Cultural politics and discourse construction of regional identity

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between Chilean culturalinstitutions and the construction of Rivers Region cultural identity. In this context, it was identified the problem of the tension between the self-construction of the Cultural Policy 2011-2016 (hereinafter PC) as a state policy foreign to the ideologies of the successive governments and the position of various authors who argue that the PC it would be informed by a neoliberal ideology which promote certain cultural identities at the expense of others. Taking as a case study the Cultural Policy of the Rivers Region 2011 - 2016 (hereinafter PCRR) and using as a theoretical approach the socialconstructionism and methodological discursive psychology, the objective was to analyse the discursive elaboration of PCRR and interpret their function of subjectivation of the many cultural subjectivities that constitute the cultural identity of the Rivers Region. The analysis of the results confirmed that the PCRR would inequitably promoting cultural identities through strengthening foreign subjectivities and undermining local subjectivities. It concludes that the cultural institutions would discursively managing inequivalent sites of enunciation between individuals and groups invested with the diverse cultural subjectivities that constitute the regional and national cultural identities.