Inhalt / Wobsah

Jean-Rémi Carbonneau / Andreas Gruschke / Fabian Jacobs / Ines Keller: Dimensionen kultureller Sicherheit: Einführung

Uwe Gaul: Grußwort des Staatssekretärs im SMWK

Ingo Kolboom: Die Minderheitenfrage im Spiegel einer persönlichen Roadmap

Staatliche Stabilität

A. Tom Grunfeld: Kulturelle Sicherheit ethnischer Minderheiten: Tibet und Québec

Andreas Gruschke: Dimensionen kultureller Sicherheit am Beispiel Chinas

Pierre Trudel: Kulturelle Identität und Wiederaufbau der indigenen Nationen in Kanada

Institutionelle Dimension

Peter Schurmann: Zum Abbau kultureller Unsicherheit bei den Sorben nach 1945. Der Stellenwert sorbenrechtlicher Bestimmungen in Sachsen 1948 und Brandenburg 1950

Anna-Christine Weirich: Sprachliche Repertoires und gesellschaftliche Partizipation ukrainischsprachiger Bevölkerung in Moldova

Martin Normand: Aktives Angebot als Norm öffentlicher Dienstleistungen. Zu Inklusion und Sicherheit frankophoner Minderheitengruppen in Kanada

Anton Sterbling: Die Bedeutung kultureller Institutionen für die Deutschen in Rumänien

Territoriale Dimension

Nicolas Houde / Laurie Camirand Lemyre: Lokal verwaltete Naturschutzgebiete als Strategie zur Revitalisierung indigener politischer Kulturen in Kanada. Das Beispiel Masko Cimakanic Aski

Xabier Itçaina: Kulturelle Unsicherheit, gesellschaftlicher Wandel und territoriale Institutionalisierung am Beispiel des französischen Baskenlandes

Jean-Rémi Carbonneau: Zwischen spanischer und katalanischer Nationsbildung. Das Streben nach kultureller Sicherheit im Valencianischen Land

Huang Yunsong / Andreas Gruschke: Kulturelle Sicherheit unter Bedingungen unsicherer Existenz? Das Bodenproblem der Tibeter im indischen Exil

Kollektive Identitätsangebote

Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska: Sprach- und Kulturpraktiken junger Menschen aus europäischen Sprachminderheiten. Zwischen Assimilation und Aktivismus

Daniel Wutti: Erinnerung, Großgruppenidentität und politische Partizipation. Die Kärntner SlowenInnen zwischen kultureller Unsicherheit und Sicherheit

Tatiana Podolinská: Sichtbar und sicher? Kulturelle Identität als Quelle von Sicherheit. Soziale Vernetzung und der Predigerdiskurs der Pfingstler bei den Roma in der Slowakei

Partizipative Dimension

Inge Sichra: Agency von Müttern und Vätern. Sprachenpolitik und Sprachplanung in indigenen Familien in Lateinamerika

Ines Keller / Theresa Jacobs: Die Sorben in Deutschland: Kulturelle Praktiken und kulturelle Sicherheit

Manuel Meune: Die Schweiz als sprachenfeindliches Land? Von der Namenlosigkeit zur Revitalisierung: Der lange Weg des Frankoprovenzalischen

Fabian Jacobs: Kulturelle Sicherheit in der Bergbaufolgelandschaft am Beispiel der Sorben in der mittleren Lausitz

