Twenty-fourth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

This paper examines the role of cultural tourism as an organization in the creation/maintenance of identity membership for cultural minorities, namely the Acadians. Building on previous work that examined the regional/local meaning and ideological perceptions of Acadian membership, I present the existence of a vacuum in the understanding of diasporic Acadian identity. I come to this understanding through an examination of the power of cultural tourism as a tool in ideology/knowledge making, as well as through a qualitative analysis of Acadia’s most celebrated organization, the World Acadian Congress (CMA), a civil society platform established through cultural tourism over twenty-five years ago as a means of building bridges between Acadians from around the world. The CMA provides an arena for Acadians to express their cultural vitality through a sense of mutual collectiveness. However, like all cultural festivities, the CMA not only provides an arena for collective membership building, but it also unveils the social and political concerns of many Acadians and promotes the French-first linguistic ideology of the Société nationale de l’Acadie (SNA), a non-profit organization that also acts as the CMA’s overseeing structure. This CMA-SNA relationship creates an ideological umbrella and a hierarchical power within the diaspora. The result is that various communities of the Acadian diaspora receive little consideration in Acadian relations and politics. This is particularly true for American Acadians living in more rural, borderlands regions where French has no official status, such as in northern Maine.