The construction of ethnic minority identity: A discursive psychological approach to ethnic self-definition in action

Abstract

The present article intends to examine how ethnic minority group members account for their ethnic identity as part of a series of interviews with young Mapuches on what it means to be Mapuche in contemporary Chilean society. The focus is on the actual accomplishment and display of ethnic self-definition and group identification. We draw on insights from discursive psychology to explore some features of common-sense practical reasoning that ethnic minority group members use to negotiate, self-ascribe or resist a particular sense of identity, and to produce observable and reportable identities. We have a particular interest in illustrating how ethnic self-definition can be seen as the contingent outcome of a practical and interpretive issue for members of society, with a special focus on how ethnic minority identity is constructed through the flexible use of group-defining attributes and characteristics, categories and common-sense categorial knowledge. We suggest that understanding the complex significance and meaning of ethnic self-definition for minority group members is dependent on engaging closely with its occasioned context of production and treating social identities as a feature of how people describe themselves. It is argued that this view of ethnic minority self-definition as a practical and interpretive issue and as a discursive product in action can provide a further contribution to literature of both discursive and intercultural studies of ethnic identification of minority groups, intercultural and interethnic relations.

Accounting for a planned migration through ethnic identity talk

“…However, little research has looked at how ethnicity is used as a resource in social interaction (Hansen, 2005;Merino & Tileaga˘, 2011). In this study, we were particularly interested in the social action of ethnic identity; namely, we have explored how it can be used as a resource to explain or justify a planned 'return' migration to one's ethnic homeland.…”

“…However, the discursive functions of ethnic identity claims in this context have not been explored. Indeed, even at the general level, as Hansen (2005) as well as Merino and Tileaga( 2011) assert, what is missing in research is how ethnicity is discursively constructed in social interaction and to which interactional purposes it is used. To our best knowledge, there is only one study in the context of ethnic return migration that partly touches upon this issue, namely, Varjonen et al (2013) study of how identity is constructed by ethnic migrants from Russia to Finland before and after migration.…”

“…Merino and Tileaga˘(2011) see ethnic identity as descriptions that are actively and flexibly constructed as part of a specific interactional structure. In this vein, they are not set but rather can be accomplished in interaction in different ways by making claim to socially recognized aspects of group membership.…”

The delicate business of identity

“…In other words, they arise when asking questions about identities and category membership. Interviews provide a common context for the asking of such questions: much social scientific work relies on self-reports collected in interviews in response to direct questioning in part because of the difficulty of eliciting spontaneous, predictably occurring (and therefore easily captured), talk about self-identity (Condor, 2000(Condor, , 2011Merino and Tileaga, 2011). It is therefore important to examine in detail the discursive and interactional work that takes place when people are asked to report on their identities.…”

“…Interviewees warranted this by denying their possession of significant category-bound attributes, and by producing alternative (individualistic) motives for appearance. Merino and Tileaga (2011) and Verkuyten and De Wolf (2002) found that respondents, recruited for studies of how members construct ethnic minority identity, drew contrasts between different versions of ethnic identity in accounting for, managing, and rejecting self-definition (specifically, being by birth, feeling through upbringing, and doing by possessing category-bound attributes such as language). Speakers also reconciled personal positioning (self-definition) and cultural positioning ('what everyone knows or assumes' about category members) by denying personal possession of criterial characteristics (Merino and Tileaga, 2011).…”