Abstracts

Autorenverzeichnis

Abstracts

A. Tom Grunfeld: Cultural Security among Ethnic Minorities: Tibet and Québec

The term “cultural security” covers a range of social, cultural and political meanings. My interest here is how minorities (ethnic, religious, cultural, linguistic, etc.) within a nation state ensure that their cultures are sustained to a satisfactory degree. Ruling elites aspire universally to social stability and minority populations that are equal stakeholders in, and loyal citizens of, the nation state. This is especially true in China where the ruling elites fear disorder and the breakup of the country to an inordinate degree, giving the issue of minority loyalty particular prominence. Tibet was incorporated into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1950 and for the past 67 years the central government has struggled with how to best achieve these goals of stability and inclusion. Since the 1990s the central government’s policy has been to win the loyalty of Tibetans primarily through economic means. To that end tens of billions of Yuan have been poured into the region, physically transforming it while a prosperous nascent Tibetan middle class has emerged. Yet, Tibetan loyalty, and stability, is still very much in doubt. Indeed, tension between Tibetans and ethnic Chinese (Han), if anything, is increasing due to official intervention in cultural matters, particularly in language instruction and the Tibetan Buddhist religion. This paper examines the situation in Tibet emphasizing the lack of cultural security. As a contrast I also look at the province of Quebec in Canada where reassurances and concrete policies guaranteeing local culture have successively led to stability and loyalty to the state.

Andreas Gruschke: Dimensions of cultural security in the Case of China

In China, until now, development measures mostly do not take cultural identity into consideration. Many cadres may even regard ethnic distinction as an obstacle to steady economic and social development. At its best, cultural features – and mostly the visible and therefore somehow more superficial features – are seen as a basis for the development of local tourism, thus initiating the development of economic activities in further related economic sectors, like handicrafts, hotel and transport businesses, among others. Little attention is given to the protection of what is considered as a “basic commodity” for the development of ethnic cultural regions. This paper argues that cultural features are more than a commodity, and are certainly not “obstacles” to be overcome before development can take off. Cultural identity is the basis for any kind of development, and therefore needs protection and support – and cultural security. In order to contextualize the situation in China and assess the state’s efforts at creating social and political stability, this paper at first attempts to develop preliminary definitions of cultural security and cultural inclusion. I then aim at unfolding different perspectives on cultural security, and how they can be both a precondition and an opportunity for more sustainable ways of local economic and social development, offering positive outcomes for social and political stability.

Pierre Trudel: Cultural Identity and Rebuilding of Indigenous Nations in Canada

First Nations are geographically widely dispersed in Canada. Those who occupy specific territories – generally called “Indianʼs reserves” – constitute small populations. 60 % of these reserves have less than 500 habitants; only 6,5 % are occupied by more than 2 000 persons. How to conciliate “cultural security”, political self-determination and decolonization of indigenous peoples of Canada? To answer that question, we will first present the highlights of the Royal Commission on aboriginal peoples (RCAP) that was established after the 1990 Oka Crisis. We will then examine one of its key recommendations concerning the establishment of “modern polities”, that is the grouping of indigenous communities into modern nations along cultural and linguistic lines in order to significantly increase their political weight and thus ensure their cultural security on the long-run. However, it should be born in mind that such “modern” political structures designed to strengthen and sustain aboriginal cultures conflict with the indigenous traditional culture of non-delegation of power. Third and last, we will look how First Nations respond to such a dilemma and how challenging the restructuration of about 1 000 communities into 80 nations is for the Canadian state.

Peter Schurmann: On the Reduction of Cultural Insecurity in the Sorbian Population after 1945. The Status of the Legal Provisions in Relation to the Sorbs in Saxony in 1948 and Brandenburg in 1950

The social, but above all the institutional framework for the Sorbs made it possible for them from 1948/49 to develop a sense of belonging to the GDR through cultural and political co-determination. Their own cultural identity was strengthened. The members of the Slav minority in Lusatia were made to feel that their language and culture were being taken more seriously than in previous decades. This process was by no means totally smooth, and was also weakened by different measures and discussions, which had a negative effect on intercultural dialogue and exchanges. The ignorance of Sorbian values and goals resulted in a certain, in some cases lasting, damage to their feeling of self worth as Sorbs. This was not only part of the teething troubles of the new Communist social system, but could also be attributed to the after effects and negative legacy left by the NS regime,which represented the highpoint of an agressive policy hostile to the Sorbs. The first provisions for the legally based promotion of the Sorbian language and culture did not however inevitably lead to a feeling of greater cultural security for all Sorbs.

