Cultural Research in Malta

The cistern work throughout our first week here in Malta has been really interesting, and I've thankfully been able to talk to a good number of Maltese citizens during our field visits, which has been great to further my research on whether Maltese people identify culturally as Europeans, or if they see themselves as largely differentiated from Europe and the European Union embodied on the continent. Our first three days of field work were spent in the fields of Tal Gruwa, on the island of Gozo, and I got the opportunity to speak with our guide, George, as well as a number of local farmers in the area. From the very first conversation, I began seeing aspects of Maltese culture, and more broadly - Mediterranean culture, that I had never even thought of. One of the most unexpected things that I learned was that although the island of Gozo is part of the country of Malta, and commonly referred to as one of the Maltese Islands, the people of the small rural island do not necessarily consider themselves to be Maltese. In their eyes, the Maltese people are the ones living on the island of Malta, proper; while they maintain their own culture and identity as Gozotans.

One of the local farmers I had the pleasure of speaking with happened to be one of the individuals responsible for the acquisition and appropriation of funds from the European Union for the people of Gozo. He spoke at great length about the long process of obtaining these funds, and particularly about the tedium involved with the auditing and tracking of the funds. On the other hand, he also spoke quite candidly about the good that it's bringing to the Gozotans, and Maltese as a whole. Although I am studying cultural identities and their link with the continent and European Union, learning of the fiscal impacts and changes brought about by Malta's entrance to the EU has been quite interesting.

Overall, an early consensus seems to point to the people of Malta and Gozo strongly identifying as a small yet unique culture in and of themselves. There seems to be a number of larger cultural constructs with which they identify, i.e. from the town of Tal Gruwa, to the island of Gozo, to the country of Malta, to the Mediterranean region, and to the European Union; however, with each higher level of abstraction within these cultural identities, the link appears to grow weaker and weaker.