Authenticity, Multiplexity and Reflexivity of Language in Transnational
Salsa Communities of Practice
In this presentation, outcomes of an ethnographic study on language ideologies
in Salsa Communities of Practice in Australia are introduced. This serves, on the
one hand, to illustrate the multiplex social boundaries that are formed through
Languages in transnational cultural contexts. Secondly, it forms a background
against which effects of speakers’ increased reflexivity of discursively produced
categories can be discussed.
Within the last two decades, Salsa dancing has become a popular activity
in many cities worldwide. In a lot of Salsa Communities of Practice, irrespective
of their location, the ability to speak Spanish is important in constructing
‘authentic’ membership to the community. Yet, it is not membership to an ethnic
group or traditional ‘speech community’ that is aspired here. What is indexed by
the use of a language that is not the speaker’s native language? Rather than
constructing ethnicity, the examples show that it is access to an ‘other’ culture,
indexed by linguistic competence, which constructs a particular type of identity,
which may be described as ‘cosmopolitan’ (Hannerz 1996). At the same time,
stances towards political, educational and economic discourses are constituted.
The observations show that symbols traditionally related to (national)
spaces (such as Languages) have become a means to construct multiplex social
boundaries. One effect of the multiple and thus contested nature of these
symbols is that people are more likely to gain reflexive knowledge of social and
linguistic boundaries as being constructed, which has been discussed as a central
element of reflexive modernity (Beck, Bonss & Lau 2003). Socially constructed
modern boundaries do not become irrelevant (as some strands of
postmodernism might argue) but are then used to construct higher-level
categories, where formerly ‘authentic’ uses are instrumentalised to develop new
positions.
What does this tell us about the role of modern social and linguistic
categories in constructing positions of power in late modernity? Is today’s way of
being ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ based on a disavowal of traditional or ‘first modern’
categories – although these are instrumentalised to construct new discourses of
power? Is this simply a form of symbolising of social mobility? Or does it have to
do with neoliberal discourses of late capitalism in which everything, including
ethnic traits, is rendered into a commodity, and where, consequently, higher
order positions are constructed that ostensibly resist commercialist ascriptions?
Is access to discursive meta-levels required to resist the identity of a passive
consumer and to develop a voice that is heard? Or is the instrumentalisation and
thus indirect reproduction of the ‘others’’ authenticity a form of postmodern
nostalgia, where at least the ‘others’ remain authentic?
On the basis of empirical interview data, these and other questions
related to the role of linguistic categories, authenticity and ethnic discourses in
late modernity will be discussed.
Beck, Ulrich, Wolfgang Bonss and Christoph Lau. 2003. “The Theory of Reflexive
Modernization. Problematic Hypotheses and Research Programme.” Theory, Culture
& Society 20:1-33.
Hannerz, Ulf. 1996. Transnational Connections. Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge.