Towards a Common Public Culture? Boundaries to Belonging in Catalonia

The tension between the will to build a collective national identity and the increasing diversity of today's societies is one of the main challenges facing nation-states today. Catalan society, being no exception, also faces many challenges as diasporic identities and transnational loyalties pr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sánchez Martí, Angelina|||0000-0002-4719-4688, Pàmies Rovira, Jordi|||0000-0003-1707-4797, Caravaca Hernández, Alejandro|||0000-0002-7394-5721, Llos, Berta
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:257999
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/257999
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.17645/si.v10i2.4943
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Catalan identity
Catalonia
Collective identity
Diversity
Pluricultural identity
Sense of belonging
Descripción
Sumario:The tension between the will to build a collective national identity and the increasing diversity of today's societies is one of the main challenges facing nation-states today. Catalan society, being no exception, also faces many challenges as diasporic identities and transnational loyalties proliferate, weakening both citizens' roots and their need to belong. The present article aims to identify situations and social spaces of discrimination and explicit/implicit racism, existing mechanisms and responses aimed at avoiding and dealing with these situations, and the groups they affect most in Catalan society. Through a participatory research, 23 focus groups were carried out-of between six and 12 participants-in eight territories (Pàmies et al., 2020). Results reveal diverse areas of discrimination, ranging from the violation of civil and political rights to that of economic, social, and cultural rights. The situations described and named by some as examples of micro-racism complicate the sense of belonging for many citizens, challenging the real possibility of achieving a pluricultural collective identity. Thus, to promote belonging and build a common public culture with which everyone feels identified, as promoted by official speeches, it is necessary to recognize plurality and diversity and promote citizen participation-and representation-in devising public actions, as well as encourage interactions that emphasize all common and shared aspects in a context conditioned by the reactive fragmentation of identity politics.