Commenting the other: Basque traits

 

In this final section I will briefly account for some issues related with Basque identity markers. Basque identity has been strongly re-shaped in the last 40 years and the Basques have gone from being a hermetic culture, mainly based on folk and rural structures with a population mostly centered on peasantry, to a culture that has been moving forward by means of industrialization. This radical shift happened due to several historical, economical and political reasons; for instance, the industrialization process came together with migration waves that brought thousands of workers from other parts of Spain, resulting in an increase of living standards. Furthermore, the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in 1976, the enactment of a new Spanish constitution in 1978, and the Basque nationalism’s awakening supported by the separatist group ETA, are all strong factors in this identity shift as well.

 

Based on the intercultural interaction that I have had along the years with Basques, I suggest that Basque identity is grounded on the basis of language and ethnicity, in opposition to the identity-traits of my informants. Firstly, identity is focused on the inherent relation of language and culture; hence Basque identity is linguistically centered.

 

In a nutshell, Basque or Euskera is spoken by around 900,000 people distributed throughout 4 Spanish provinces, Navarre, and 3 French provinces. Basque is probably the oldest language spoken in Europe and itself makes up one of the 3 European linguistic families —Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Basque. Among other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Catalan or Aranese, was banned by the dictator Francisco Franco for a period of 40 years. This ban prohibited the speaking, teaching and using of these languages in every layer of the social and institutional life, resulted in a significant decrease in native speakers of these languages. Language started to be considered a symbol of the resistance against the repressive politics held by Franco during the dictatorship. On the other hand, ETA’s military action not only gave legitimacy to the defense and promotion of Basqueness and Euskera, but also provided credibility, and people started to believe in the need of encouraging the use of the Basque language in every social layer. Thus without any governmental support, people started to spread the language little by little. Later on, and after the dictatorship, they started to make progress with the first generations of bilingual children.

 

The second component of identity is based on the generation of a set of dialectical relations between linguistic and ethnic identity. Basque ethnicity on the other hand, was produced in a political environment insofar as nationalistic movements arose during the 20th century. However, during the last years, ethnicity has been reshaping, adapting itself to the arrival of modernity, and will continue reshape insofar new immigrant waves arrive. The arrival of immigration to the Basque Country is also contributing to the readjustment of their identity by means of developing new politics of integration insofar people get acquainted with the Basque ethnic culture and with the language. Last but not least, immigrants are taking their cultural diversity with them. Along the last 5 years I have witnessed some changes in the Basque culture. Namely, the insertion of immigrants in politics, the opening of “ethnic” restaurants, shops, schools and mosques. The exchanging of texts that has been happened between the host culture and the immigrants has produced an increase in the information, contributing to the dynamics of the Basque culture. Nevertheless, this is a topic that still can’t be measured, so we must wait at least 5 more years for showing better results.

 

Concluding remarks

 

In the course of this work I have provided some theoretical suggestions, supplied with practical applications that helped me to show how acculturation works. I have deemed the immigration processes as explosive phenomena that are grounded on the basis of the Lotmanian concept of cultural explosion. This process is also one of the bases for the approach to the own and its dialectical relationship with the other. Furthermore, I have proposed that the management of the self is based on a triple relationship implying autocommunication, self-description and self-identification.

 

Through the examination of a case study I have illustrated these suggestion. In such a way we have seen how immigrants may introduce a series of codes for adapting the host codes to their own. Moreover, I have discussed the autocommunicative generation process of codes that are fundamental during the adolescence, such as the linguistic code and style. In virtue of the fixation in the self, immigrants start to learn how to cope with the codes of the other, representing a first stage in the identity-generation process. When people self-describe, they do not only reorganize the amount of information received from the others, but also readjust the own cultural codes, and thus become able to translate them. The case study is focused on the re-creation of significant cultural practices that are closely related with choice: religious rituals, partner-selection and alimentation. Throughout the examination of self-identification, we can notice how people show their commitment and membership to a particular group, re-creating one (or more) ethnic identity, and distinguish from the others within the group. In order to achieve these self-descriptions, individuals have to choose one acculturation strategy. I have argued that only by choosing certain acculturation strategy, they will be able to face their acculturation process and proceed to create self-models. How well do they acculturate is not a mono-dimensional question, but a matter for the host society as well.

 

These multifarious mechanisms of meaning-generation — Identification, the seeking/constituting of the own and the other, are fundamental issues for cultural semiotics since they show how different cultural sign systems are interrelated and deployed, but also how they help to ascribe meanings and identities semiotically constructed. Acculturation is not a process of either losing the own culture, or achieving a new one, but rather of cultural readjustment and reorganization within particular contexts of interaction; is a sign of cultural diversity and dynamism. Given the fact that migrations are one of the oldest human processes, more comparative semiotic analysis should be planned and carried out. The worldwide increase in intercultural contacts and its mutual influences is one of the strongest arguments for continuing with researches on acculturation. Exploring new directions, choosing other ethnic groups as research targets, and larger samples of informants are necessary for implement further researches with more thorough fieldworks delivering new results and perspectives.