Abstract
How does a small town in rural Spain function with apparent harmony and tolerance in spite of being a living global village? How do narratives about this town represent its multicultural and multiconfessional fabric and what gets erased from such representations? My interdisciplinary study responds to these questions as a first step toward an ethnography and narrative analysis of the Andalusian town of Órgiva and its broader implications in an increasingly globalized, yet conflict-ridden world. Órgiva, a town of approximately 6,000 inhabitants, boasts residents of sixty-eight nationalities and practitioners of various spiritual and healing traditions, among them the largest Sufi community in Spain. Literary and multimedia storytelling platforms have contributed to drawing people to Órgiva and also to fashioning a particular narrative about it. Most notably, in its second season the highly popular Spanish digital television show Radio Gaga dedicated an episode to Órgiva. The show features two personable hipsters who visit communities in Spain using localized radio transmission to connect with community members and draw them in to share their stories. The 2018 Órgiva episode portrays the town as a place where people can rebuild their shattered lives in a tolerant space. However, this narrative, built upon the community-members’ life stories, completely erases one constituency in the town: Moroccan immigrants. I consider why this group of economic migrants is ignored, in favor of a focus on European converts to Islam who can be understood as “spiritual migrants,” and what this narration of Órgiva reveals about dominant conceptions of tolerance.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Narrative Television Tolerance
Digital Media
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