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Discoursal strategies of perception of self and other: contested identities of Istria

Research questions: The aim of this paper is to discuss the effect of ideologies in the processes of construction of group identities and (re)defining group boundaries based on the example of the multilingual region of Istria in Croatia. The answers to the following questions will be sought: what particular ideologies and categorization processes „from above“ related to regionalism, nation-building or Europeanization are in circulation in ethnic discourses in the region ; how is official rhetoric used in politics of identity at the everyday level ; what linguistic strategies are developed „from below“ by ethnic communities to define themselves and to make borders and identities fuzzier by manipulating ideologies, and to what extent is this identification linked with what they think is their mother tongue? Approach: As a contribution to the study of the relationship between language and identity, this paper aims at explaining this association as contingent of transformations in the political economic conditions of discursive production. It is based on the assumption of ethnic identity as socially constructed, transactional, dialogical, fluid by nature (Barth 1969), and always connected with the interplay of discourses emerging within the power relations at regional, national and supranational levels. It is also inspired by the anthropological concept of "social poetics" which refers to the creative everyday social practice where social agents make use of dominant signifiers and rhetoric in an attempt to represent, reify and empower ethnic and national groupings, within a zone of „cultural intimacy“ , a zone of self-knowledge shared by the members of a culturally defined group, which is a source of internal solidarity (Herzfeld 1997). Method and data: Using critical, reflexive, qualitative approach, the paper analyzes data collected from 80 respondents in Istria through in-depth-interviews, and observations of their language behaviour in daily interactions. While the focus is on the inter-group relationship between two major groups, Croatians and Italians, their relations to other ethnic groups in the region are also taken into consideration. Results: The results will show how the content of multicultural intimacy of shared but conflicting history, economic concerns and rejection of elite nationalist politics is localised, personalised, and conceived in terms of how people make choices about their identifications and attach significance to particular standard languages or local dialects. Through respondents' perceptions of self and similar or distant others, the paper will also question representations of Istrianity and emphasize the paradoxical outcome that, while subverting official discourses through vernacular understandings and multilingual practices, in doing so regional identities simultaneously create new exclusionary borders shaped by the same nationalist discourses. References: Barth, F. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. Herzfeld, M. 1997. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York: Routledge.

identity; ideology; Istria

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