Anna-Christine Weirich: Linguistic Repertoires and Social Participation of the Ukrainian-speaking Population in Moldova

In the Soviet Union, the so called titular languages of the Republics – like Moldovan in the Moldavian Socialist Soviet Republic (MSSR) – were fostered, at the same time as social and individual elaboration of Russian as the lingua franca of the Soviet people was promoted. Virtually no attention was paid to the linguistic groups that were minorised within the Republics, such as Ukrainians in the MSSR. In 1991, when the Republic of Moldova became independent, language policy underwent important changes. The process of “normalisation” of the new state language Moldovan/Romanian was set off and a number of minority rights were put into place. However, education in a minority language is restricted to schools with Russian as language of instruction whereby a “double minorisation” is being reproduced and the resources of the state language are hardly accessible. The example of a Ukrainan speaking village is taken into consideration in this article in order to discuss the problem of “double minorisation” with the help of the concepts “accessibility” and “reachability”, which offer a practice-oriented concept of linguistic inequalities. Finally, commonalities and differences between this theoretic framework and cultural security are being discussed.

Martin Normand: Active Offer as a Norm for Public Services Delivery. Towards Inclusion and Security for French-language Minority Communities in Canada

In the 2000s, active offer gained attention from governments and scholars in Canada as a way to better answer official language minority communities’ needs regarding public service delivery. This principle has been included in laws, policy statements and regulations at the federal level and in several provinces. Active offer has also been subject to particular scrutiny from language ombudsmen and from civil society organizations. Active offer can thus be comprehended as a state-driven principle developed as a way to respect linguistic obligations set forth in the language regime. But, can it also be comprehended as a community-driven principle to foster inclusion and security for French-language minority communities in Canada? We believe that the norms which support active offer can make way for a wider participation by civil society and citizens in service delivery and in determining which services should be actively offered in an official minority language by the State.

Anton Sterbling: The Significance of Cultural Institutions for the Romanian Germans

This contribution explains the significance which cultural institutions, in particular the mother-tongue school system, but also other cultural institutions such as newspapers, theatre, publishing houses etc., had for Romanian Germans after the Second World War, and still have today. In this respect, the development of two aspects is highlighted. Firstly, the political parameters and policy towards minorities, which went from the immediate post-war period and the Stalinist era through the so-called “cultural thaw” of the 1960s to the dark years of the nationalist Communist dictatorship of Ceauşescu, and which then created more favourable conditions within a European context for the development of minority cultures in Romania after the move to democracy. The second aspect relates however to the emigration of Germans from Romania, which carried on growing from the end of the 1960s with the hostile policies of Ceauşescu towards minorities. The main focus of my observations is on the cultural constellation at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, in which Romanian German culture and art achieved a breakthrough and a highpoint, but in which both lines of development coincided in a particular, momentous fashion.

Nicolas Houde / Laurie Camirand Lemyre: Locally Governed Nature Reserves as a Strategy for Revitalisation of Indigenous political Cultures – the Case of Masko Cimakanic Aski

Conservation parks and other protected areas have long been part of a colonial arsenal that have dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their lands and imposed visions of natural resource management often incompatible with local cosmovisions. This article proposes that protected areas can also, in a reversal of perspective, be used as a tool for decolonisation, to secure land in order to (1) protect the land from extractive industries and (2) allow for a revitalisation of traditional political cultures and resource management practices. Some Canadian First Nations are indeed attempting to put into practice an Indigenous territoriality with the help of protected areas. There exists, therefore, a dialogue between an approach of radical rejection of colonial structures, such as protected areas, and a pragmatic one mobilising these tools of the colonial society to meet further goals, such as redefining and revitalizing Indigenous political systems. This paper explores the case of the Wemotaci Iriniwok (Québec, Canada), for whom the creation of a protected area allows for a refocusing of the connection to the land towards an endogenous value system, in order to stimulate political innovation. Specifically, the Wemotaci Iriniwok capacity to experiment with political institutions through the management of a protected area is examined.

