This panel explores the ongoing construction of Catalan identity through considerations of non-hegemonic, peripheric and postindustrial places and spaces. These alternative landscapes as expressed in notions of new ruralism, the fringe and the liminal, allow us to reconsider space and, by extension the construction of Catalan identity and its study, through new theoretical reflections that emphasize spaces that are overlooked in political, economic, and cultural discourses.
The theorizing of space has been of utmost importance to Catalan Studies given its primacy vis-à-vis questions of identity along linguistic, cultural, social and political axes. However, the space in question has more often than not been that of the city of Barcelona. While this is understandable given the importance of the metropolis in Catalonia’s modern development and the way in which its identity has served as a as a mise-en-abyme for the entire polity, things are changing. A critical reassessment is underway and in response to what may be understood as a “decolonization of perspective,” new frontiers are actively entering the discussion of what it means to be Catalan in a world defined by connections, intersections, and diverse superpositions. Old hierarchies need to be broken.
This MLA special session proposes to build on this scholarship by examining three new ways to approach space and, hence, the construction of Catalan identity: Performance, Food Studies, and what we can define as a sensorial approach to photography and space. Space remains at the core of these analysis, but is tackled from new perspectives that reconsider established dynamics such as: the rural/urban binary; the tense relationship between Catalunya/Spain; and the predominance of the visual when it come to the theorization of space.
The first speaker, Isaias Fanlo, reconsiders the tensions between center and periphery, between the metropolis and the countryside, that have been palpable in Catalan culture since the cultural re-emergence (the Renaixença) in the first decades of the 19th century. At times reduced to allegory, when not completely forgotten, Catalan rural spaces are both remote and productive, fertile and obscure. In recent years, however, several successful initiatives have arisen to reclaim these areas far from Barcelona through performing arts. In this paper, he contributes to debates in the intersection of Theatre and Performance Studies and Ecocriticism by addressing various scenic arts projects taking place in very different areas at the cultural and geographical periphery of Catalonia: the rural south (the Delta de l’Ebre), the mountains in the north (La Garrotxa), and the high plains in the western edge (Lleida and the orchards) in search of an answer to the question what, in the end, constitutes Catalan culture?
Jeffrey K. Colman builds on center/periphery dynamics by focusing on tensions between Catalonia and Spain. His take on space revolves around the creation of the denominación de origen (DO, or wine appellation) of cava, the Spanish sparkling wine. Even though 95% of cava production takes place in the Penedès region of Catalonia, when the DO was created, municipalities outside Catalonia with a history of producing sparkling wine were allowed to join. Over the last decade, the vastness of DO Cava’s borders has created tensions leading to several producers leaving the DO. In this context, the fracturing and restructuring of DO Cava serve as a proxy for the tensions between Catalonia and Spain, redefining notions of Catalan national identity.
For her part, Olga Sendra Ferrer participates in and concludes the redefinition of space through an analysis of elements of non-visuality in photography. While considering the work that Consuelo Bautista developed on and about the Raval, a working-class neighborhood in Barcelona, she explores how by substituting the predominance of the gaze with sound, touch, and movement, Bautista questions the configuration of images and, hence, urban space. Sendra Ferrer thus argues that Bautista reconfigures the physical and material environment into a perceived environment where the mythical territory of art and architecture is replaced by fluidity, creating a new structure, an immaterial “touch” and soundscape that disrupts visuality as it decodes space.
Together, these three papers work to consolidate the new methodologies active in the analysis of cultural artifacts in the Catalan context and contribute to the ongoing rearticulation of theoretical frameworks in Catalan Studies.
After a short introduction by the presenter, every panelist will have 18 to 20 minutes to present, which will leave up to 20 minutes for open discussion.