engleski

Identification Processes on the island of Korčula - Perceptions of Self and Others

The complexity of the contemporary processes of identification is the central question of various scientific disciplines. This research relies on the theoretical approaches to the questions of identity according to which identity is not a stabile and fixed, but dynamic and fluid (Hall, 1996), made in the interaction with Other/s (Barth, 1969), in the symbolic way (Cohen, 1985). This research is directed toward identification processes in the local communities on the island of Korčula, manifested particularly throughout language. The perceptions and representations of Self and Others, often stereotyped and articulated throughout discursive formations have an important role in these processes (Berger and Luckman, 1985 ; Hall, 1997). The Other on the island of Korčula is not perceived as a distant and exotic, but as a close and neighboring. Communities on the island are differentiated in various ways (culturally and linguistically, for example) although they share the same space bounded by the sea. Differentiated local identities are results of locally specific situations (for example history, immigration, emigration, economic development, linguistic differences). Different local identities are also result of contemporary processes of choosing, inventing or reinterpreting the tradition (Hobsbawm, 1983) but of cultural memory as well (Nora, 1984 ; Assman, 2000). Language plays the important role in these processes, as a marker of identity but also as a form of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986). Under the processes of globalization (Beck, 2001), local communities are being transformed in various ways. Still, this transformation does not result in “ losing of identity” , but in the local feed back to those processes - glocalization (Robertson, 1995). In this paper I analyze the role of the language (different varieties spoken on the island) in the processes of identification and representation of Self and Others on the island of Korčula.

anthropology; identification processes; language; culture; stereotype; Korčula

nije evidentirano