1 - British Identity, Cosmopolitan Anxieties and the Latin American Other

Summary

Latin America has always held a unique place within the British cultural imagination. This chapter begins with an examination of the historical construction of the foreign Other by European nations, in particular the Latin American Other. While Latin America comprises many diverse nations, cultures, experiences and histories, this book examines the overarching Latin American Other as constructed and consumed by western audiences. I trace Kevin Foster’s (2009) argument that Latin America has traditionally been used as a foil for the development of British self-identity, culminating in Jon Beasley-Murray’s (2003) theory that, rather than an external contrast, the contemporary Latin American Other is produced and consumed as the internal unconscious of the British Self, the consumption of which enables British consumers to live out unconscious anxieties and desires. I then position this theorisation in relation to the perceived crisis in the UK’s contemporary multicultural identity, assessing state policies of multiculturalism and community cohesion since the late 1990s and examining the ways in which these policies have struggled to reconcile traditional notions of White British identity with increasing levels of immigration. While the contemporary Latin American Other may be being constructed as the internal unconscious of the British Self for the purposes of consumption, elsewhere, scepticism and negative rhetoric surrounding multiculturalism, immigration and ethnic minorities are increasing. State policies, and the scepticism and rhetoric they have inspired, frame the wider context in which the production and consumption of ¡Viva! take place. Yet state policy, while offering an insight into changing attitudes towards multiculturalism at a governmental level, cannot tell us how individuals in the UK might deal with issues of identity and cultural difference in their everyday lives. Theories of cosmopolitanism are more informative in this regard.

Cosmopolitanism champions openness to and acceptance of cultural difference and contests the intercultural conflict that multiculturalism can engender through entrenching notions of insurmountable difference, as well as the assimilation underlying policies of community cohesion. Theories of cosmopolitanism can help to understand the attitudes and beliefs that audiences may bring to their consumption of Latin American culture through a foreign-language film festival such as ¡Viva!. The discussion of cosmopolitan theory in this chapter identifies a key component of cosmopolitanism that will be fundamental in my analysis of ¡Viva!; in addition to openness towards the cultural Other, cosmopolitanism demands a transformation in self-understanding (Delanty, 2009).