Cultural field and literature in minority languages: Basque under Francoism

Abstract

Abstract The concept of the cultural field allows us to address the emergence of literatures in minority languages \u200b\u200bbefore these literatures can constitute autonomous fields. Located within a broader dialogue involving different expressions of culture, the concept of the cultural field requires that one considers the field’s relationship to different sources of heteronomy – traditionally vis-a-vis the political and the economic field. In the case of a minority-language literature, one must also examine its relationship to the dominant cultural field. A Multiple Correspondence Analysis of the Basque cultural publication space during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain reveals the cultural field as a site for the definition, elaboration and legitimation of a minority culture. The results show a dual structure in which cultural production oscillates between two poles based on the elaboration of content and of form: between publications focusing on Basque culture thematically and publications addressing different themes in the Basque language, and in doing so, construct its literariness. The place literature occupies on the pole of form along with the different trajectories involved in becoming a writer and receiving consecration may explain the generational rupture occurring in Basque literature based on writers’ habitus.