[lg policy] Multiculturalism alive and well in Austria

Sat Nov 27 16:25:41 UTC 2010

Multiculturalism alive and well in Austria
Posted on November 24, 2010 by Ingrid Piller

I love public libraries. Here in Sydney, our family regularly spends
time in our local public library and in the Persian library in
Parramatta. We treat public libraries a bit like an indoors park: a
public space where we can enjoy books, events and “hanging out”
without having to buy something as you have to in most other public
spaces, such as malls or cafes. In that we are very similar to the
visitors of the central library in Vienna, as a new fascinating
ethnography demonstrates (Busch, 2009).

The researcher, Brigitta Busch explores the Viennese central library
as a space where bottom-up language policy is made. With most language
policy studies focusing on the national level, her paper is a
brilliant reminder that language policy is not only the result of some
grand plan hatched by a central bureaucracy but the result of civic
engagement.

The Viennese central library holds an amazingly multilingual
collection: in addition to German, full collections are also available
in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, English and Turkish. Additionally, there
are collections of at least 500 items in Albanian, Czech, French,
Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak,
Slovene and Spanish. Smaller collections are held in Arabic, Catalan,
Chinese, Classical Greek, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Ladino, Latin,
Norwegian, Romany, Swedish and Yiddish. Furthermore, language learning
materials are available for all these and some other languages.

In interviews it emerged that the establishment of collections in
languages other than German was generally guided by two principles:
one was to build collections in important foreign languages (English,
French etc.) and the other was to build collections in Vienna’s
migrant languages (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Turkish etc.). These
broad considerations, were followed by personnel considerations (a
least one person needs to be able to curate a language collection) and
by availability considerations (only a sufficient number of items and
a regular flow of new items make a language collection viable and keep
it interesting). Some of this can be quite accidental. For example,
when a retired professor of sinology became a volunteer, the Chinese
section could be established. Conversely, the library recognizes a
need to establish a Chechen collection but hasn’t been able to act on
that need because there are no established trade connections with
war-torn Chechnya.

The librarians in charge of a specific language section, too, make
language policy with reference to their own beliefs. The librarian in
charge of the Russian section, for instance, closely listens to the
needs and wishes of the users of Russian language materials and thus
the collection caters for “Russian ladies” and their love of crime
fiction on the one hand and asylum seekers from various parts of the
former Soviet Union, on the other, who prefer non-fiction and German
language learning materials with Russian as the source language.

In contrast to the pragmatic approach of the Russian librarian, the
Turkish librarian sees it as her mission to focus on the “quality” of
the collection. For her, quality means only stocking materials sourced
from Turkey and not from Germany, where a flourishing Turkish-language
publishing industry has developed around the newspaper Hürriyet. She
explains her reasoning as follows:

    This (i.e. Turkish-language publishing in Germany) is a guest
worker culture that has emerged there, they write about the factory,
about poverty, about the difficulties they have experienced. This is
not Turkish, not Turkish culture like the one I grew up in, that
happens in Turkey. (…) They have a culture in between. (Busch 2009, p.
139)

This purist attitude and conservative acquisition policy
notwithstanding, youths of Turkish backgrounds love the library. Many
go there to do their homework, and while doing their maths, they also
chat with each other in German and Turkish and they access internet
sites with their favorite music in English, German and Turkish (the
latter both diasporic and Turkey-based).

Migrants account for 25% of the population of Vienna and possibly a
larger portion of the users of the central library. For asylum seekers
it is a space where they can access the internet and German language
learning materials for free, for youths of migrant backgrounds it is a
space to hang out with friends, and tourists go there because of the
architectural interest of the building and to gain free internet
access. The public library has thus become a truly democratic
multicultural space.

The central library in Vienna is a space where a language policy that
fosters social cohesion is negotiated: there are no barriers to
access, linguistic diversity is valued, and language policy is
ultimately seen as a negotiation process between the users of the
library and the staff. I recognized the public libraries I frequent in
that account.

If we only listen to the media (and even academic accounts of national
language policies), it is easy to feel pessimistic about the future,
or even the possibility, of democratic, fair and diverse societies.
Busch’s research shows that this is only one way of looking at
multiculturalism. I hope many more researchers will follow her lead
and produce accounts of successful inclusive bottom-up language
policies:

    The example of the Vienna library shows that initiatives which
provide open access to spaces in which communication between
linguistically and culturally diverse groups can take place publicly
can contribute substantially towards inclusive language policies. (p.
147)

Busch, B. (2009). Local actors in promoting multilingualism. In G.
Hogan-Brun, C. Mar-Molinero & P. Stevenson (Eds.), Discourses on
Language and Integration (pp. 129-151). Amsterdam: John Benjamin
Publishing.

http://www.languageonthemove.com/language-migration-social-justice/multiculturalism-alive-and-well-in-austria

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