Kafe Antzokia: The Global meets the Local in Basque Cultural Politics

Por medio del análisis de un caso, el del proyecto que se esconde tras el nacimiento y la gestión de un espacio cultural contemporáneo, el Kafe Antzoki de Bilbao, el texto procura profundizar en las conexiones que se establecen entre la cultura local y la percepción cierta de que ésta se desarrolla actualmente en un mundo altamente globalizado. Los cambios que los propios actores sociales implicados perciben en la idea de lo local y en otras que, el caso del País Vasco, iban indisociablemente asociados a ella (la lengua vasca, el territorio propio, la nación, las comunidades que a habitan...) son analizados a la luz de la percepción que algunos de esos actores tienen de la cultura, de su ámbito de referencia y sus tensones (local/ global, centro/periferia, cosmopolitismo, hibridación cultural...) y de sus condiciones actuales de posibilidad

Workplace Giving: Employee Attitudes, Perceptions and Behavior

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The W. Alexander Gerbode Foundation funded this study of employee attitudes about charitable fundraising and giving in the workplace by the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco. This study is significant for several reasons. First, while the overall charitable behavior of Americans has been documented in several recent national surveys, the changing workplace fundraising scene remains largely unexplored. Second, the San Francisco Bay Area is an ideal laboratory for a study of workplace giving that analyzes ethnic differences along with other variables related to charitable attitudes and behavior since the Bay Area has some of the fastest growing minority populations in the country. The Asian population increased 45% between 1980 to 1985, while the number of Blacks increased by 11% and Hispanics by 20% during the same time period. California led the nation in minority population growth during the first half of the decade and is now home to one-third of all Hispanics and Asians in the United States, new federal estimates show ... (McLeod, 1989, pg A2). Third, annual workplace fundraising campaigns conducted by local charities reach and affect millions of Americans each year. While these campaigns create ideal opportunities for local charities to educate donors and elicit funds for the community, they also shape peoples\u27 attitudes about charity as well. This research looks at workplace campaigns through the employee\u27s eyes and analyzes both the positive and negative impact of workplace fundraising. By looking squarely at the workplace campaign from this perspective, it is possible to address a broad range of issues of interest to employees, campaign managers, department heads, and CEO\u27s alike. Historically, workplace campaigns have been conducted by local chapters of the United Way of America for the benefit of local member organizations. Increasingly, however, the traditional United Way workplace campaign is being challenged by alternative charitable federations and independent funds seeking access to potential donors in private and public workplaces. As nonprofit organizations of all types and sizes have re-vitalized their public fundraising efforts in response to a decade of government cutbacks, workplace fundraising has become a more competitive and aggressive enterprise. Since charities can reach potential donors during workplace campaigns and payroll deduction has been documented as a popular donation vehicle among donors, many charitable groups and federations, in addition to United Way, see the workplace as a major fundraising arena. United Way workplace campaigns alone raise over $2 billion annually. The cost of payroll deduction fundraising is low, employers encourage participation, and employees have been shown to make a larger donation when contributions are deducted from their pay. Thus, competition between United Way and various alternative funds will continue to be a major issue in philanthropy and nonprofit management since workplace campaigns represent a potentially, lucrative source of revenue. While there is substantial controversy relating to workplace fundraising, there is no systematic information on employee\u27s perceptions of workplace fundraising campaigns. The goal of this research is to outline employee attitudes about workplace giving, motivations for giving, preferences in allocations, and the level of giving; further, the study explores the demographic dimensions of these variables. Drawing on questions developed in earlier philanthropic studies and cognizant of the debate over the nature of open campaigns (United Way and other charities) and closed (exclusively United Way) workplace campaigns, this research explores the characteristics and behavior of workplace campaign donors in both types of campaigns. The project was also designed to expand our general understanding of why employees do not donate to the annual workplace campaign and what changes in strategies might produce more effective workplace campaigns, regardless of the setting or number of charitable options. The four major research questions which guided this research and structured the analysis can be summarized as follows: 1. What is the overall charitable behavior of employees in the sample? 2. What factors influence giving through the workplace campaign? 3. What are the similarities and differences in workplace giving in the public and private sectors? 4. What are the characteristics and attitudes of non-donors? Employees in both public, municipal and private, corporate organizations were asked a series of questions about their motivations for giving or lack of giving, their attitudes toward charitable giving, and their giving behavior during the charitable workplace campaign recently completed in their workplace (1988). The survey consisted of a two-page self-administered questionnaire which was mailed to a total of 2,500 employees in the San Francisco Bay Area. Five worksites were selected on the basis of location and willingness to participate; five hundred employees at each worksite were then randomly selected to receive the questionnaire. There were two municipal governments and three large corporate worksites - - one large bank, a wholesale distributor, and a supermarket chain. Of the original 2,500 questionnaires, 548 were returned for a 22% response rate. Over half of the responses, 61.5%, came from the private sector while 38.5% of the public sector employees completed the survey. The response rate varied dramatically between worksites, ranging between 41% and 13% at the private worksites, and 25% and 16% at the two public worksites

