Multiculturalism from the inside out

Occitan and Toulouse

Abstract

This article contributes to the ongoing debates on multiculturalism in Europe by looking past the nation-state to the region. The Occitan movement endeavors to reclaim legitimacy and vitality for both its language and its culture. This research deals with a corpus of texts that publicize linguistic and cultural events in southwestern France by evoking connections between Occitan and other cultures. How do the texts in question create discourses that situate Occitan language and culture not only within France, but within a changing Europe? As European nation-states continue to grapple with changing identities, both through migration from the exterior and from the reclamation of regional and local identities from the interior, the Occitan movement’s work to harmonize these two forces bears further examination. The ways of being Occitan found in the corpus suggest an alternative to a more rigidly construed French identity.