Xabier Itçaina: Cultural Insecurity, Social Change and Territorial Institutionalisation Using the Example of the French Basque Country

The French state is deemed to be reluctant to grant any official recognition and protection of minority and regional languages, in the name of a certain Republican ethos. However, this lack of institutional support from above has been partly compensated for by some local institutional arrangements, which created new conditions for a certain recognition of regional languages. The French Basque Country illustrates well this paradoxical situation. Since the early 1990s, new institutions were set up at the territorial level for Basque language and culture. In 2005, the process of institutionalisation took a step forward with the distinction between cultural and linguistic policy and the foundation of the Public Office for the Basque language. These institutions resulted from compromises between the state, local elected officials and linguistic movements. A key factor here was the cross-border influence of the Spanish Basque language policy model that was used repeatedly by French Basque language activists in their negotiation with the state and with local policy-makers. This emerging linguistic policy had some mea-surable effects on language revitalisation, with a slight increase in language proficiency among the youngest generations after 2006. However, the social use of the Basque language (in the family sphere, in public services, at work) kept on declining. This paper will concentrate on the political and normative debate raised around the social use of the Basque language in France. Special attention will be paid to the use of Euskera in the economy, and to articulating the debate between the linguistic controversy and the competing local development models.

Jean-Rémi Carbonneau: Between Spanish and Catalonian Nation-Building. The Search for Cultural Security in the Valencian Country

Cultural security is a polysemous concept in the field of minority research. From a political perspective it can embody the right of a historical minority to self-determination; both in the sense of being able to choose its political status in relation to the encompassing state and of affirming a collective identity and purpose in accordance with or in opposition to the nation-building process of the state majority. Following the example of Catalonia, the Valencian Country experienced a cultural renaissance at the end of the 19th century as a consequence of a deep-rooted feeling of cultural insecurity – especially regarding the social and political status of the Catalan language (called there ‘Valencian’) in relation to the dominant state-language Castilian. Since then, all further developments in the Valencian region took place in the context of an enduring tension between the political allegiance of the region to the Spanish state and its attachment to the sociocultural entity called ‘the Catalan Countries’, which traces its origin back to the medieval confederation known as the Crown of Aragon. This national separateness gained in importance when set against the backdrop of the democratic transformation, which followed almost 40 years of the Franco dictatorship. This has resulted in a considerable split between the Left and the Right on the national issue in the Valencian Autonomous Community, between so-called Valencianism and Blaverism.

Huang Yunsong / Andreas Gruschke: Cultural Security under Conditions of Challenged Livelihoods? The Land Issue of Tibetans in Indian Exile

In comparison with other foreign communities in India, Tibetan exiles have widely been thought of as a privileged group of people where their culture can thrive even better than in their own homeland and their livelihoods have become stable. The threat of being deprived of one’s land would rarely occur to an outsider as an issue. This article explores the Tibetans’ land predicament and the causes that almost led to the targeted eviction of Tibetan exiles in the settlements scattered around 10 states of India. In various cases, the lawful and historical entitlements of Tibetan exiles to the leased land have come under question due to their increased thirst for real property and involvement in illegal benami transactions. We explore several aspects of the issue ranging from the logic behind the Tibetans’ higher demand for land, to the discourse by the specific groups and local authorities in the host states, the stance of the Government of India in light of its strategic potential repercussion to China-India relations, the legal restrictions that led to an escalation of tensions and the sense of insecurity among Tibetan communities. We eventually offer an interpretation of the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy 2014 that was merely a transient solution to the matter. Through a detailed examination, this article also reveals that India’s prevention of Tibetans attaining citizenship has resulted in New Delhi’s inability to address the land issue in a fundamental way, and that therefore cultural security for Tibetans is a bigger issue than expected since it is challenged at its very basis: by a non-sustainable livelihood basis as well as by a sociopolitical environment that expects them to integrate themselves and at the same time obstructs their attempts to avail the right to citizenship by birth.

Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska: Language and Cultural Practices of Young People from European Linguistic Minorities. Between Assimilation and Activism

This article is based on field research carried out among young (16–25 years old) members of four European linguistic minorities: Kashubs (in Poland), Upper Sorbs (in Germany), Bretons (in France) and the Welsh (in Wales, UK), conducted between 2012 and 2014 using ethnographic methodology – semi-structured interviews and participant observation. It presents, – from the emic perspective of the young generation – the most important aspects of their sense of cultural insecurity (the negative attitudes of the dominant society against minority cultures and languages, language discrimination and ideologies), which leads to cultural and linguistic assimilation. The second part is devoted to the process of building the cultural security of today’s European linguistic minorities. It includes the image of these cultures, and the route to becoming interested and engaged in these languages’ and cultures’ maintenance and development. Cultural and linguistic activism is perceived as one of the conditions for the survival of these cultures.

Daniel Wutti: Memory, Group Identity and Political Participation. The Slovenes of Carinthia between Cultural Insecurity and Security

The indigenous Slovenian minority in Carinthia/Koroška, a federal state in the south of Austria, suffered decades of cultural insecurity, including discrimination, assimilation and political exclusion. The Carinthian Slovenes responded by continuing to foster their cultural heritage within the confines of their ethnic group and at the same time closed themselves off from the world outside their ethnic group (Volkan). In the meantime, more than 70 years after the end of National Socialism and more than 40 years after the violent anti-Slovenian events, such as the attacks on bilingual place names (“Ortstafelsturm“), the ethnic minority is confronted with the challenge of achieving a new, given the right circumstances, more inclusive form of cultural security. It seems that young people will have to play an important role in this process. This text presents four forms of cultural insecurity for the Carinthian Slovenes. The first chapter goes back into the past, specifically to the emergence of different “communities of shared memory” in Carinthia. Following this in the next chapter, psychotraumatological attempts to explain the complex relationship, even today, are presented, between the “minority” and the “dominant social group”. A (sobering) analysis of the current possibilities for Carinthian Slovenes to participate politically in Austria follows in the third chapter. The text concludes with reflections on the dynamic identity of young, present-day members of the minority in the fourth chapter.

Tatiana Podolinská: Visible and Secure? Cultural Identity as a Source of Security. Social Networking and Pentecostal Pastoral Discourse among Roma in Slovakia

This contribution is meant to be a micro-case study of the issue of the institutional production and reproduction of security of a selected minority group in Slovakia, by tracing the process of social networking and reconstruction of (ethnic) identity on a religious base. Principal attention is paid to an analysis of the trans-social and trans-ethnic discourse and the concept of “New Roma” as a de-ethnicised and ahistorically constructed label with positive and non-ascriptive connotations. The Pentecostal concept of the “Family of God” is studied in connection with the perception of an increased feeling of security not only within primary (family) networks, but also within hybrid (religion-based) networks. The “New Roma” concept offered to Roma by pastors would increase the potential of Roma to enter also secondary (professional) and other kinds of networks within mainstream society and allow them positive visibilisation at the meso-level of society. The new forms of social networking together with the new concept of de-ethnicised and de-essentialised identity would allow Roma to change the management techniques from achieving security through invisibility to a more emancipative and assertive technique employing the paradigm “more visible = more secure”.

