Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T16:12:18.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ethnic and non-ethnic politics of everyday life in Bulgaria's southern borderland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

James Dawson
James Dawson*
Affiliation:
School of Public Policy, Department of Political Science, University College London, United Kingdom
*
∗Email: james.dawson@ucl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ethnicity is found in real-world contexts where non-ethnic forms of identification are available. This conclusion is drawn from an empirical study carried out in the multiethnic town of Kurdzhali in Southern Bulgaria, where members of the Bulgarian majority live alongside the Turkish minority. Drawing on the “everyday nationhood” agenda that aims to provide a methodological toolkit for the study of ethnicity/nationhood without overpredicting its importance, the study involved the collection of survey, interview, and ethnographic data. Against the expectations of some experienced scholars of the Central and Eastern Europe region, ethnic identity was found to be more salient for the majority Bulgarians than for the minority Turks. However, the ethnographic data revealed the importance of a rural–urban cleavage that was not predicted by the research design. On the basis of this finding, I argue that the “everyday nationhood” approach could be improved by including a complementary focus on non-ethnic attachments that have been emphasized by scholarship or journalism relevant to the given context. Rather than assuming the centrality of ethnicity, such an “everyday identifications” approach would start from the assumption that ethnic narratives of identity always have to compete with non-ethnic ones.

Type
Special Section: The Autonomy of Minority Literature
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , May 2012 , pp. 473 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bernard, H. Russell. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. 4th ed. New York: Rowman Altamira, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Bougarel, Xavier. “Yugoslav Wars: ‘Revenge of the Countryside on the City': Between Nationalist Myth and Sociological Reality.” East European Quarterly 33.2 (1999): 157–175. Print.Google Scholar
Brown, Keith. “Beyond Ethnicity: The Politics of Urban Nostalgia in Modern Macedonia.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 11.2 (2001): 417–442. Print.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. Ethnicity without Groups. Harvard UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge UP, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers, Feischmidt, Margit, Jon, Fox, and Grancea, Liana. Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Princeton UP, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Brunnbauer, Ulf. “The Perception of Muslims in Bulgaria and Greece: Between the Self and the Other.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 21.1 (2001): 39–61. Print.Google Scholar
Helsinki Committee, Bulgarian. The Human Rights of Muslims in Bulgaria in Law and Politics since 1878. Sofia, Nov. 2003. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.Google Scholar
Crampton, Richard. A Concise History of Bulgaria. Cambridge UP, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Cveticanin, Predrag, and Popescu, Mihaela. “Struggles on Symbolic Boundaries.” Paper presented at Network for Studies of Cultural Distinction and Social Differentiation (SCUD) meeting, U of Manchester, 18–20. Nov. 2009.Google Scholar
Dilkov, Ivan. “Ahmed Dogan, or ‘Who's your Daddy?’ in Bulgarian Politics.” novinite.com. 21 Oct. 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2011.Google Scholar
Duijzings, Ger. Geschiedenis en herinnering in Oost-Bosnië : de achtergronden van de val van Srebrenica [History, Memory and Politics in Eastern Bosnia: An Historical and Anthropological Background Account to the Events in Srebrenica]. Amsterdam: Boom, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Edensor, Tim. National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology. London: Pluto, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Fox, Jon E. “From National Inclusion to Economic Exclusion.” Nations and Nationalism 13.1 (2007). Print.Google Scholar
Fox, Jon E. “Missing the Mark: Nationalist Politics and Student Apathy.” East European Politics and Societies 18.3 (2004): 363–393. Print.Google Scholar
