , for an interesting , presentation now the floor's open for , comments questions , even some some (xx) for for discussion </S1>
<S3> er i'll er , er you you mentioned er that that montserrat the mountains as one er or the national symbolic landscape in catalonia are there other er landscape elements which have such strong symbolic value maybe the the sea or or something else in catalonia or maybe in spain er or in the castilia can can you make some comparisons </S3>
<S2> of course you you can make some comparisons i only referred to catalonia and in catalonia er in relation to the mountains er they are (related to) pyrenees and in the pyrenees (xx) especially and also you have montserrat and some other (xx) er it's true that the sea the mediterranean sea in in in er particular period at the beginning of the 20th century about 19 10th er 20s had also an important symbolical role er that er st- started links to the er mhm national nationalist ideology erm but it was not so important it was not not er comparable to the force that er mountains er basically pyrenees er have in this er particular case , er and of course if you , if you take the the rest of the spain there are much more examples depending on the region and depending on the on the case you you are studying , one of the interesting things we were discussing about that yesterday is that this new , political map of spain based on 17 er different autonomous communities er provokes the need in those communities where the identity issue was not relevant important in er er the moment the division was made provokes as i said the necessity of er finding er mhm elements , in the landscape , full of significance and meaning er for er (discussion) in case they didn't have it , and during the you understand what what i mean so now one of the most interesting pheno- phenomena in at least in spain is the in these new autonomous communities apart from catalonia ba- basque country and galicia and andalucia (xx) the rest are really in a process of , re-writing or writing new geographies and new histories and relation to the er symbology of the landscape regard in the process of erm stretching er mhm identity permanence in landscape it is quite interesting to see because it's now in process </S2>
<P:13>
<S1> may i , then ask <COUGH> ask a question or rather this is , comment and i would like to hear your reflections , er i found this really interesting that the mention that you made about er , common defence of the territory or ways m- modern (world) is becoming er an important platform for political mobilisation with new activism er and this somehow er , er instead of political parties er acting as as important points of reference for these movements i i think this is something that is going on (over all) er , there seem to be various ideologies of space that are now linked to politics in new ways that seem to transgress traditional political map , the map of political parties seems to transgress the division in a right and left er (when talking) politics er and er . er this can this be be seen er in catalonia in in other ways than just er connection with environmental issue because i think at least in finland there seems to be politically sort of competition where where connection of a local space-bound communities sort of mobilised , proactive politics or competition , competition in regional places big cities and so on , so is this is this what you can find also in catalonia </S1>
<S2> er i think as you said that this so-called mhm detachment from erm conventional political structures it's not exclusive of our case of course it is much more global in the way of at least western er or , er european (xx) in some countries more than in others , mhm and of course there are other ways of expressing er the er the aspirations er and thoughts that people that people have , but the the environmental and not even the environmental the landscape more than the environmental one is er especially important or relevant in this case because of the symbolic connotations er of this particular landscape , and it's the first time where you find er (xx) sort of a crisis mhm contradiction between er a landscape that has been venerated er for er basically the catalan nation but of the catalan culture in general too and how people feel that this landscape is really er (managed) or even historic so there's this sort of divorce that creates a lot of ideological implications , er if you take into account that catalonia since er 1977 er has been er governed by a nationalist political party , only for er one nationalist political party next mhm sunday can change could change because we have election for first time in 20 years the political panorama can change in a week but until now the situation is like that , so , i don't say that this i'm not saying that these mobilisations are exclusively er not (or) strictly unidentical they are , erm they they are of course there are environmental , er issues there behind but er mhm they are basically social mobilisations er related to er tactics er that we could define as (just) identity , and how identity is managed or not er or in what way by a mhm political parties (xx) in this case the nationalists (xx) , which er believes and uses the exactly the same images and ideas er er created more than 100 years ago but in the (incipient) mhm mhm national catalan nationality created by the catalan bourgeoisie of the epoch , and there there are others of course but the way of expressing it , (differs) </S2>
