The Foreign Action of Peripheries, or the Will to Be Seen: Catalan Cultural Diplomacy in the Interwar Period

abstract:Much academic literature has reflected upon the powerful capacities of culture in the construction of collectivities, the crucial role of the Other in any process of identity making, and the mutually constitutive character of the national and the international. All three aspects explain the fact that foreign cultural policy is often part and parcel of the consolidation of modern nations. Within this general framework, this article focuses on the strategies of cultural diplomacy conducted by peripheral collectivities. Specifically, this article links a focus on the peripheries with cultural diplomacy through the notion of invisibility and then exemplifies it through two Catalan historical projects spearheaded by Joan Estelrich: the foundation of Oficina d'Expansió Catalana, the first institution created to promote Catalan culture abroad, and the struggle to grant representation to Catalan culture at the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, a key body in the institutionalization of international cultural relations in the interwar period. Through the focus on Catalan cultural diplomacy, the place of peripheries in cultural institutions or organizations is problematized.