Ethnic Authenticity Research Articles

Choosing between Cyrillic and Latin for linguistic citizenship in contemporary Serbia

Abstract Both the Cyrillic and Latin scripts are routinely used for writing in Serbian. In existing ideological discourses, using Cyrillic is associated by some with Serbian ethnic authenticity and loyalty to nationhood, but by others with conservatism, Russian-leaning politics and dangerous ethnonationalism. For some, using Latin is associated with cosmopolitanism and a western-leaning internationalisation, but for others with an assault on Serbian heritage, values and tradition. In this context, with which script do Serbians today most closely affiliate and does established ideological discourse actually inform script choices? By seeing this affiliation as linguistic citizenship, the paper analyses survey data and metalinguistic explanations about which script Serbians choose to represent their own names as the most personal of identities. The data show that while some simply write their name in either script depending on habit, younger Serbians, and Serbians outside metropolitan areas, seemingly bias Cyrillic for ethnonationalist reasons as discourse predicts. However, especially revealing is that linguistic citizenship among older Serbians is sooner mediated by lingering notions of Yugoslavia and Serbo-Croatian as country and language that no longer exist but once indexed ideals of equality and harmony in the region.

Recognition and promotion of the great poet Abai Qunanbaiuly in China

Relevance. Abai Qunanbaiuly is a great Kazakh poet, public figure and educator. The versatility of the work of the national poet and progressive thinker of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the memory of which is maintained at the state level, influences the development and formation of modern intercultural dialogue between Kazakhstan and China. Purpose. Abai Qunanbaiuly, the creator of the Kazakh literary language, is also a factor determining the cultural identity of Kazakhs, a significant part of whom live outside of Kazakhstan. Methodology. Recognition and popularisation of Abai's creativity within the country have become especially relevant in the framework of the formation and development of the new Independent Kazakhstan. Migration processes of the 20th century led to large-scale resettlement of Kazakhs to the territory of Western China. The problem of ethnic authenticity for the population of the Kazakh population of China, which preserves its traditional culture, is extremely relevant both for the Kazakhs themselves and for China. Results. The popularisation of Abai's heritage in China is a multifaceted and complex process related both to solving domestic political problems and establishing good-neighbourly relations with neighbouring Kazakhstan, which has embarked on the path of independence. This study identifies the main factors that influenced the process of popularisation and promotion of Abai Qunanbaiuly's creativity in China, and highlights the main directions of the process. The use of the comparative-analytical method and the method of systematisation made it possible to effectively organise the scientific search for material to solve the tasks. Conclusions. The study not only identified and defined the main directions of popularisation of the creative heritage of the poet, but also attempted to determine the qualitative level of the popularisation process, which can be regarded at this stage as the beginning of the process of actualisation of the creative heritage of Abai Qunanbaiuly. The results of this study can be used to develop a strategy for further research in a given direction.

«ИЗ ТЬМЫ ВЕКОВ»: ЭВОЛЮЦИОННЫЙ СТАТУС ЭПОПЕИ

The article “From the Darkness of Ages”: the evolutionary status of the epic” is an attempt at a comprehensive analysis of I. Bazorkin’s novel from the point of view of its ethnic authenticity and belonging to newly written literature. The work’s relevance - the writing of the Ingush prose writ-er has not been sufficiently studied to this day, and the fact of his obvious exclusivity in terms of professional development in comparison to the general context of “accelerated” literature has only been mentioned in the relevant works. The authors persuasively analyze specific aspects of the writer’s narrative style, demonstrating that I. Bazorkin exhibits traditional literary system features in the components of idiostyle – apperceptivee, constructive-plot, genre, ideological, and concep-tual. The study notes and demonstrates I. Bazorkin’s attraction to storytelling with alternating “fo-cality” (“cognitive transfer”). Interesting observations regarding the mutual aesthetic integration of folklore and ethnographic elements of the work. The ideological mobility and freedom of the writer in the sphere of moral and ethical standards of perception and evaluation are noted. All of these innovative characteristics of newly written language are explained by the writer’s education, the details of his creation in infancy, which, of course, has it causes. I. Bazorkin’s novel has all the features of newly written prose and in this sense clearly fits into the context of the national litera-ture of the Ingush people, however, the text of the work, both in narrative terms and in architec-tonics, is a phenomenon more characteristic of developed literary systems with long tradition.

