Has the Basque borderland become more Basque after opening the Franco-Spanish border?
For more than a century, state and sub-state nationalisms have competed in the Basque borderland. At present, this competition implies contested imaginations of the Franco-Spanish borderland. This article explores these imaginations in terms of cross-border and intra-state integration. Nationalist rhetoric substantially differs from daily cultural experiences and political practice. Paradoxically, the opening-up of the Franco-Spanish border as a result of European integration and the concomitant rise of cross-border cooperation have confined Basque national integration to the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. In this respect, both the old state border and internal administrative borders in Spain have acted as strong barriers against the diffusion of ethnonationalism.
Keywords: Basque Country; France; Spain; culture; nationalism
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Publication date: 01 December 2008
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Subscribe to this Title
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content