CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Karadakovska, Isaja |
|---|---|
| Title | A Small Nation of Souvenirs: Generational Shifts in the Perception of Ethnic Boundaries, at the Intersection of Knowledge, Memory, and Silencing |
| Summary | Through rigorous theorization of knowledge, collective memory, and silencing, this thesis looks at generational discrepancies in the perception of the ethnic boundaries, as triggered by the silencing of two events—the armed conflict in North Macedonia in 2001, as well as a family event that overlapped with the occurrence of the national event—thus discontinuing the mnemonic link and establishing separate mnemonic communities, which approach the idea of ethnic membership through their understanding of their reality. The study was conducted using a combination of ethnography and autoethnography, with the analysis covering two data sets separately—the transcripts of a total of 8 interviews divided along generational lines, as well as the author’s personal autoethnographic reflections—and ultimately subjecting the data to a careful and detailed thematic and hermeneutic analysis through the lens of sociology of knowledge, as well as theories of silencing, collective memory and ethnic boundaries. The analysis reveals a discrepancy in the understanding of one’s ethnic membership, due to the first generation having lived experiences of both events—both of which have been silenced for the second generation—and thus an inherent negative understanding of ethnicity as a category. Moreover, due to the intertwining of both events, the analysis points to the inconsistency of the knowledge regarding one’s ethnic membership, due to individuals approaching the idea of ethnicity through different social roles, as triggered by everyday interaction and their mnemonic positionality. |
| Supervisor | Mijic, Ana |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/karadakovska_isaja.pdf |
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