“The Queer Nuyorican”: Reading Downtown Poetry and Performance Through a Queer Lens

“The Queer Nuyorican”: Reading Downtown Poetry and Performance Through a Queer Lens

Nomadism as Ancestral Homeland in the Romani Culture

Nomadism is perceived as an essential trait of the Romani ethnic identity, both inside and outside the Romani communities. This paper explores the meaning of nomadism in the Romani culture by considering how this practice has been represented in the sociocultural imaginary. In particular, the paper analyzes the depiction of nomadism in the ethnopolitical discourse and the literary field, both in oral tradition and in written texts. The analysis examines works authored by representative Romani writers, such as Bronislawa Wajs “Papusza”, Mateo Maximoff, Menyhért Lakatos or José Heredia Maya, among others. Finally, the paper considers how in the literary text, the image of nomadism is produced and consumed as a mark of ethnic authenticity.

Nomadism as Ancestral Homeland in the Romani Culture

Nomadism is perceived as an essential trait of the Romani ethnic identity, both inside and outside the Romani communities. This paper explores the meaning of nomadism in the Romani culture by considering how this practice has been represented in the sociocultural imaginary. In particular, the paper analyzes the depiction of nomadism in the ethnopolitical discourse and the literary field, both in oral tradition and in written texts. The analysis examines works authored by representative Romani writers, such as Bronislawa Wajs “Papusza”, Mateo Maximoff, Menyhért Lakatos or José Heredia Maya, among others. Finally, the paper considers how in the literary text, the image of nomadism is produced and consumed as a mark of ethnic authenticity.

“Urban text” in Lyrics of Varvara Danilova through Pprism of Silver Age Poetry

The results of the analysis of “urban text” phenomenon in the lyrics of the modern Evenk poetess Varvara Danilova are presented. The relevance of the study is due to the interest of modern literary criticism in the heritage of the indigenous peoples of the North. The novelty of the work is seen in the consideration of the features of the “urban text” creation in the V. Danilova’s lyrics in the projection on the poetic experience of the Silver Age. The theoretical basis was the works of V. N. Toporov, Yu. M. Lotman, S. P. Gurin, N. V. Schmidt, and others. The material for the analysis was the most representative poems of Danilova’s collections: “Only you ...” (1992—1996), “Heavenly Hell” (2005), “Lunar Legend” (2010), containing direct or indirect indications of the presence of “urban” semantics in the title, at the level of motive-shaped structure or in subtext. It was found that the “urban text” in the lyrics of the Evenk poetess is represented both by concrete cultural and historical realities, and by a certain conventional topos, not tied either to time or space. The poets of the Silver Age, belonging to different literary trends, became the creative guidelines for the author. It is proved that V. Danilova created a unique author’s model of the “urban text”, in which symbolist, acmeistic and futuristic poetic experiences and national-cultural vision, conditioned by the ethnic authenticity of the author, were intertwined.

The Asian Americans’ Identity Crisis as Reflected in Day Standing on Its Head

Philip Kan Gotanda's heritage is professionally woven into nearly all of his work. The combination of family memories and theatrical inventions makes him the faithful chronicler of the Asian American experience. The past visibly invades the present in most of his works and characters, while he interweaves a distinctly theatrical magic charm around them, producing a crystal clear picture of Asian American life. His plays feature arguments between men and women with differing visions of how Asian Americans should fight to be a part of America. One can say that it would be more challenging to assign Day Standing on Its Head as a merely Asian American play because Gotanda exposes socio-cultural issues that can fit all the mainstream audience. Although the characters in this play confront problems rooted in the particularities of Japanese American history and culture, their conflicts reveal psychological and emotional realities that resonate beyond the Japanese American community. Along with all of Gotanda's works, he never sacrifices his ethnic authenticity to gain the acceptance and visibility of the mainstream audience. On the other hand, he claims the right to present the "real" face of the Asian American problems, issues, and conflicts, just to record their real life without any decoration. Gotanda argues that his style in discussing these issues can help in strengthening relations with the mainstream.

