Gender and Nation in Galicia: A Cultural History

Studies of national identity in Spain have tended to focus on questions of 'otherness' and the historical role played by Spain's non-European, Moorish and Jewish cultures. As a result, there is little historical and cultural analysis of the discursive formations arising from the tensions between hegemonic Spanish nationalism and insurgent Catalan, Basque or Galician nationalisms.
This project seeks to act as a starting point for work in this area by showing that the relation between Galician and Spanish nationalist discourses is marked by a network of discursive violences that are, for the most part, premised on the logic of sexual difference and on traditional, static notions of masculinity and femininity. Specifically, the project will offer the following arguments:

1) That a reassessment from a gender, postcolonial perspective of the foundational works of Galician cultural and political nationalism -for the most part, a male-authored corpus of histories, literary texts, cultural essays and manifestos- reveals a series of so far unexplored patterns in the history of national discourses in Spain. In the past, and in tune with nationalist historiographical practices, such texts have been studied mostly in isolation as milestones in the progress towards politicization of the Galician nationalist movement. Less attention is granted to how they have interacted with a historically variable network of discourses (Spanish centralist nationalism, patriarchy and discourses on modernisation). Further, the study of these texts from a critical gendered perspective has been delayed by a nationalist Galician scholarly tradition reluctant to criticise the work of its 'founding fathers' and an international Hispanism that has only just started to devote due attention to the specificities of Galician culture and politics. The project aims to overcome this situation.

2) That in this new perspective, discourses about the nation in Galicia in their different historical and ideological manifestations show an interesting distribution of gendered images of Galicia, Galicians and the Galician language. In a nutshell, the texts of Galician apolitical regionalism are laden with images of a feminized Galicia and a definition of national identity that links cohesively with the traditionally feminine realm of the affective. By contrast, the texts of Galician political nationalism are marked by a heavily masculinist discourse that aims to distance itself from sentimental definitions of the nation and adhere to masculine definitions of political citizenship and activism. Such discourse can be read as a compensatory reaction to the debilitating, feminizing tropes used by Galician apolitical regionalism, but also by Spanish hegemonic centralism, for whom the idea of a feminised (submissive) Galicia held obvious political benefits. I will trace instances of these relational discourses in the texts of such disparate figures as Augusto Gonzalez Besada (writer of the first Galician literary history in 1887), Manuel Murguia (founder of Galician nationalist historiography and husband of Rosalia de Castro), Eugenio Carre Aldao (one of the founding members of the Real Academia Gallega in 1906), Anton Villar Ponte (the author of the first manifesto of Galician political nationalism), Vicente Risco (one of the main theoretical ideologues of Galician nationalism in the pre-War years), Antonio Couceiro Freijomil (author of the francoist Diccionario Bibliografico de Escritores Gallegos in 1952), Ricardo Carballo Calero (author of the most influential text of Galician literary history) and Alberto Nuñez Feijoo (the current president of the Galician Xunta government and supporter of what I will call a 'neo-regionalist' approach to Galician culture informed by the persistently colonial views of Galicia held by the Spanish right).

A major study on national discourses in Spain such as this can not only widen our knowledge of the complexity of the conflict among different national identities contained within the Spanish state, but also sharpen our understanding of how gender issues have both underlain and fuelled this conflict. The project will change the parameters for critical debates on the Spanish national question both internationally, in Spain and in Galicia. Within international Hispanic Studies, it will create a new framework in which to consider the tensions and antagonism among different national groups and their associated cultural and political discourses. Within Galician Studies proper, it will offer the first historically informed critique of Galician nationalist discourses as profoundly marked by a gender dynamic. As the debate on Spain's national (re)definition shows no signs of subsiding in the twenty-first century, this project will contribute crucially to a better understanding of the imbalances of power distribution within the Spanish national map; of the discursive forms that such imbalances have adopted over history; and of the future stakes and forms of this debate.
I have a commitment to public engagement and to communicating my research to both academic and non-specialist audiences. Notably through my role as Director of the Centre for Galician Studies in Wales, I have overseen a range of activities in the past five years that are particularly geared at facilitating public engagement, communication and understanding of Galician culture in Wales, the UK and internationally. Among these, I have ongoing collaborations with the Association of Welsh Translators and Interpreters, Academi, the National Writers' Centre for Wales, the Association of Galician Writers, the Centre for the Study of Women's Writing (University of London), the recently-closed Catalan Center in New York, and the London Review of Books' World Literature Weekend.
My project is designed to target a a range of differently-defined audiences:
1) Non-specialist audiences: One of the project's chief outputs is a Galician-language, book-length essay where I will write about my findings in an accessible, controversial and lively manner. I will submit this book to a prestigious National Essay Award, but will seek to publish it with the historical Galician press Galaxia (a book proposal will be produced during the time of the Fellowship). This book's contents have a high chance of being widely read and discussed in Galicia. Given that it will be the first Galician-language study of masculinities and nationalism, it will also become a trendsetter. The project also has a high-profile public engagement event at its core: the hosting of a round-table event during the 2013 London Review of Books' World Literature Weekend. I will seek an active dialogue with media outlets, beginning with a series of press releases in Galicia with regard to several of the project's outputs (mainly the publication of the English- and Galician-language monographs and the LRB event).
2) Academic audiences: Contact with my research will come in the form of my 95,000-word academic monograph; a 70,000-word Galician-language book for a wider readership; one article submitted to a refereed journal; and the organisation of three distinct academic events, fulfilling different functions. These include: 1) hosting the 13th WISPS conference at Bangor (where I will deliver a conference paper on the project's findings); 2) Organising the First Encounter on New Galician Studies with a view to creating a research platform for up and coming researchers in the field; 3) With the renowned gender historian Nerea Aresti, co-organising an international colloquium on gender and national discourses in Spain (to be held in Bilbao, under the patronage of the Asociación Española de Investigación de Historia de las Mujeres).