The politics of belonging in Gagauzia: negotiating language usage, ethnic labels, and citizenship

This case study of Gagauzia reveals the complex nature of belonging and its interplay with a wide variety of factors by bringing to light personal attitudes in Gagauzia towards ethnic labels and languages. Analysis of empirical data collected during three months of fieldwork explores in what situations ethnic categorizations are activated, identifies patterns of ethnic labeling, and draws conclusions on how ethnicity interlinks with negotiation of the politics of belonging. In doing so, this work reflects on how Soviet legacies, namely language policies and assigned ethnicity, continue to have a huge impact on the everyday realities of belonging in Gagauzia. Moreover, it illustrates the role that economic instability can play in negotiation of belonging by examining the effect that enormous out-migration has had not only on demographics, but on the standing of Gagauzian language and feelings of personal identification among Gagauzians. In multiethnic Gagauzia, ethnic identification, language usage, and citizenship very often do not align, and this thesis addresses how Gagauzians attach meaning to these elements, frame them in forming identity, and utilize them in the construction of boundaries. This work employs in-depth qualitative analysis that draws out relationships among various phenomena related to ever-changing conceptualizations of belonging in Gagauzia. It not only fills a void in ethnographic research on an understudied region, but it also contributes to the existing broader body of literature on topics of identity and belonging in the post-Soviet space.https://www.ester.ee/record=b5171861*es

Positsionaalsuse narratiivid tänapäeva Gagauusias: komplekssus ja rahvuslik normatiivsus

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneDoktoritöö käsitleb Moldovas Gagauusia autonoomses territoriaalüksuses loodud etnograafilise ainese põhjal üksikisikute ja riikide positsionaalsuse narratiivide lõikepunkte globaalse ebavõrdsuse taustal. Kui traditsioonilist ’identiteedi’ mõistet saadab essentsialismi taak, siis ’positsionaalsuse narratiividele’ keskendumine pakub alternatiivi, nihutades esiplaanile konteksti ja praktikad. Uurimus käsitleb kriitiliselt rahvuslikku normatiivsust kui sundust kuulutada end teatud rahvusesse kuuluvaks. Väitekiri analüüsib ajalooliselt, keeleliselt, kultuuriliselt ja geograafiliselt Bulgaaria, Moldova, Türgi, Rumeenia ja Venemaaga seotud Gagauusiat ümbritsevate rahvusriikide osalt kattuvate identiteedipoliitikate ja -diskursuste sihtmärgina, näidates, kuidas Gagauusia ja selle elanikud navigeerivad nende vahel strateegiliselt, et kasutada neile pakutud võimalusi ja materiaalset tuge. Lähemalt vaadeldakse keelepraktikaid ja -ideoloogiad ning nende osalust rahvusliku normatiivsuse ja sellega paratamatult seotud väljaarvamiste alalhoidmisel. Samuti pälvivad tähelepanu Gagauusia „etnopoliitilised ettevõtjad“, kelle äriideed ja -tegevus rajanevad nende endi loodud kujutlustel eelmodernsest homogeensest talupojakultuurist ja sellest lähtuval autentse gagauusialikkuse retoorikal. Väitekiri rõhutab kohapealsete individuaalsete ja kollektiivsete positsionaalsuse narratiivide mitmekesisust ja dünaamikat. Tegemist on uudse lähenemisega, sest kuigi viimastel aastatel on lisandunud mitmeid uurimusi Gagauusiast, napib etnograafilistel välitöödel põhinevaid ja eemilist vaatepunkti väärtustavaid käsitlusi. Väitekirjas analüüsitakse ka autoetnograafiliselt rahvusliku normatiivsuse painet autori enda elus ja teadustöös, kõigutades nii vaatleja ja vaadeldava konventsionaalset dihhotoomiat. Argumenteerides komplekssuse teadvustamise ja välja toomise poolt, püüab doktoritöö mõtestada ümber kategooriaid, mille läbi me maailma ja kaasinimesi vaatleme ning ennastki esitleme ja väljendame.Drawing on ethnographic data from Gagauzia, an autonomous area in Moldova, this dissertation deals with concentric intersections of individuals’ and geopolitical configurations’ narratives of positionality, situating them within global frameworks of uneven distribution of wealth and entitlement. Focusing on narratives of positionality as an alternative to traditional concepts of identity aims to shed essentialist baggage, bringing context and practice to the forefront. This work unpacks Gagauzia’s historical, cultural, linguistic, and geographic ties to Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, Russia, and Turkey, all of which exert overlapping identity-framed discourses and policies, exploring how they are navigated strategically in order to access opportunity and material support. As such, it problematizes issues of national normativity, compulsion to voice belonging vis-à-vis national labels. Particular attention is given to language practices and ideologies, demonstrating how they structure national normativity and accompanying cycles of exclusion. In addition, this dissertation zooms in on Gagauzian ethnopolitical entrepreneurs, who advance business initiatives by reproducing template imaginings of folk culture to create rhetoric on authentic Gagauzian-ness. Emphasizing diversity and dynamism among local accounts of both self and collective, this dissertation lends underrepresented ethnographic data and emic perspective to the growing body of research on Gagauzia. In an effort to disrupt observer/observed dynamics, this project also contains an autoethnographic component, scrutinizing the author’s own embeddedness in and negotiations of national normativity. By arguing for more complexity in representing places like Gagauzia, this dissertation endeavors to critically rethink the categories through which we view the world and our fellow world inhabitants, and through which we perform and narrate our own articulations of self.https://www.ester.ee/record=b550871