Session 7: Cultural Constructions and Influences

5th Global Conference

Friday 9th March – Sunday 11th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic

Culture in Consciousness: An Epigenesis of Mind.
Roger O’Shea
Limerick Institute of Technology (School of Art and design) (LIT), Ireland

This paper argues that self-awareness as a intercultural value causally covaries with the emergence of human art and communicative action.  The increasing self-awareness that is often taken to define the human species emerges as a consequence of intercultural interaction and communicative action and should not be solely attributed to the development of linguistic competence. As increasing self-awareness comes to define the species (and, significantly, their collective self-image that differentiates them from other species and the external world), art and communicative action become much more significant in this process than language narrowly considered.  The result is that Homo sapien group sizes expand exponentially; and resultant sub-groupings, in themselves, become epigenetic niches which determine behaviour outside that which is defined by human DNA.  Consequently there is a larger social pool of extended interactions that is able to define, recognize and re-identify the semiotic imagery of increasing abstraction and complexity; this then becomes the basis of the incipient culture which allows for development, and social evolution. So culture emerges.

The manner of emergence creates a reciprocal relationship between interculturalism and self-awareness where consciousness is defined in terms of the sub-groups as a significant selected-for advantage.  This happens, research shows, where parietal and decorative art work appear on the archaeological record, when successive epigenetic niches become established thereby enabling notions of species and self-awareness to develop into cultural (extended) forms where recursive interactions then take place between extended consciousness and (brain-bound) processes of cognition.  The paper aims to demonstrate that the effect of epigenetic niches is a relaxation of natural selection (a phenomenon readily observed in domesticated animals) which incurs an increase in reliance on intercultural forms to adhere to the advantageous niches.

The State, Definer of Culture: the Case of Quebec
Gaelle Lemasson
Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, UK

In the French-speaking province of Quebec, culture has always been an issue of survival. Since the 1960s, the State has played an increasing role in protecting and stimulating the development of the Quebecois’ distinct culture as well as in defining it, a task that has proven difficult and controversial. Three episodes in the history of Quebec’s cultural policy illustrate this well.

In 1959, Georges-Émile Lapalme, ex-leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, set down on paper his cultural vision for French Canadians in a manifesto entitled Pour une politique (1959). Two years later he became the first minister for Cultural Affairs, but his vision never fully realised hindered by the resistances of the Prime Minister who did not share Lapalme’s vision.

In 1976, after a turbulent decade that propelled Quebec society into modernity, new perspectives opened with the election of the first separatist party. Faced with the eventuality of a sovereign Quebec, State minister Camille Laurin presented the premises of a new collective culture in the white paper A Cultural Development Policy for Quebec (1978). The proposal aroused many criticisms from the public and was gradually put aside.

In 1991, the minister of Cultural Affairs, Liza Frulla-Hébert, entrusted an advisory council with the task of articulating a cultural policy proposal. Known as the Arpin Report, this proposal was publicly debated. A year later, the minister submitted a new proposal: La politique culturelle du Québec: Notre culture, notre avenir. It reached consensus and was officially adopted in June 1992.

How did Lapalme and Laurin define Quebec’s culture? Why were their respective proposals rejected? How did the 1992 cultural policy define it? What definition of culture could be legitimately endorsed by the State? We will answer these questions by analysing further these three policy proposals as well as the reactions they provoked.

Valencia’s Battle for Cultural Recognition
Gillian Darcy
School of Historical and European Studies, La Trobe University, Australia

The period of Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy witnessed the so-called ‘Batalla de Valencia’ (Battle of Valencia). It was in essence a political battle of ideologies fought to establish what it means to be Valencian. This struggle for cultural identity was pivotal in the sense that it was the foreseeable outcome of not only centuries of historical vicissitudes that fed the Valencian cultural psyche, but also of a long, hard period of repressive cultural and linguistic centralisation. Valencia, as a region, was now at a crossroads to shape and define a distinct and autonomous cultural identity and take it forward confidently.

In the same period, neighbouring Catalonia – a region with a shared history, a common language and an equally vibrant economic and political legacy as that of Valencia – was fighting its battles on a different front. A Catalan identity and culture, constructed predominantly around a strong linguistic heritage, was already established on firm foundations. The core values of Catalan culture did not need to be questioned or debated as they were in Valencia, leaving Catalonia well on the road to becoming a distinct entity within the Spanish devolution (and perhaps beyond).

Why, therefore, do these two regions, that share common cultural, historic and political ground, differ so markedly in their developments? This paper will discuss these issues and postulate that such marked differences in the establishment of a cultural identity are due to differing degrees of political and social manipulation of the cultural and linguistic practices throughout the history of both regions and particularly during the Spanish dictatorship. Furthermore, recognising that language (Català/Valencià) is the signpost of the culture of these two regions, this paper will examine the central role that it has played as a political tool in the battle for identity and its resultant ambiguity.