Abstract
Following recent studies on everyday de-stigmatization processes (1), I examine in this paper the culture resources working class Ethiopian-Israelis mobilize to contest stigmatized notions of Ethiopianness. Based on 30 in-depth interviews, and an ethnographically informed analysis of those interviews, I present two types of culture resources. The first is the use of Ethnic Culture, in which Ethiopianness is presented as unproblematic ethnic distinctiveness, and non-Ethiopian Israelis are grouped along ethnic lines of different, but equally valued groupings. This is a strategy that emphasizes group membership and handles ethnic distinctions as commonsensical. The second is the use of Universalism, in which all potential group memberships are rejected as meaningless for individual self-identification and evaluation. This strategy emphasizes equality on universal ground and uses various all-inclusive criteria. Guided by two distinct logics, emphasizing vs. rejecting group membership, both strategies are oriented towards creating horizontal relations with others. While previous studies emphasized the role of racial and national boundaries in the de-stigmatization processes among Ethiopian Israelis, the variations in this paper shed light on the working of ethnicity as a commonsensical source of value; thus, enabling us to further specify the different logics behind the absence of racial language among ordinary Ethiopians, and the varied degrees to which national boundaries matter in everyday contestation over stigmatized notions of group m embership.
Highlights
In their book, Getting Respect: Dealing with Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil and Israel, Lamont et al [1] explore everyday de-stigmatization processes
I look at one segment of a particular group, working class Israelis of Ethiopian origin, and explore which kind of cultural resources they deployed in the process of transforming stigmatized notions of Ethiopianness and gaining self-worth
The study brings additional variations of the cultural resources deployed in the process of de-stigmatization among Ethiopian-Israelis [2,3], and sheds light on: 1
Summary
In their book, Getting Respect: Dealing with Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil and Israel, Lamont et al [1] explore everyday de-stigmatization processes. In. The Everyday Paths to Equalize Oneself: Emphasizing Vs. Rejecting Group Membership Among Working Class Ethiopian-Israelis contrast, the variations presented in this paper exist between (ethnic) and outside (universalism) of those two poles. “Universalism” refers to a strategy where interviewees located the source of stigma in several sources: blackness, ethnic culture, class, and more, but dismissed them as meaningless and accounted for equality on universal ground of shared characteristics [5] Both lines of action sustain one’s dignity as an individual and establish horizontal relations with others. The use of Ethnic Culture informs us that Ethiopianness, as a form of racial distinctiveness, gets negotiated and contested in relation to the boundaries of national belonging (i.e., exclusion as blacks), as shown by different studies [11,12], and in relation to non-national commonsensical patterns of everyday lived experience. I discuss how these variations shed light on our understanding of how everyday experiences shapes coping strategies with stigmatized notions of group membership
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