DĖL ŽMOGAUS ESMĖS ETNINIO AUTENTIŠKUMO IŠSAUGOJIMO

The article examines the transformational processes of preserving the ethnic authenticity of the human essence in the context of the historical development of statehood in Lithuania and Ukraine, which continue to function in the creative cooperation of modern sovereign states. Ukraine and Lithuania are long-standing and reliable partners not only in economic, political, scientific and cultural cooperation – they are united by a common history and ancient cultural processes. In Dnipropetrovsk region, with the assistance of the regional state administration, centers of representatives of various nationalities are actively functioning, among which the cultural and business center of Lithuania occupies an important place in the economic, scientific and cultural life of Ukraine. The purpose of the article is to highlight the enduring ethnic authenticity of Lithuanians and Ukrainians in the long-term state-building cooperation between Ukraine and Lithuania, encompassing the political-economic and scientific-cultural spheres of both ethnic groups. This is the first attempt to shed light on the relations between Ukrainians and Lithuanians from the point of view of the organization of their socio-historical formations in the state-building, economic, and cultural spheres of cooperation. Moreover, the question of the ethnic authenticity of both ethnic groups outside their homeland in the modern Ukrainian-Lithuanian discourse, unfortunately, has not become the subject of dedicated historical-linguistic research. The issue of preserving ethnic identity remains a highly relevant factor in modern globalization processes and requires a thorough study of its important social features that form mutual respect, creative cooperation, and a high spiritual culture of international relations, which will resist discord, enmity and aggressive intentions between representatives of different nationalities of our planet.

Relationships between physical environment, ethnic authenticity, and willingness to pay in Thai select restaurants

ABSTRACT This study used Thai Select restaurants, which are restaurants recommended by the Thailand Trade and Economic Office, to explore whether customers’ willingness to pay after dining in a Thai Select restaurant is affected by the physical environment or ethnic authenticity of the restaurant. A survey was conducted using convenience sampling, with questionnaires distributed in front of Thai Select restaurants in the Taipei area. A total of 383 valid questionnaires were collected. The findings suggest that both physical environment and ethnic authenticity have a positive effect on customers’ willingness to pay. The findings can serve as a reference for restaurant operators of Thai Select restaurants and other ethnic restaurants in developing strategies to enhance the physical environment or ethnic authenticity of their restaurants.

Latinx Literature Unbound: Undoing Ethnic Expectation

Latinx Literature Unbound: Undoing Ethnic Expectation

Being “Other” in Berlin

Germany is considered a relatively recent country where multiraciality has become a recognised phenomenon. Yet, Germany still considers itself a monoracial state, one where whiteness is conflated with “Germanness”. Based on interviews with seven people who are multiracial (mostly Korean–German) in Berlin, this article explores how the participants construct their multiracial identities. My findings show that participants strategically locate their identity as diasporic to circumvent racial “othering”. They utilise diasporic resources or the “raw materials” of diasporic consciousness in order to construct their multiracial identities and challenge racism and the expectations of racial and ethnic authenticity. I explored how multiracial experiences offer a different way of thinking about the actual doing and performing of diaspora.

ДО ПИТАННЯ ПРО ЗБЕРЕЖЕННЯ ЕТНІЧНОЇ АВТЕНТИЧНОСТІ СУТНОСТІ ЛЮДИНИ

У статті висвітлено міжетнічні зв’язки українців та литовців з погляду їхнього суспільно-історичного розвитку в плані державотворення, культурно-економічних зв’язків, ролі видатних постатей, особливості лексичних, фольклорних, етноантропонімних чинників, діяльності культурно-ділових центрів, спрямованих на збереження етнічної автентичності в сучасних умовах життєдіяльності.

The Unheard Cry of a Successful Asian Psychologist

This paper addresses the important issues of making it as an Asian psychologist in an overwhelmingly white academic field. Based on my professional and personal struggle to achieve success as a psychologist in both academia and clinical practice, I want to (a) expose the naked truth of being an Asian psychologist within a white academic field with regard to racial trauma, careerism, and expediency; (b) chart a course of maintaining personal and ethnic authenticity in truth-seeking in spite of all the visible and invisible obstacles in a foreign country; and (c) propose ways to fully recognize indigenous psychology and integrate Asian minorities in mainstream psychology.

The Effect of Plating, Ingredients, and Cooking Processes on the Acceptance and Authenticity of Ethnic Rice Dishes.

Familiarity and ethnic authenticity have a significant influence on the liking of ethnic food. Thus, it is crucial to identify the degree to which a dish can be modified in order to increase hedonic responses and familiarity without the loss of ethnic authenticity. This study determined the degree to which perceptions of the Korean rice dish, bibimbap, would vary upon modification of its ingredients, cooking process, or plating using the Southeast Asian market as a model system. The dish was prepared in Korean style or as Nasi Goreng, the Southeast Asian style. Eight formulations (2 ingredients × 2 cooking methods × 2 plating styles) were tested by panels, including 77 Southeast Asians and 72 Koreans. Hedonic responses, familiarity, ethnic authenticity, and purchase intent were evaluated using a nested analysis of variance. Ingredients and cooking methods had a significant influence on liking and perceived ethnic authenticity. In addition, plating had a substantial effect on the perception of ethnic authenticity and expected liking. Overall, the rate of positive responses increased when region-specific cooking processes and plating were matched. Taken together, our results suggest that modification of familiar dishes needs to be carefully considered as it can have complex effects on liking and perceived ethnic authenticity.

