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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 940

Part of Session 127: Language outside of the city (Other abstracts in this session)

Welcome to the End of the World! Centre-periphery Dynamics and Neo-liberalism

Authors: Kauppinen, Kati Hannele
Submitted by: Kauppinen, Kati Hannele (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)

The current era of globalization opens up possibilities for language minorities of the global periphery not only to step out of the margins but also to restructure their (minority) identities in new, creative ways (e.g. Coupland 2010; Pietikäinen 2010). However, rather than celebrating the emancipatory capacities of these processes, they need to be viewed from the perspective of a multitude of power relations and examined with regard to their connections to current neo-liberalism. As a political rationality that advocates restructuring society according to the logic of the market, neo-liberalism is tied not only to commercialization and globalization, but also to notions like creativity and activity along with the threat Distinct or extinct! (cf. Bröckling 2007).

Taking these insights as a starting point and the rapidly expanding heritage tourism as a key site of the processes described above, this paper aims to investigate the dynamics of centre and periphery in peripheral multilingualism. The investigation focuses on the tourist business activities of a female Sámi artist and entrepreneur living in the village of Inari in Northern Lapland, Finland. In her work she brings together a wide range of diverse resources and current flows, which makes her activities especially apt for investigating centre-periphery dynamics in light of contemporary neo-liberalism. To capture the multiplicity of her activities, I view them as a nexus of different discourses, practices, objects, places and people that come together in a particular historical moment to enable those activities (Scollon & Scollon 2004).

The study draws on data from the entrepreneur’s websites where she advertises guest houses located in three different, geographically peripheral locations.  From the perspective of centre-periphery dynamics, websites are crucial sites to examine as they constitute a site of agency with global reach. The analysis focuses on the appropriation and mixing of the individual (stressing the personal, creative and artistic), the traditional (culture and nature, highlighted as authentic and exotic), and the post-modern (drawing on global influences) on the websites. The analysis shows, how, on the one hand, the prevalent notion of the peripheral is reinforced and used as an asset and how, on the other, it is being undone, or resignified, by mixing in individual and global elements. These discursive practices seem to challenge the traditional boundaries and meanings of the peripheral and the central. Yet, they also seem to be inextricably intertwined with the logics of the current capitalism. Viewed in the context of minority (identity) politics, then, the question regarding their meaning is anything but a simple one.

References:

Bröckling, U. 2007. Das unternehmerische Selbst. Soziologie einer Subjektivierungsform. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Coupland, N. 2010. Introduction: Sociolinguistics in the Global Era. In: Coupland, N. (ed.) The Handbook of Language and Globalization. Chichester: Whiley-Blackwell.  1–27.

Pietikäinen, S. 2010. Sámi Language Mobility: Scales and Discourses of Multilingualism in a Polycentric Environment. International Journal of Sociology of Language 202. 79–101.

Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. 2004. Nexus Analysis. Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London: Routledge.