Тип публикации: статья из журнала
Год издания: 2013
Аннотация: In the 21st century Russia, the issue of identity has been on-going in discussions about people from the North Caucasus, with the violence in the region and the terrorist attacks elsewhere in the Russian mainland serving as background for debate about their religious, civic and cultural affiliations. The youth of North Caucasian orПоказать полностьюigin have thus negotiated and maintained their identities in an environment in which they have been defined as a possible threat to national unity and simultaneously being pressurised to align with the core civic values of the Russian nation. Within this context, the article explains the findings of a qualitative study involving young people of North Caucasian origin, who at the time of the interviews lived in North West Russia, namely St.-Petersburg and Petrozavodsk. Based on the interviews with young people from the region, the article provides information on the meanings that young people from the North Caucasus attach to their cultural identification as «Caucasian». A key finding is that young people's identification is not focused solely on establishing a «Caucasian» identity, but that a significant amount of young people's identity work is directed at «talking back», i.e., contesting the subject positions offered to them by dominant political and everyday discourse. It turns out that «Caucasianness» is regularly pointed out as «strange», «deviant», even «dangerous» in the research participants' everyday. Some interviewees have minimal resources to negotiate dominant categories, while others are more adept in «talking back». The key message of the interviewees is that they want to be treated as citizens of the Russian Federation, yet claim cultural identities, which allow them to define and contest, what it means to be a Caucasian in today's Russia.
Журнал: Диаспоры
Выпуск журнала: № 1
Номера страниц: 65-83
ISSN журнала: 1810228X
Место издания: Москва
Издатель: ЗАО « Издательство « Наталис »