Raceless No More: In Search of Race in Willard Motley's Papers

4 CLA JOURNAL Raceless No More: In Search of Race in Willard Motley’s Papers Agnieszka Tuszynska In May 1947, a new novel of urban naturalism, Knock on Any Door, appeared in the bookstores and book stands across Chicago and the nation and was soon off to a smashing success. The name of the author, Willard Motley (19091965 ), rang few bells, but that fact did not prevent sales from soaring, with 300,000 hard-cover copies selling in the year of the publication alone (Klinkowitz xviii). Many critics responded enthusiastically to the story of a sweet Italian American altar boy who transforms into a thief and eventually a killer under the pressure of poverty and violence in Chicago’s slums. Despite a few critical voices, most reviewers—including those writing for the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine—lauded the novel for its psychological realism and social commentary (Fleming 59-60). Critics compared it to works by Theodore Dreiser, Richard Wright, and James T. Farrell, and were joined in singing Motley’s praises by Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote, “Reading this book made me walk around my neighborhood with a more curious eye, and it made me wonder just what I would find if I‘knocked on any door”(Roosevelt). The novel’s success led to a film version starring Humphrey Bogart in 1949 and put the name of Willard Motley in the literary spotlight for the next couple of years. All the hype Knock on Any Door generated may seem odd to many an enthusiast of American literature who likely never heard of Motley. In fact, the author of Knock fell into obscurity just a few short years after the novel’s publication and was only temporarily and posthumously resurrected by a few academics who were the first to study his papers in the late seventies. 1 I argue that the reason for this lack of recognition lies in Motley’s status as an African American author who became defined early on as a “raceless” writer. 2 Knock, which was Motley’s first novel, places him in the ranks of other black writers, including Frank Yerby, Ann Petry, James Baldwin, and Zora Neale Hurston, who penned novels featuring nonblack protagonists and centering on non-black experience.As Gene Andrew Jarrett has argued in Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature (2007), such writers “play truant” from the school of literary racial realism that demanded that “black authors . . . write authentic literature” that portrays “the 1 The year 2019 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Northern Illinois Press University’s publication of its edition of the book, which was also the last. 2 The term “raceless” as it was originally applied to Motley by early reviewers and critics, and as it is consequently used in this essay, refers specifically to the supposed lack of focus on black experience in Motley’s writing. CLA JOURNAL 5 Raceless No More: In Search of Race in Willard Motley’s Papers black race in accurate or truthful ways” (1). To an extent, Jarrett’s study of such black literary “truancy” finds an ancestor in Claudia Tate’s reading of African American novels that resist what she calls “racial protocols” in her 1998 book, Psychoanalysis and Black Novels: Desire and the Protocols of Race. Such protocols “demanded that a black text explicitly represent their lived experiences with racial oppression” (Tate 3). While Tate’s focus lies in novels that evade this racial “formula” (5) by either centering white characters or conflicts hinging on something other than racial oppression, she points out that these texts are considered marginal as opposed to “consistently venerated” works that offer “the typical racial story” (10). Jarrett makes a similar observation when he writes that black writers’ challenge to “the essentialist paradigms of ethnic authenticity . . . is marginality or exclusion in the academic and cultural marketplace” (5). Motley’s illustrative case seems to have been additionally exacerbated in that respect by the fact that he had no significant capital as an “authentically” black writer or a “race writer” before the publication of Knock. Hence, the supposed “racelessness” of his debut novel defined him and resulted in the absence...

Tactics of Intersubjectivity and Boundary Construction in Language Policy: An Andean Case

ABSTRACTBased on an ethnography of a language policy in the region of Apurímac in the Peruvian Andes, I analyze the boundaries that are constructed by a community of practice of Quechua “experts” in a context where resources in the indigenous language become more valuable. Although the declared wish is to build a regional “us,” Quechua experts end up establishing identity divisions between “us” and “them” through tactics of intersubjectivity based on ethnic difference, authority and authenticity. This work follows earlier studies about language ideological battles in relation to Quechua and shows that, after several decades, the former top-down language policies coming from the capital city are now being recursively reproduced within the Quechua-speaking social actors themselves, and the conflict has diversified into new dilemmas.