Fox, Jon E., and Cynthia Miller-Idriss. “Everyday Nationhood.” Ethnicities 8.4 (2008): 536–563. Print.Google Scholar
Gagnon, V.P. Jr. The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s. Cornell UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Georgieva, Tsvetana, ed. Kurdzhali: Ot Traditsiya kum Modernostta [Kurdzhali: From Tradition to Modernity]. Sofia: International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Gordy, Eric D. The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania UP, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Green, Edward C. “Can Qualitative Research Produce Reliable Quantitative Findings?” Field Methods 13.1 (2001): 3–19. Print.Google Scholar
Gruev, Mihail. Mezhdu Petoluchkata i Polumesetsa: Bulgarite Myusyulmani i Politicheskiyat Rezhim 1944–1959 [Between the Red Star and the Cresent: The Moslem Bulgarians and the Political Regime 1944–1959]. Sofia: I.K. “Kota,” 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Gruev, Mihail, andKalyonski, Alexei. Vuzroditelniyat Protses: Musulmanskit obshtnosti I Komunicheskiyat Rezhim [The Revival Process: Muslim Communities and the Communist Regime]. Sofia: Institut za izsledvane na blizkoto minalo, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Handwerker, W. Penn. Quick Ethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
Hearn, Jonathan. “National Identity: Banal, Personal and Embedded.” Nations and Nationalism 13.4 (2007): 657–674. Print.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.Google Scholar
Ishiyama, John T., and Breuning, Marijke. Ethnopolitics in the New Europe. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Isov, Myumyum, ed. Istinata za Vuzroditelniya Protses: Dokumenti ot arhiva na Ts. K. na B. K. P. [The Truth of the “Revival Process”: Documents from the Archive of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party]. Sofia: Institut za Izsledvane za Integratsiata, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Ivanova, Radost. Kultura na Nasheto Vsekidnevie [The Culture of Our Everyday Lives]. Sofia: Veliko Tu?rnovo, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Jansen, Stef. “Who's Afraid of White Socks? Towards a Critical Understanding of Post-Yugoslav Urban Self-Perceptions.” Ethnologia Balkanica 9 (2005): 151–167. Print.Google Scholar
Kaneff, Deema. “Work, Identity and Rural-Urban Relations.” Post-Socialist Peasant? Rural and Urban Constructions of Identity in Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Former Soviet Union. Ed. Leonard, Pamela and Kaneff, Deema. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. 180–199. Print.Google Scholar
Kolsto, Pal. National Integration and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Societies. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Krasteva-Blagoeva, Evgenia. “Symbols of Muslim Identity in Bulgaria: Traditions and Inovations” [sic]. Conference paper, New Bulgarian U, 2008. Web. 25 March 2011.Google Scholar
Minchev, Ognyan. mediapool.bg, 1 July 2009. Web. 25 Sept. 2011.Google Scholar
Protsyk, Oleh, and Sachariew, Konstantin. “Recruitment and Representation of Ethnic Minorities under PR.” East European Politics and Societies 25.3 (2010): 1–27. Print.Google Scholar
Rechel, Bernd. “The Bulgarian Ethnic Model: Reality or Ideology?” Europe-Asia Studies 59.7 (2007): 1201–1215. Print.Google Scholar
Republic of Bulgaria National Statistical Institute, 2011 Population Census in the Republic of Bulgaria. Web. 10 Dec. 2011.Google Scholar
Simic, Andrei. The Peasant Urbanites. New York: Seminar, 1973. Print.Google Scholar
Sofia News Agency. “Bulgaria Minister Rashidov: Ethnic Turkish Regions Shake Off Fear from DPS.” novinite.com, 21 Aug. 2009. Web. 22 Sept. 2011.Google Scholar
Trankova, Dimana. “The Chalga Way of Life.” Vagabond 32 (May 2008). Web. 2 Apr. 2011.Google Scholar
Vassilev, Rossen V. “Post-Communist Bulgaria's Ethnopolitics.” Global Review of Ethnopolitics 1.2 (2001): 37–53. Print.Google Scholar
Warhola, James W., and Boteva, Orlina. “The Turkish Minority in Contemporary Bulgaria.” Nationalities Papers 31.3 (2003): 255–279. Print.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. Peripheral Visions: Power, Publics and Performance in Yemen. U of Chicago P, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Zhelyazkova, Antonina, ed. Relations of Compatibility and Incompatibility between Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria. Sofia: International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, 1994. Print.Google Scholar