The unmaking and remaking of an ethnic boundary. Working-class Castilian speakers in Catalonia and the paradoxes of the independence movement

Abstract

ABSTRACTWhile until recently the ethnicity of Castilian speakers in Catalonia seemed to be heading towards its twilight, the stimulation of ethnic fragmentation resulting from the independence process appears to have upended the assimilationist trend. This article begins by explaining the former twilight of the ethnicity of Castilian speakers. Although the evolution of assimilation as an empirical reality on the ground was one of the reasons for this, a stronger determinant was the consensus between the main political and social forces that prescribed the indistinction between Catalan and Spanish speakers in the public sphere. The case of Catalonia is appropriate for advocating a relatively autonomous role for an ethnic blindness policy in the theory of assimilation. Secondly, the article addresses how the independence movement, which presents itself as a non-ethnic project, has developed a strategy for attracting working-class Castilian speakers which involves recognising them in ethnic terms. This may lead to a process of boundary-blurring and broadening of the mainstream (recognising Castilian-speaking heritage as part of Catalan culture), but also legitimates an ethnicity that other political agents may mobilise with opposing political aims.