Positioning Portuguese-Canadian youth as
inheritors of & investors in contested
ethnolinguistic markets:
Azorean & (Mainland) Portuguese diasporas
15.09.11
16th Int’l
Metropolis
PhD, University of Toronto
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Presentation objectives
2
1.
2.
To problematize the dominant and essentialist
discourses of nationalism, multiculturalism &
diaspora by looking at the Portuguese community
in Toronto as a market.
To question how the case of the Azores and the
Azorean diaspora complicates that market, and
how their initiatives can be see as examples of
post-nationalism (Heller 2011).
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PhD research project
3
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Data drawn from a two-year qualitative, ethnographic
sociolinguistic study
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Primary research methods:
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Bourdieu (1977, 1991): habitus, legitimacy, the economics of
linguistic exchanges, symbolic and material capital, language as
an instrument of power
Giddens (1986): social structuration
Heller (2002): critical ethnographic sociolinguistics
participant observation and interviews
PhD thesis objective:

to explore the social and linguistic interactions of six PortugueseCanadian youth from Toronto (and up to five members of their
social networks) in order to understand how and why they invest
in portugueseness (language, culture, identity) or not .
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Little Portugal ≈ Little Açores
4
+
+
≈
Portuguese Ethnic Origin(StatsCan, 2006)
Unofficial est. Census
Canada:
500,000
410,850
Toronto:
200,000
188,110
Toronto: ≈ 70% Azorean, 30%
Mainlander
How is the power within the Portuguese-Canadian
community divided?
Language & identity are about markets and the
unequal positioning of social actors competing for
limited resources.
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Mapping & market-ing multicultural Toronto
5
A provincial politician’s mapping of multicultural markets in Toronto (close-up)
Ruprecht, T. (2001:inside cover). Toronto’s many faces. Kingston: Quarry Press.
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Part of Portugal’s diasporic market
6
Source:
Teixeira (1994:4)
in Cummins & Lopes (1994).
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Nationalist symbols
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Car flag for the World Cup of soccer competition
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9
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Post-nationalism?
10
Although the nation-state way of organizing people remains,
there are ways around the official nation-state status in order to
participate in the globalized new economy (Heller 2011).
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In this context, diasporas can be mobilized as springboards to
globalization and as spaces for the construction of global or
supranational identities that challenge the hegemonic discourses of
language, identity, and the nation-state.
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Azores Day & Portugal Day
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(June 2009)
Mobilization of Azorean diaspora
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President of the Regional Government of the Azores with the Premier of
Ontario, celebrating the Azorean regional holiday (2009)
Doing it for the Holy Spirit?
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Quote from Azores Day, state gala dinner in Toronto, 2009
Speech by the President of the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of
the Azores (in 2009), Francisco Manuel Coelho Lopes Cabral:
“[…] a nossa terra é enorme porque tem um tapete de mar a uni-la […] É por isso
que nós estamos hoje, aqui, em Toronto, na nossa terra. Sem qualquer vontade de
império, que não seja o do Espírito Santo. Sem qualquer arma de arremesso, para
além do abraço do reecontro.”
“[...] our land is enormous because it has a carpet of ocean uniting it [...] That is why
we are here today, in Toronto, in our land. Without any imperialist desires, apart
from that of the Holy Spirit. Without any weapon to throw, apart from a reuniting
hug.”
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United…but also different
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Speech by the President of the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores,
Carlos César:
“[…] Estamos aqui, hoje […] em Toronto, para dizer a todos os Açorianos, residents no
Canadá ou nas nossas ilhas, tal como aos espalhados pelo Mundo que,
independentement da sua ventura, nos sentimos irmãos enfileirados na mesma
andança, e que, unidos, nos podemos ajudar; unidos, nós, os mesmos, podemos ser
mais, por que unidos temos feito muito melhor do que cogitávamos. É isso que se pede
e se exalta no Dia dos Açores – aclamando as semelhanças sem olvidarmos o valor
democrático e impulsionador das diferenças de que também todos somos feitos.”
“[...] We are here, today [...] in Toronto, to tell all Azoreans, residing in Canada or in
our islands, as well as all those scattered throughout the world who, independent of
their happiness, we feel like brothers aligned on the same track, and that, united, we
can help each other; united, we can be more, because united we have done much
better than we would have thought. This is what we ask for and what we exalt on
Azores Day – applauding our similarities without forgetting the democratic and
stimulating value of differences that also make up each one of us.”
Mobilization of Azorean diaspora
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“The Azores are all of us / We all make up the Azores”
“Autonomy kit”
16
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“Language kit”:
Ao colo da língua portuguesa
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Source:
http://magudemagude.blogspot.com/2007/09/ao-colo-de-minha-me.html
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Future research
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• How do Portuguese nationalist and Azorean regionalist
diasporic projects co-exist? Are there any tensions?
• Who benefits from these projects?
• Where does the money come from?
22
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