Nuevos hablantes de euskera: identidad y legitimidad

En els últims 40 anys el nombre de bascoparlants ha crescut molt a causa, sobretot, de l'augment dels nous parlants o, utilitzant la terminologia en basc, euskaldunberris, definits aquí com totes aquelles persones que han après aquesta llengua per un mitjà diferent de la transmissió familiar. Encara que el grup dels nous parlants de basc és estratègic per al desenvolupament futur de la llengua, fins a aquesta recerca no hi ha hagut cap estudi en profunditat sobre ells.Aquest article presenta alguns dels resultats relacionats amb la identitat lingüística dels nous parlants. S'hi exploren les autoadscripcions a les tres principals categories que les vehiculen —euskaldun zaharra (parlant nadiu), euskaldunberri (nou parlant) i euskaldun (parlant de basc)— i s'hi argumenta que aquestes categories indexen identitats que se situen en un continuum d'autenticitat que, al seu torn, es correlaciona amb l'autopercepció dels parlants com a legítims parlants de basc.The number of Basque speakers has grown considerably in the last 40 years, due largely to the rising number of new speakers, or euskaldunberris, defined here as those people who have learned the language through any means other than family transmission. Although new Basque speakers constitute a strategic group for the future development of the language, until now no detailed study of this collective had been attempted.In this article we present the results of research into the perceived linguistic identities of new Basque speakers, exploring the participants’ reasons for assigning themselves to one of three principal categories: euskaldun zaharra (native speaker), euskaldunberri (new speaker) and euskaldun (Basque speaker). It is argued that these categories reflect identities that can be situated in a continuum of authenticity that, in turn, correlates with the speakers’ self-perception as legitimate speakers of Basque.En los últimos 40 años el número de vascohablantes ha crecido mucho debido en gran parte al aumento de los nuevos hablantes o, utilizando la terminología en euskera, euskaldunberris, definidos aquí como todas aquellas personas que han aprendido esta lengua por un medio diferente a la transmisión familiar. Aunque el grupo de los nuevos hablantes de euskera es estratégico para el desarrollo futuro de la lengua, hasta esta investigación no ha habido ningún estudio en profundidad sobre ellos.Este artículo presenta algunos de los resultados relacionados con la identidad lingüística de los nuevos hablantes. Se exploran las autoadscripciones a las tres principales categorías que las vehiculan —euskaldun zaharra (hablante nativo), euskaldunberri (nuevo hablante) y euskaldun (hablante de euskera)— y se argumenta que estas categorías indexan identidades que se sitúan en un continuum de autenticidad que, a su vez, se correlaciona con la autopercepción de los hablantes como legítimos hablantes de euskera

Authenticity and linguistic variety among new speakers of Basque

This paper argues that the type of variety learned and used by Basque language learners is a key element in their self-perception as “true” or authentic speakers of Basque. Drawing on focus groups and individual interviews, we find that new speakers are for the most part strongly oriented towards the value of authenticity epitomized by local varieties. While new speakers report the utility of their mastery over the new standard Basque variety, they are not inclined to view this mastery as granting themselves greater authority or ownership over Basque. Rather they strongly valorize the informal and vernacular speech forms indexing colloquial speech and local dialect most identified with native speakers. The new speaker’s sociolinguistic context and motivations for learning Basque seem to be predictive of the strength of this orientation. The findings of this study point to the necessity of further study and documentation of local vernacular as well the urgency for language educators to find ways of incorporating the acquisition of local and dialectal features into language instruction.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Welcome on board! Prefiguring knowledge production in the sociology of language

This Special Issue constitutes a parenthesis from our daily lives as editors, an attempt to not forgot why we do what we do, and a direction for what we should do in the near future with the International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL). The idea of this Special Issue originated in conjunction with the renewal of our Editorial Board. After many years of service, the term of the previous Editorial Board came to an end in 2020 and coincided, with a slight delay, with the start of the new General Editor and newly appointed Associate Editors

Friends or foes? migrants and sub-state nationalists in Europe

How do sub-state nationalists respond to the growing presence of cultural diversity in their ‘homelands’ resulting from migration? Sub-state nationalists in Europe, in ‘nations without states’ such as Catalonia and Scotland, have been challenging the traditional nation-state model for many decades. While the arguments in favour of autonomy or independence levelled by these movements have become more complex, sub-state nationalist movements remain grounded by their perceived national community that is distinct from the majority nation. Migration to the ‘homeland’ of a sub-state nation, then, presents a conundrum for sub-state elites that we label the ‘legitimation paradox’: too much internal diversity may undermine the claim to cultural distinctiveness. We engage with three common intervening variables thought to influence how sub-state nationalists confront the ‘legitimation paradox’: civic/ethnic nationalism, degree of political autonomy, and party competition. Our overarching argument is that none of these factors have a unidirectional or determinate effect on the sub-state nationalism-immigration nexus, which is why the nuanced case studies that comprise this Special Issue are worthwhile endeavours

Just use it! Linguistic conversion and identities of resistance amongst Galician new speakers

In recent years there has been a focus in language policy research on understanding how national policies are interpreted and negotiated by social actors on the ground. This paper looks at the interplay between government and grassroots initiatives to create Galician-speaking spaces in predominantly Spanish-speaking urban settings. While official language policies in Galicia since the 1980s have increased the potential for language use through bilingual educational policies, these policies have failed to convert the large pool of potential speakers amongst a younger generation of Galicians into active language users. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with Galician neofalantes (new speakers) this paper looks at instances where such policies seem to have worked and where the linguistic capacity created through the education system has been converted into active language use. The article examines how such speakers rationalise their practice of linguistic conversion not as success stories of language policy but as reactions to and dissatisfaction with what is perceived as ‘top-down’ governmentality through a reflexive process in which existing power structures are brought into question. The article looks specifically as the ideologies underpinning their decisions to become active speakers and the role they play as language planners in contemporary Galicia

Special Issue: New Speakers of Minority Languages: The Challenging Opportunity

Special Issue on new speakers of minority languages. Edited by Bernadette O\u27Rourke, Joan Pujolar, and Fernando Ramallo