Local identities and cultural practices

Project leader: Leonie Cornips

Research staff: Irene Stengs

Finance: Meertens Institute/NIAS

This project focuses on ‘languageculture’, a concept that highlights the interrelationship of culture and language in the formation of local identity. This implies that linguistic elements (choice of language, vocabulary, grammar) are an inherent aspect of cultural practices specifically related with the local (celebrations, foods, sports, etcetera). By studying how culture and language practices reinforce each other in processes of local identity formation; the choices that are made herein; and who uses these practices when, where and why, the researchers aim at gaining insight in the power relationships between and within economical, political and cultural centres and peripheries. Languageculture in the province of Limburg will provide the empirical casus for this study. By means of fieldwork, the project will focus on the shaping and experiencing of Limburgian identity as well as various more local identities, among inhabitants and outsiders.