University of Liverpool

Graduate Student, School of Cultures, Languages, and Area Studies

Thesis Title: A Nation of Nations: Indigenous Community Radio and the (re) Creation of Imagined Communities in Colombia and Venezuela:Case study of the Wayuu since the 1991 and 1999 Constitutional changes

About

A Nation of Nations: Indigenous Community Radio and the (re) Creation of Imagined Communities in Colombia and Venezuela:Case study of the Wayuu since the 1991 and 1999 Constitutional changes
(This is of course a working title...)

My current PhD project focuses on the appropriation and adaptation of media sources by indigenous communities in Colombia and Venezuela. In particular, in how the 1991 and 1999 Constitutions began to allow a shift in the national consciousness, away from that of a single European, mestizo ideal, while at the same time in Colombia forcing indigenous communities and organisations to develop creative solutions to state-imposed limitations on local radio stations. In Venezuela, state support is stronger but autonomy sometimes reduced. The thesis is that these external limitations have pushed linguistically and culturally isolated populations to take on the dominant national language (in this case Spanish) for networking purposes and have thus altered their concept of group identity and nationality, and created new imagined communities that supersede the traditional local, provincial and state boundaries.

My proposed fieldwork (to commence in October 2011) will be based in two communities in the Guajira peninsula where I would like to work with several groups of Wayuu women who run their own radio stations (and on the Venezuelan side of the border, associated newspapers and websites). This particular region was of initial interest to me due to the fact that the radio stations are largely run by women, but also because of their relative success: the Wayuunaiki language being the only indigenous language in Colombia showing increased usage and the newspaper and radio station having ever wider reach on the Venezuelan side. The Wayuu population is spread between Colombia and Venezuela and it will be interesting to see whether differing regulations across the border have helped or hindered the process. Further options included the Nasa communities of the Cauca region where there is a long history of community radio and cultural activism or the U'wa communities of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy who are in the early stages of development of a community radio project and have taken a very different route in their dealings with the Colombian State than either the Wayuu or the Nasa peoples.

All roads lead to Cardiff? The media’s role in minority language revitalisation and changing national identity (Case study of Wales since devolution)

My Masters thesis for my MA in Research Methodology: Sociology and Social Policy, for which I received a distinction  and the support of the John Lennon Memorial Scholarship, was on the use of media sources in language promotion and the creation of a national identity: the case of Wales since devolution. It was thus concerned with the interplay between identity and the media in a small nation within a larger state. The thesis held is that in Wales, due to the socio-geographical structure and timing of its development as a devolved nation, the internet news media is taking on the role that has been traditionally ascribed to the print and later on, television news, and is actively involved in the flagging of a distinct Welsh identity. Throughout the paper the questions held in mind were:
• Which factors are salient in the construction of ‘national identity’?
• To what extent is the internet news media flagging, reflecting, or creating a Welsh identity since devolution –if at all?
Looking through this conceptual lens, electronic media output was analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999). The textual corpus for one specific day was therefore analysed with the Welsh socio-political situation in mind, searching for evidence of a national identity being discursively constructed (Wodak et al., 2009:22).

The findings demonstrate that on May 26, 2010, a separate and specifically Welsh identity was definitely being flagged in the online media, but in order to show the extent to which this identity is being reflected or created, a systematic review of the Welsh media should be linked to a series of interviews with producers, editors and policy makers within government and media production based in Wales.

Welsh Assembly Government – The case for digital inclusion

Through my funding body (The Economic and Social Research Council), I have been given the opportunity to work with the Social Research Branch of the Welsh Assembly Government on a three-month research project that will explore the case for digital inclusion. I have been given permission to follow up the findings of my Masters dissertation in order to develop a paper for publication alongside the report for policy-makers within the devolved government. This research will take place during the summer of 2011, after which time I will be travelling to Colombia.

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