Inge Sichra: The Agency of Mothers and Fathers. Language Politics and Language Planning in Indigenous Families in Latin America

It can generally be maintained in relation to cultural and linguistic security that it assumes a symbolic character and has no actual effect on language retention, language diffusion, the extension of language functions and revitalisation of the indigenous languages. Despite declarations of their official status, all indigenous languages in Latin America have minority character and continue to lead a minority existence, with correspondingly progressive language decline. In the context of timid, contradictory and rhetorical language policy in general, bottom-up movements are starting to see language policy from the perspective of agency, recognising that language security is at most a matter for those affected, and certainly not a matter for the state. Indigenous academics have seized the initiative in the realm of the family, traditionally “neglected” by language policy, and are bringing up their children in their mother tongue. The first reactions, successful experiences and regressions, but above all the resonance of the behaviour of these “improper” mothers and fathers in their families and surroundings, are presented in this article.

Ines Keller / Theresa Jacobs: The Sorbs in Germany: Cultural Practices and Cultural Security

Cultural practices of ethnic minorities provide great potential for self-reassurance and identity constructs. People look for strategies to overcome crises, especially in times of social upheaval. Transformation of cultural practices can then be seen just as much in personal lives as in the staging of collective cultural practices, which not uncommonly have an ambivalent character. They are capable equally of generating cultural security and creating insecurity. Using the staging of Sorbian folk dances and access to the biographies of women who wear folk costumes, the following questions are pursued: which strategies in dealing with new social conditions were developed by the performers? How do changes in the interpretation of “traditional” patterns come about? How do such culturally interpreted references find legitimation? We show how coming closer to the cultural heritage of a minority can foster cultural security.

Manuel Meune: Switzerland as a Language-hostile Country? From Namelessness to Revitalization: the Long Road of Francoprovençal

With its four official languages – German, French, Italian and Romansh, the latter with relatively few speakers – Switzerland appears to be a country committed to language minorities. However this flattering image proves to be exaggerated when one considers all indigenous languages, i. e. also Francoprovençal (often called Patois), which for centuries was the spoken language of today’s largely French-speaking Romandy. This paper deals with the situation of Francoprovençal in multilingual ‘nation of will’ Switzerland, but also in the nation-states of France (Savoy, Bresse, Lyonnais) and Italy (Aosta Valley, where young Francoprovençal speakers can still be found). The possibilities for the revitalization of this language, often thought to be dead, are discussed with regard to the feasibility of certain projects within the tri-national context, as well as with respect to common attitudes towards the language. These attitudes tend to promote the preservation of the current state of the numerous varieties of Francoprovençal rather than their resurgence as living languages through school teaching, or their standardization, which for some activists would overcome the dialectical fragmentation, make the text corpus more accessible and facilitate communication in the Internet era. The paper also analyses a survey of speakers from the dialect of Fribourg, a canton which together with the Valais can be seen as an archetypical Patois canton, as well as the discourse in the press of Geneva, a canton in which the language has long disappeared.

Fabian Jacobs: Cultural Security in a Reclaimed Mining Landscape Using the Example of the Sorbs in Central Lusatia

What role does culture play in reclaimed mining landscapes? How is this handled in the Lusatian lignite mining area, which overlaps to a large extent with the settlement area of the Sorbian ethnic minority? Resettlements as a result of mining, above all when they involve the destruction of whole villages, have a severe effect on the feeling of cultural security of the affected inhabitants. They not only represent an invasion of sociocultural structures but also of organic settlement structures of the cultural landscapes. The result is a loss of a sense of security, which is bound to a culturally and collectively acquired territory in the sense of a homeland. Such an extreme crisis situation, which arises as a result of loss of homeland and the structural change of living space, can be demonstrated and analysed by using the example of Schleife, a village community in Central Lusatia. The role that Sorbian culture plays in the lignite plan of the Nochten mine, which has produced coal since 1973, is shown on the one hand. On the other hand the extent of possibilities for regaining cultural security in a reclaimed mining landscape are assessed. The starting point is a serious approach to the concept of cultural landscape, in which the bi- and multi-cultural nature of the region is taken into account and in which the ethnic minority has the opportunity of following paths of active involvement in planning processes.