The Corsican Quest for the Real: The Struggle for Self Identification among Cultural Militants in Corsica's Movement for Cultural Reacquisition Open Access
Davis, Sarah (2011)
Abstract
Abstract
Over the past 35 years on the French island of Corsica,
self-described cultural
militants have led a movement for cultural reacquisition called the
riacquistu. Militants
have fought to re-appropriate and valorize the vrai (true)
Corsican tradition, identity and
language. The riacquistu overlaps with Corsica's violent
nationalist movement, which
seeks political autonomy from the French State. This dissertation
focuses on the
riacquistu, in particular the population of cultural militants in
Northern Corsica, in the
area roughly corresponding to the arrondissement of Corte, which
has been a center of
cultural and political activism on the island since the late 1960s.
During 14 months of
fieldwork, I found that these militants are, in fact, highly
critical of the deluge of
riacquistu discourse and cultural production that they themselves
have helped create and
successfully perpetuate over the past few decades. Now many feel
that the riacquistu has
done more harm than good, and they argue that it has further buried
the true Corsican
tradition and identity rather than vindicate it, as the movement
was meant to do. This
anti-riacquistu sentiment has led to a fascinating new genres of
identity discourse and
methods of cultural reacquisition, which attempt to bring to the
surface what these
militants feel has been lost as a result of their riacquistu
efforts. The discourse, activities,
and cultural production of militants in, what I call, this "second
wave" of activism is the
focus of the dissertation. Ultimately, what I found is that these
militants are expressing
an understanding of cultural essence and authenticity that they
argue is corrupted when
standardized, extracted from life through research, and put into
books, museums, or even
political platforms (which is largely what the riacquistu has
done). This is particularly
interesting because the vision of cultural essence they are now
invoking does not align
with what anthropologists have come to expect from movements waged
in the name of
essential or true identity (whether ethnic, national, or cultural).
Rather than problematic
Enlightenment ideals of homogeneity, ethnic or linguistic purity, a
bounded homeland, or
an immemorial past, these Corsicans are expressing something
remarkably different.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Corsican Quest for the Real 1
Chapter I: Corsican Essentials 22
Chapter II: The Village, The Clan and the Non-Dit 41
Chapter III: The Riacquistu 73
Chapter IV: Nationalist, Ethnic and Cultural Revitalization
Movements in Contemporary Anthropological Scholarship 115
Chapter V: The Corsican Versu: Cultural Essence and the
Emergent Present 135
Chapter VI: A Crisis of Identity and Theoretical Reflections: The
Tension between the Ordinary and the Analytic 175
Conclusion 212
Bibliography 225
Discography 237
About this Dissertation
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