Abstract
Abstract
Identities in Britain are in flux, and such identities have been to the political and social fore. Identities now traverse time and space, no individual on this planet is now immune from the impact of identity change. This thesis has, as its focus, the ‘Cultural Entrepreneurs’ who manage, manipulate and re-interpret Cornish identity. The Cornish identity is one that has not yet been widely subjected to the sociological gaze as it is, I argue, in its genesis. The active re-creation of the modern Cornish identity has taken place in the last twenty to thirty years as interested academics and writers have focused their attention onto the Cornish experience. That the majority of academics and writers are Cornish themselves is no accident. This thesis argues that Cornish identity is an identity searching for substance and directing this search is a group of ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ who manage, manipulate, interpret and construct the markers of Cornishness. For these Cornish entrepreneurs the search for a Cornish identity is a search for authenticity. Clues and facts are gleaned from historical references, signs and signifiers are ‘borrowed’ from other cultures to provide the substance from which, like the Irish, a contemporary and viable identity can be formed.
Unlike the Irish, however, the Cornish identity project is faced with the problem that there are very few, if any ‘authentic’ identity markers with which the ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ could use in the same way as the Irish cultural entrepreneurs did. The Cornish ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ however have created two identity arenas wherein the narratives of Cornish identity played out. These are the arenas of language and history. The Cornish language is a case study of the search for ‘authenticity’. In Cornwall the language movement has split into three opposing camps with each claiming that their version of the language is more authentic than the other. The second arena of history shows us how important social and cultural memory is for the creation of an identity. That the history may have been re-written, re-interpreted, changed and even invented is of little consequence, for the ‘cultural entrepreneur’ is able, by dint of their cultural awareness, to provide authentic and compelling readings of history which once accepted by the group or community influence the groups narratives about themselves and thus their identity.
The epistemological consequence for this debate is that the ways in which a Cornish identity is created makes the Cornish identity an authentic knowledge tool. This tool allows us to look at the actors, - the ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ - involved in the creation or re-creation of identities, such as the contemporary creation of an English identity and the focus upon Cornish identity allows us to think about how identity is managed and manipulated in new and different ways.
Identities in Britain are in flux, and such identities have been to the political and social fore. Identities now traverse time and space, no individual on this planet is now immune from the impact of identity change. This thesis has, as its focus, the ‘Cultural Entrepreneurs’ who manage, manipulate and re-interpret Cornish identity. The Cornish identity is one that has not yet been widely subjected to the sociological gaze as it is, I argue, in its genesis. The active re-creation of the modern Cornish identity has taken place in the last twenty to thirty years as interested academics and writers have focused their attention onto the Cornish experience. That the majority of academics and writers are Cornish themselves is no accident. This thesis argues that Cornish identity is an identity searching for substance and directing this search is a group of ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ who manage, manipulate, interpret and construct the markers of Cornishness. For these Cornish entrepreneurs the search for a Cornish identity is a search for authenticity. Clues and facts are gleaned from historical references, signs and signifiers are ‘borrowed’ from other cultures to provide the substance from which, like the Irish, a contemporary and viable identity can be formed.
Unlike the Irish, however, the Cornish identity project is faced with the problem that there are very few, if any ‘authentic’ identity markers with which the ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ could use in the same way as the Irish cultural entrepreneurs did. The Cornish ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ however have created two identity arenas wherein the narratives of Cornish identity played out. These are the arenas of language and history. The Cornish language is a case study of the search for ‘authenticity’. In Cornwall the language movement has split into three opposing camps with each claiming that their version of the language is more authentic than the other. The second arena of history shows us how important social and cultural memory is for the creation of an identity. That the history may have been re-written, re-interpreted, changed and even invented is of little consequence, for the ‘cultural entrepreneur’ is able, by dint of their cultural awareness, to provide authentic and compelling readings of history which once accepted by the group or community influence the groups narratives about themselves and thus their identity.
The epistemological consequence for this debate is that the ways in which a Cornish identity is created makes the Cornish identity an authentic knowledge tool. This tool allows us to look at the actors, - the ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ - involved in the creation or re-creation of identities, such as the contemporary creation of an English identity and the focus upon Cornish identity allows us to think about how identity is managed and manipulated in new and different ways.
posted by Rob Burton at 9:11 AM
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