Authenticity, Multiplexity and Reflexivity of Language in Transnational Salsa Communities of Practice
In this presentation, outcomes of an ethnographic study on language ideologies in Salsa Communities of Practice in Australia are introduced. This serves, on the one hand, to illustrate the multiplex social boundaries that are formed through Languages in transnational cultural contexts. Secondly, it forms a background against which effects ofspeakers’ increased reflexivity of discursively produced categories can be discussed.
Within the last two decades, Salsa dancing has become a popular activity in many cities worldwide. In a lot of Salsa Communities of Practice, irrespective of their location, the ability to speak Spanish is important in constructing ‘authentic’ membership to the community. Yet, it is not membership to an ethnic group or traditional ‘speech community’ that is aspired here. What is indexed by the use of a language that is not the speaker’s native language? Rather than constructing ethnicity, the examples show that it is access to an ‘other’ culture, indexed by linguistic competence, which constructs a particular type of identity, which may be described as ‘cosmopolitan’ (Hannerz 1996). At the same time, stances towards political, educational and economic discourses are constituted.
The observationsshow that symbols traditionally related to (national) spaces (such as Languages) have become a means to construct multiplex social boundaries.One effect of the multiple and thus contested nature of these symbols is that people are more likely to gain reflexive knowledge of social and linguistic boundaries as being constructed, which has been discussed as a central element of reflexive modernity (Beck, Bonss & Lau 2003). Socially constructed modern boundaries do not become irrelevant (as some strands of postmodernism might argue) but are then used to construct higher-level categories, where formerly ‘authentic’ uses areinstrumentalised to develop new positions.
What does this tell us about the role of modern social and linguistic categories in constructing positions of power in late modernity? Is today’s way of being ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ based on a disavowalof traditional or ‘first modern’categories – although these are instrumentalised to construct new discourses of power?Is thissimply a form ofsymbolising of social mobility? Or does it have to do with neoliberal discourses of late capitalism in which everything, including ethnic traits, is rendered into a commodity, and where, consequently, higher order positions are constructed that ostensibly resist commercialist ascriptions?Is access to discursive meta-levels required to resist the identity of a passive consumer and to develop a voice that is heard? Or istheinstrumentalisation and thus indirect reproduction of the ‘others’’ authenticity a form of postmodern nostalgia, where at least the ‘others’ remain authentic?
On the basis of empirical interview data, these and other questions related to the role of linguistic categories, authenticity and ethnic discourses in late modernity will be discussed.
Beck, Ulrich, Wolfgang Bonss and Christoph Lau. 2003. “The Theory of Reflexive Modernization. Problematic Hypotheses and Research Programme.”Theory, Culture & Society 20:1-33.
Hannerz, Ulf. 1996. Transnational Connections. Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge.