Authors pursuing original research on ethnic, religious or language European minorities are sought to contribute to the volume INTEGRATING MINORITIES: TRADITIONAL COMMUNITIES AND MODERNIZATION, which is to be issued in 2010 by the Romanian Institute For Research On National Minorities of Cluj.
The prepared volume will focus on different - both positive and negative - aspects of minority integration in the context of the European modernization based to a great extent on the ‘one nation-one state’ principle.
The aim of this volume is to include in one analytical framework those East and Central European traditional communities and ethnic groups which have not or have been only partially integrated by modern civil and national movements, and which have not actively participated in the nation-building or state-building processes that shaped the map of the modern Europe. In our view, the communities categorized in different ways by political and judicial definitions in many respects are very similar and represent common anthropological situations.
Recent research in the context of modernization has accentuated the existence of “global universes”. According to this, as a result of globalization cultural phenomena life-conducting strategies, models of identity and cultural strategies of the communities in transition are decreasingly determined by the integrative forms that had once characterized those particular communities. In the context of modernization and globalization, what will happen with these ethnicities and forms of social organization related to the gradual disappearance of traditional life conducts?
Encouraged to contribute are those anthropologists, sociologists, ethnographers or linguists who carried out fieldwork within communities which constitute autonomous communities on the level of particular cultural practices (for example language or religion) and of mentality and lifestyle. The researched communities should represent such a model of ethnicity where – through their own particular features – they distinguish themselves from the surrounding societies, while the differences are reinforced and reproduced by the latter as well. The scope is to research minorities/communities which define themselves by means of ascription and self-ascription – a mechanism which, as Fredrik Barth puts it, eventually leads to the inclusion or exclusion of features and, respectively, units.
We expect first of all studies that examine the mentioned ethnicities in the traditional contexts. Articles can discuss a broad spectrum of problems: they can show cases of particular minorities in historical perspective, they can focus on issues such as political (ab)use or contesting of ethnic identities or ethnic identity instrumentalization by the dominating nation, they can display, in various perspectives, assimilation and acculturation processes regarding one or more traditional communities or problems and/or perspectives of ethnic, language and cultural revival/revitalization of minorities.
No limits are set as far as character number per study is concerned.
Abstracts or full text are to be mailed (.doc, .pdf, .rtf) until February 28, 2010.