Language, Intersectionality, and Nation-Building: An Empirical Study Using The Relief Maps Model

Language has been an overlooked issue in gender and postcolonial studies as a source of discrimination despite its critical role in reproducing power dynamics. However, the way language serves as the basis for discrimination and exclusion is inextricably linked to other axis of intersecting inequalities. Here I show how language is as a source of discrimination (or privilege) in everyday live and a pointer to structural inequalities in Catalonia, a complex and diverse context regarding linguistic, ethnic, migratory and national dimensions. To do so, I present the results of an ongoing project that seeks to explore how intersecting inequalities are experienced in different places of everyday life based on the Relief Maps model. It is a method for collecting, analysing, and displaying data that makes possible the visualization of complex social dynamics and relates emotions (the psychological dimension), power structures (the social dimension), and places (the geographical dimension). The new digital developments of the model tool (www.reliefmaps.upf.edu) use the potential of technology for empirical research on intersectionality and combine qualitative, quantitative and spatial analysis (GIS) approaches. Analysing the results from an intersectional perspective, I argue that language has a central role in configuring gendered, racialized and national identities and politics, as well as in being a key element for understanding claims to national self-determination and nation building in diverse societies.