Being “Other” in Berlin: German Koreans, Multiraciality, and Diaspora

AbstractGermany is considered a relatively recent country where multiraciality has become a recognised phenomenon. Yet, Germany still considers itself a monoracial state, one where whiteness is conflated with “Germanness”. Based on interviews with seven people who are multiracial (mostly Korean–German) in Berlin, this article explores how the participants construct their multiracial identities. My findings show that participants strategically locate their identity as diasporic to circumvent racial “othering”. They utilise diasporic resources or the “raw materials” of diasporic consciousness in order to construct their multiracial identities and challenge racism and the expectations of racial and ethnic authenticity. I explored how multiracial experiences offer a different way of thinking about the actual doing and performing of diaspora.

I’ve Been a Foreign Lander

I’ve Been a Foreign Lander Dana Wildsmith (bio) Listen! Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Closer, let me whisper in your ear: I’m not Appalachian. Or maybe I am—it depends on who you ask. Or if you ask. No one asked me to show my Appalachian Green Card before I spent a week recently teaching the literature of the region at Radford’s Highland Summer Conference. The staff and students there sure didn’t [End Page 105] treat me like a poseur. They didn’t treat me any way other than graciously. We just dove right down into a deep pool of Robert Gipe and Jesse Graves and Darnell Arnoult and Jim Wayne Miller and Crystal Wilkinson and Ron Rash and Jane Hicks and Silas House and Jim Minick and Diane Gilliam, where we swam around together for five days, happily growing sodden with worthy words. So why did I feel vaguely guilty that whole week, as if an Inspector of Ethnic Authenticity might suddenly burst through the door of the SELU Conference Center, pointing his accusatory finger at me? She’s not who she claims to be! My students would gasp, clasp hands over their mouths, and slowly shake their heads in sad disillusionment. I’d then raise my quivering chin and bravely admit: It’s worse than you think. I can’t claim to be anyone at all. It’s true. When people ask me where I’m from, I tell them I’m not from anywhere. My daddy’s family grew deep roots in Florida back in the 1800s, but Daddy left to attend seminary at Emory University and then settled in south Georgia, where I was born. Mama’s family were Eastern Kentuckians—Sloans and Stampers—but her great-granddaddy got to feeling a bit cramped in the mountains so he piled his wife and six children (including my grandmother, Stamper Elizabeth Turbyfill) into a covered wagon and headed for Utah. Like the plot of a western movie come to life, he was shot in the back while riding into town to file the deed on his land. My great-grandmother moved herself and the children into a sod house until a relative in Florida convinced her to come live with them. The rest is history—my history. I was Little Miss Vidalia, Georgia. And I graduated from Savannah High, but South Georgians don’t really consider me to be of them, either, because my parents weren’t born in Vidalia or Twin City or Dublin. Daddy didn’t farm tobacco and [End Page 106] Mama didn’t teach school. And they talked funny, meaning they didn’t have a bit of funny in their talk. It had been a point of pride for both Mama’s and Daddy’s parents for their children to sound educated, whatever that meant. Mostly it meant not sounding Southern. Southern is the one appellation I do claim for myself, though I’ve been called down on that, too, particularly when folks find out I grew up in Savannah, They’ll tilt their heads to one side, narrow their eyes and say, “You don’t sound like somebody from Savannah.” I generally echo Gloria Steinem who, when someone exclaimed upon the occasion of her fiftieth birthday, “You don’t look fifty,” replied, “This is what fifty looks like.” This, I tell my doubters, is what Savannah sounds like. Any Knott County Mullins could tell you I’m not what Hindman sounds like—or Gate City, or Seco, or even Radford, but I’d wager a lot of folks who are from there don’t sound like there, either. My buddy Jim Webb is as Eastern Kentucky as they come, but his WMMT DJ voice could slide unquestioned into Jim’s big brother Rob’s New York City voice actor roles. It’s not the way I talk that’s at the root of my yearly impulse to add Thank you for inviting me to my nametag at the Appalachian Studies Association Conference. So what is the reason I’m so wobbly about plopping down onto the regional sofa like...

‘I Myself am an Israelite’: Paul, Authenticity and Authority

This article argues that Paul prefers to present himself as an Israelite instead of a Judean for strategic purposes (Phil. 3.5; 2 Cor. 11.13; Rom. 9.4 and 11.1). I examine how Paul simultaneously makes use of claims to ethnic authenticity and his connection to the primordial past in authorizing his gospel message. The article draws on contemporary and ancient comparanda to demonstrate the appeal and function of discourses of ethnicity and antiquity in attracting and convincing Gentile followers. I use anthropological models of ‘instrumental authenticity’ and ‘situational ethnicity’ to examine Paul’s claims, and suggest that scholars’ traditional arguments of insider (Israelite) vs outsider (Judean) language do not go far enough; insider/outsider claims are more complex than scholars have allowed, and using the aforementioned anthropological models sheds light on Paul’s construction of his own authority.