About language, separation and identity. An analysis of my guerrilla initiative to raise awareness for the linguistic segregation happening in South Tyrol, an Austro-Germanic province in Italy. https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_referrer=watch&video_id=04_cF4zriH0

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MAVA
MA VA is an ironic and provocative intervention that tries to make visible the acts of categorisation that have become South Tyrolean‘s reality but are still taboo in public discussion.
Passers-by in a Bolzano Shopping mall were asked to wear a badge that visibly assigned them to either the German or the Italian language group. This happened under the guise of the fictive Association of Service and Consumer Protection (DKV-ASV) that claimed to be trying to improve service offered in the mall. The badges should help staff address customers immediately in the right way and provide them optimal consultation in their mother-tongue. Flyers were handed out along with the badges. The leaflets seemed to be

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the organisation‘s material upon first glance, but actually provided information on the background of the intervention.
MA VA denounces the rigid, collective categorisation which the South Tyroleans are obligated to identify with in political, cultural, demographical, educational, public as well as private spheres, and that often leaves no other option but to take sides. It promotes a lived culture that aims at passing on the passion rather than conserving the ashes, and that focuses on the now without negating an active conversation with the past.
The intervention is a way to shed light on the acts of classification that are happening wit

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hout one necessarily being conscious of it or in agreement with it. In fact, people‘s reaction was predominantly welcoming and considered it to be a good idea and potentially helpful. Some even suggested that this initiative should be expanded. In the few cases a person did not want to be marked they were either „just quickly going to get some groceries“, „on their way out“, „neither German nor Italian“ or did not specify reasons. MA VA proposes an alternative concept of a flexible bond between the individual and the state in which language is not the prime criteria and in which the encounter with „the other“ is free from the fear of losing one‘s own identity, but rather engages in the hope to gain something from it.

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This shift in perception would help to unhinge the fear of the uprooting through globalisation and prevent the resulting nationalism that by trying to protect the own culture from any foreign influence, will put the same at disadvantage.

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Tools

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Stickers

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Flyer

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Web

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Film

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Hidden Camera

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To determine whether segregation goes beyond political purposes to protect culture-linguistic minorities, I asked people in their private time, but in a public setting, to divide into two visually marked groups in order to solve the ‘problem of multilingualism‘. The reactions were favourable. Under a pseudonym, I submitted an open letter to South Tyrol‘s German and the Italian newspapers the day after the intervention. The Italian paper asked for further details but did not publish. On the other hand, the German paper did. A couple of days later, another letter appeared in the German publication that discussed the same argument. Though it was not in direct response to mine, this letter is evidence of nationalism and tolerance being a problematic topic
Reactions

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in South Tyrol. The biggest reaction I got occured when I returned to the mall the following weekend. A guard noticed the badge I wore and asked me where I got it from. He said that the previous week there was a group of people that were marking German and Italian people, that this is not tolerable because it is racist. Whether observers or journalists contacted the authorities at the mall is not known. Most of the people I encountered were not hostile to the idea of linguistic identification. This indicates that the billinguilism of the region has led to a problem of cultural division. Most of the people were embracing a practical ‘solution’ to make interaction easier.
On the other hand, most people did not ex

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press any hostility towards the other language group either. The fact is that an overwhelming majority of the approached people participated. Even if it is unclear how the information was passed on, it is reassuring that the intervention has provoked an authority‘s condemnation and brought attention to acts of racial segregation.

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