Acceso usuarios
Josep-Anton Fernàndez Montolí
How to Take Advantage of the Weak and Appear like a Gentleman:
Journalism, Politics, and (De)Legitimation in Arcadi Espada's Contra Catalunya [JOSEP-ANTON FERNÁNDEZ] This article presents a reading of journalist Arcadi Espada's controversial book Contra Catalunya: Una crònica (1997), which has been received chiefly as a critique of nationalism in Catalonia. However, the author argues, behind Espada's «anti-nationalist» discourse lies an agenda for the (re)legitimation of journalism as an autonomous field; this goal is pursued through a parasitical delegitimation of the Catalan cultural and political fields. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's writings on the sociology of journalism and on symbolic violence, and making use of psychoanalysis and theories of masculinity, the author shows how in his book Espada attempts to construct the journalist as a literary author through a heavily gendered discourse, and how the confrontation between journalist and politician on which the narrative is based needs to be read in terms of castration anxiety.
