Los mapamundis que inspiraron a Colón

pags. 51-7

Occupy: The spatial dynamics of the discourse in the global protest movements

Las protestas a gran escala han transformado recientemente los espacios comunes de nuestras ciudades en espacios de resistencia. Las plazas y los espacios urbanos, diseñados como centros fundamentales de la política y la economía, han resultado así reivindicados y recuperados como lugares para el debate y la toma de decisiones, con el fin de lograr una creciente participación e intervención en la organización de la comunidad. A través de pancartas y carteles, de asambleas abiertas y de otras prácticas comunicativas en acampadas y plazas, los participantes, interconectados física y virtualmente, reconfiguraron de forma permanente su entorno espacial a través del discurso. Este artículo tiene por objetivo explicar estos fenómenos sociales desde el mismo momento en el que acontecen, con una perspectiva internacional; lo cual representa indudablemente un desafío teórico y metodológico. Para ello el texto se centra en la compleja interrelación entre las prácticas sociales, espaciales y comunicativas; objetivo que exige la aplicación de una pluralidad de métodos existentes y el diseño de métodos alternativosLarge-scale protests have recently transformed urban common spaces into sites of resistance. Squares and urban places, monumentally designed as political and economic centres, have been reclaimed as places for discussion and decision-making, for increasing participation and intervention in the governance of the community. Through banners and signs, open assemblies, and other communicative practices in the encampments and interconnecting physical and virtual spaces, participants permanently reconfigure the spatial context discursively. The attempt to account for on-going social phenomena from the moment they first happen, and with an international perspective, undoubtedly represents a theoretical and methodological challenge. This paper focuses on this complex interplay between social, spatial, and communicative practices, drawing on complementary and alternative method

Power and the role of language

Two research questions are addressed in this chapter. Firstly, what role do knowledge and discourses we have accumulated about languages and their speakers play in the production and justification of the political rationalities with which the population is governed, individuals domesticated and societies securitised. Secondly, the extent to which this knowledge has led to the enactment of specific techniques of power, integrated within the same political rationalities – techniques often aimed at controlling and guiding the population and at obtaining consent (and suppressing resistance) to power relations that, among other consequences, limit people’s capacity for action or subject them to conditions of domination or exclusionThis paper was supported by the research project "Towards a new linguistic citizenship: action-research for the recognition of speakers in the Madrid educational context", Reference number: Proyecto I+D, ref. PID2019-105676RB-C41/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovatio

Algunas precisiones en torno a la "Creu de Pau": de la importación del arte mobiliario italiano y su adaptación a lo catalán

Portable art research turns out to be rather complicated at times. As far as their kind and size is concerned, the pieces are easily carried, and when the time comes, they are much desired not only for their materials (they are made of) but also for their religions meaning. Low Middle Ages were particulary important because of the moving of works. Trade, travelling, military and religious campaings, etc. made a large number of items move in several means of transport. They often were fitted together and set ut by local artist. Sometimes this has led to confusions in attributions.El estudio del arte mobiliario resulta, a veces, bastante complejo. Por su carácter y tamaño son piezas fácilmente transportables y, en determinados momentos, muy codiciadas tanto por los materiales en que están realizadas, como por su significado religioso. Los siglos de la Baja Edad Media fueron especialmente intensos en el trasiego de obras. El comercio, los viajes, las campañas militares y religiosas, etc. incidieron en que numerosos objetos circulasen por las diferentes vías de comunicación. Con frecuencia, al llegar al país de destino eran acopladas y montadas por artistas locales. Esto ha llevado, en no pocas ocasiones, a un confusionismo en las atribuciones

Language surveillance: Pressure to follow local models of speakerhood among Latinx students in Madrid

In this article, we examine the language surveillance – both self and externally imposed – experienced by Madrid university students of Latin American origin in their encounters with the local population in educational settings. A pattern of language surveillance emerges in the interviews held with these students. It consists of hierarchical observation, normalising judgment and interrogation. These three reported practices are related to the following linguistic and non-linguistic resources that make surveillance possible, namely: (a) indexicality, especially with regard to phonological distinctions that index speakers as “local” vs. “non-local” or “native” vs. “non-native”; (b) the invoking of disciplinary and prescriptive linguistic knowledge, together with the application of a colonial episteme whereby the metropolitan norm prevails, thus denying non-metropolitan speakers their right to language ownership; and, (c) the management of power within interactions. By these means, varieties and speakers of Spanish are hierarchised and those that differ from locals are positioned as subaltern others. Language surveillance is a disciplinary power technique that prompts speakers to adapt to the centripetal force exerted by the reproduction of this knowledge. Finally, the article examines the extent to which this stylistic move to adapt, could be considered an example of muda given that these shifts are situational and relational and attend to the different social demands of the communicative settings where the practice is observedThis work was supported by the research project, “Linguistic Mudes: an ethnographic approach to new speakers in Europe”, ref. FFI2015-67232-C3-1-P, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, and by the project “Superdiversidad lingüística en áreas periurbanas. Análisis escalar de procesos sociolingüísticos y desarrollo. De la conciencia metalingüística en aulas multilingües” [Linguistic superdiversity in peri-urban areas: a scaled analysis of sociolinguistic processes and the evolution of metalinguistic awareness in the multilingual classroom), re. ffi2016-76425-p, funded by: FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades – Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and a Santander mobility awarded to the second author. This article has also benefitted from academic exchanges conducted within the ISCH COST action IS1306 “New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges