Branding like a state: Establishing catalan singularity at the frankfurt book fair

Abstract

The designation of Catalan culture as guest of honor at the 2007 Frankfurt Book Fair raised controversy over whether Catalan culture is expressed in one language or two. This was an opportunity for elites to promote Catalan industry internationally but also to compete over visions of Catalonia for domestic political purposes. An analysis of media texts from the controversy shows that national branding emerged as a key trope in the official defense of emphasizing Catalan over Castilian-medium literature. As a discourse sanctioned in the global political economy, branding was strategically revoiced by Catalan officials to parry Castilian critics’ free-marketeer accusations of illiberal essentialist pro-tectionism. This analysis uses Silverstein’s concept of indexical order to argue that branding functioned not only as a sign of Catalonia’s distinctiveness in the global marketplace but also at a higher order as a brand in itself to index the Catalan administration’s cosmopolitan, contemporary, and rationalist character.