Untitled - socium.ge

242 Manuel Castells et al.way behind, in second position, came those who asserted “themselves” as theprimary source of meaning for them (8.7 percent). Identification with countrywas only recorded as the choice of 2.5 percent, and with the culture of thecountry as the choice of 4.7 percent. Professional identity was chosen by 5.1percent, and age group was the primary identity for only 4.9 percent. In otherwords, family relationship and individualism appear to be the primarysources of meaning for people, in line with recorded observation in otherEuropean countries. Religion, in contrast to the United States, is the primarysource of meaning for a mere 2.5 percent of respondents.Our findings are reinforced by an analysis of linguistic practice. Whilepractically everybody understands Catalan, and the younger generation isfully trained in Catalan, 44.3 percent of the population consider Spanish theirprimary language, versus 41.1 percent who consider Catalan as theirlanguage, with 14.6 percent declaring themselves bilingual.Our data also show that the younger group, which is the one group fullyfluent in Catalan because it has been educated in Catalan, is the group thatmost often uses Spanish at home and with friends. So, in other words, whilethe majority of the population of Catalonia consider themselves eitherCatalan or as much Catalan as Spanish, this is not their primary source ofidentity, and the use of the Catalan language is still second to Spanish, particularlyamong the younger generation. Thus, we observe a bilingual society inwhich most people, and particularly the younger generation, do not attachsymbolic importance to the matter of speaking Catalan. What does this findingmean?Our interpretation requires the distinction between what we call “resistanceidentity” and “project identity” (Castells, 2004: ch. 1). Resistance identityrefers to the construction of autonomous meaning with the materials ofhistorical experience to counter social–cultural domination. By project identity,we mean the affirmation of a collective project to achieve certain socialgoals as the expression of a cultural community of shared experience.Catalonia, having suffered the political and cultural domination of Spain fromthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, built a resistance identity that foundits expression in modern Catalan nationalism between the end of the nineteenthcentury and the end of the twentieth. With the coming of democracy inSpain in 1977, Catalonia achieved recognition of its identity in a Statute ofAutonomy approved in 1980, which made some self-government possibleand the widespread use of the Catalan language in education, in publicadministration, and in the media owned by the Catalan government, such asradio and television. Therefore, to speak Catalan, to assert Catalan specificity,and to live in Catalonia became normal practice, particularly for the generationborn into democracy.Resistance identity faded by and large because it was no longer needed as