Identity, Nationalism, and Cultural and Linguistic Policies in Québec

Abstract

Issues related to the definition of national identity are increasing across the world, even though they are not new. Since their own rise in the mid-1950s, minority nation governments, for political reasons and "identity and cultural survival," have been dealing with the conundrum of promoting their national identity while including newcomers. Our paper highlights the approaches of one illustrative minority nation government – Québec – in managing national identity and its cultural development. Building on Saint-Pierre's (2004) framework of cultural policy and Bergeron’s (1982) theory of the state, we divide our analysis into distinct time periods and show that the political and socio-economic context affects the development of culture and language policies, as well as the identity and nationalism of Québec.