Tourism and nationalism in the production of regional culture: the shaping of Majorca's popular songbook between 1837 and 1936

Abstract

This article offers a microhistorical approach to the shaping of regional cultures during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to show that this process was not only imposed from centres of nationalisation as a complement of national identity, but that it also had to be negotiated with elites in provinces at the periphery. Specifically, the article looks at how the regional songbook of Majorca took shape between 1837 and 1936. In this process of musical regionalisation, the cultural authority of the tourism and colonial discourse about the island was strategically exploited by local musicians to gain some share of power from below in negotiating their own regional identity with nationalising institutions. In this way, the Spanish and Catalan national identities being projected over the island were ultimately decentred and transformed.

Festive traditions and tourism in Mallorca: Ludic transgressions and the disruption of otherness

“…These range from Alcover’s (1979) collection of Mallorcan folktales to the accounts of romantic travellers, most notably that of Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria (Trias-Mercant, 1992; Vives Riera, 2013). This analysis is part of a wider study of tourism, national identities and regional cultures in Mallorca, which emphasises the significance of tourist processes of othering for local identities (Vives Riera, 2013, 2018b). For this article, we also examined contemporary publications on La Mucada .…”

Place and local identity in the Europe of nations: Catalonia and its cities in Restoration Spain (1875–1923)

“…In recent years, there has also been greater interest in the construction of regional identities. This can be seen in publications such as the volumes edited by Núñez (2006) and Forcadell and Romeo (2006), as well numerous case studies with different scopes and aims, primarily published in the past 25 years, including studies on Cantabria (Suárez, 1994), Aragon (Forcadell, 2006), Valencia (Martí & Archilés, 1999;Piqueras, 1996), Mallorca (Vives, 2017), Navarre (García-Sanz, 2012) and Galicia (Beramendi, 2007).…”

“…In recent years, there has also been greater interest in the construction of regional identities. This can be seen in publications such as the volumes edited by Núñez (2006) and Forcadell and Romeo (2006), as well numerous case studies with different scopes and aims, primarily published in the past 25 years, including studies on Cantabria (Suárez, 1994), Aragon (Forcadell, 2006), Valencia (Martí & Archilés, 1999; Piqueras, 1996), Mallorca (Vives, 2017), Navarre (García‐Sanz, 2012) and Galicia (Beramendi, 2007). With regard to Catalonia and the Basque Country, where nationalising projects that competed with that of Spain were developed starting in the late 19th century (Marfany, 1995; Smith, 2014; Termes, 2000), the collective Catalan and Basque identities that were constructed in the mid‐19th century have been regarded as a form of regional patriotism that was compatible with Spanish patriotism (dual patriotism), whose raison d'être was in part to negotiate how each territory (and its elites) fit into the framework of the Spanish liberal nation‐state (Fradera, 1992, 2006; Molina, 2006 Cf.…”

Human-computer interaction emotional design and innovative cultural and creative product design

“…A Vives-Riera provided a microhistorical approach to the formation of regional cultures in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the process of regionalization of music, local musicians strategically use cultural authority about the island to gain a certain power, negotiating their own regional identity from below to nationalized agencies ( Vives-Riera, 2018 ). Ode L used interviews, observations, and recordings to collect data on regional cultures.…”