<P:05>
<S1> i- is you are you are you saying that er , the imagery of which the mountains are part this imagery of landscape that has been so used before (xx) national is somehow , becoming (xx) <S2> [yes] </S2> [becoming] questioned more and more i remember a long time president er jordi pujol <S2> mhm </S2> has effectively used also the landscape imagery he climbed the mountains <S2> [<NAME>] </S2> [(xx)] the yes er pictures are taken of him , he portraits himself in the quintessential catalan landscape <S2> of course (xx) </S2> is there no future for this kind of appropriation of the imagery for this doesn't mean anything it's it's like becoming to be the thing of the past </S1>
<S2> er i think so i mean it's less and less useful for political er interest and as you said the president of catalonia (xx) mountain and there for mhm er the surroundings there is a press conference and he uses this press conference to speak to the country and to say important things er there is a clear connection between the mountain (and that he's there) and things that they that he says erm what i'm saying is that er , this is less and less politically useful , erm because people people see that er the rest of the territory and the landscape is treated er or destroyed if you like erm and that er this imagery mhm ha- hasn't er (xx) for protecting erm or or er managing the territory (xx) , so the- there is sort of confluence between a society that which is more and more consciousness of environmental er topics and er society , er which had er er er er landscape ideology had and that er mhm it doesn't mhm believe in or it believes in it less and less this is a crisis of representations and and new mhm i don't know what will happen next sunday er one of the things they will have to do is how to reconstruct this , mhm imagery er in a way how to how to reconstruct or to connect if they want to connect these erm er images these symbols er of landscape with the that tradition which comes from er almost 100 and a half ago , one one century ago , 150 years ago , when they write the (xx) , er yes </S2>
<S4> i was er , just wondering er , that because [in] </S4>
<S5> <FOREIGN> [käytätkö]vähän kovempaa ääntä </FOREIGN> </S5>
<S4> it was an interesting presentation i'm sorry i missed the first part of this so i i don't know er exactly what you began with but er , i just wanted to mention about this er er thing that er mod- different mobilisations and and thinking of whether this is a environmental movement or something else i think it's very interesting question and er because one of the , one could say maybe paradoxes of the modern environmentalist movement has been that that it has become in a sense er detached from place , that er there is this kind of er opposition against er large scale infrastructure development for instance but not specifically er protecting any single space but this is more , territorial <S2> of course </S2> and er so i think there's some similarities for instance with with er maybe like the baltic states when they became independent and then at that part of the independence movement was was a strong ecological movement and so then so the nation building idea , took the disguise so to speak of of an environmentalist movement but but er what i'm gathering here is that it's this is more about it is catalonia that is being protected and not not any environment so it's more like it's could be even like a like compared to , this phenomenon that has been called not in my backyard then this would be more like in er not in my imagined community or not in my nation or something something similar to this (xx) </S4>
<S2> yes er er you you are right even though er even though of course er when when you (assists) one of these er demonstrations you you you you find not only erm local issues but all sort of er kind of change and er mhm (xx) they are all together put there but er you you are right when you say that er it's er very (xx) and and this is the (xx) explains that you can find here not only the old environmentalist erm activist of the 70s and 80s which er we- were a minority a clear minority er but families with children and old people and er the full er range of the society is is present there in in and almost every week you'll find pictures like this in the in the ne- er newspapers of the country (xx) and most demonstrations at the local press , the local press has played an important role er in all these er issues and for the first time politicians are really worried about that because they see that through the local press this kind of local er mhm demonstrations or (indications) erm create er (xx) create er erm er sort of create new ways of er , behaviour politically which in which for some of them means er something (xx) , er and now we , the difference in in relation to the eastern countries or to the the some of these eastern countries you mentioned is that it occurs this phenomenon 20 years after er erm we we have a real democracy , so it's a long period mhm and i and i think that it's because er because of the government that we have had a government ruled by a nationalist political party , it's one er of the reasons that i explained why er (xx) has emerged almost 25 years of the er (xx) democracy the er came in spain (after franco has left) </S2>
<P:07>
<S1> okay , thank you professor <NAME S2> for an interesting presentation , we will now have a break , just to take a cup of coffee . er , to be on the safe side i'm gonna say this in finnish <FOREIGN 1:14> </S1>
