Constructing Identity in Contemporary Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Practice by Jo Labanyi (review)

Abstract

MLR, 98.4, 2003 1019 on research in cross-cultural pragmatics to explore some of the differences between English and Spanish speakers in the areas of courtesy, argumentation, and non-verbal communication. Chapter 5,' Icons and Archetypes', considers the perennial relevance of figures such as El Cid, Celestina, Teresa ofAvila, Don Quijote, and Don Juan. The changing gender relationships, sexual mores, and attitudes towards marriage which have developed in the last three decades are analysed in Chapter 6. Attitudes to? wards wealth, including the easy-going culture of corruption in contemporary Spain, education, religion, and attitudes towards death constitute the remaining chapters. Though the book does not claim to compete with the many other studies which have analysed the transition from dictatorship to democracy, students will find much that throws light on this process of modernization. Doubts occasionally arise, how? ever, about whether the contemporary relevance of certain cultural landmarks has been clearly established. If the figure of Don Juan Tenorio, forexample, is to be con? sidered as still 'meaningful' today, then his significance within the current experience of the 'imagined community' needs to be analysed more explicitly. The mere five pages on the Civil War, in the chapter on death, may be defensible in view ofthe high proportion of the population forwhich the conflict is not even a distant memory. But if, as Richardson rightly asserts, it 'generated a sense of fear and oppression which coloured Spanish life for most of the twentieth century' (p. 199), one would like to see more discussion of its precise impact on younger generations of Spaniards: one of the best films about the conflict, Jose Luis Cuerda's La lengua de las mariposas, dates from as recently as 1999. Despite these reservations, the book broadly fulfilsits stated aims. Students embarking on the study of Hispanic culture would be well advised to acquire it. Each chapter is well documented fromprimary and secondary sources, and concludes with a 'feature', a short text focusingon a specific aspect ofthe general topic being discussed, followed by one or more readings, both literary and non-literary, and bibliographical references which help the reader to explore the topic further. University of Strathclyde Eamonn Rodgers Constructing Identity in Contemporary Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Prac? tice. Edited by Jo Labanyi. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002. xiv + 343 PP- ?16.99. ISBN 0-19-815994-3 (pbk). Jo Labanyi has edited, superbly, an invigorating and original book. She has orga? nized eighteen essays around four main sections?Ethnicity and Migration, Gender, Popular Culture, The Local and the Global?and has provided a thoughtful 'Editor's Introduction' to each section. Here, she grapples with the theoretical constructs that inform each individual contributor's work, preparing the reader for a discussion of the main issues raised in each discrete essay. Her set-ups are informed, well writ? ten, and useful. Before everything, however, she positions a sustained introduction called 'Engaging with Ghosts; or, Theorizing Culture in Modern Spain', in which the 'ghosts' are coded as our excessive focus on high culture and our marginalization of popular and mass culture. The purpose of the book is not to reclaim mass culture, nor to provide a panoramic view of twentieth-century Spanish culture, but to point out that culture is 'a "recycling" process in which nothing is lost but returns in new hybridized forms, adapting to changed circumstances' (p. 12). As we have come to expect from her, this is smart and stimulating stuff. The firstfour essays engage the idea of the gypsy (Lou Charnon-Deutsch), flamenco (Parvati Nair), racial stereotypes (Isabel Santaolalla), and national identity (Cristina Mateo). Charnon-Deutsch argues the 'constructedness of the imaginary 1020 Reviews Spanish gypsy' (p. 22) in an article that reveals how this imaginary gypsy came to stand for 'Spanishness' both inside and outside the peninsula. Nair discusses an in? novative programme designed to rehabilitate the gypsy prison population through a rediscovery of 'roots' and the creation of a series of national contests, the winners of which could earn reduction of their sentences. Santaolalla demonstrates how, while the stereotype ofthe gypsy has been somewhat remoulded in modern Spain, the mass media none the less romanticize gypsies through eroticized images (old...