Will they still be dancing? (1982)

tive factors of ethnic belonging. 16 Ethnic boundaries demarcate a cultural
distinction between "us" and "them" .17 Ethnicity thus represents an interaction
between objective group structures and subjective consciousness. It
follows that the two cornerstones of ethnicity are its cultural and its structural
elements. In the former case, ethnic groups and their members experience a
subjective feeling of having common values and normative criteria (ethnic
identity). As regards the structural element, there are objective material
interests for constituting a single community.
A one-sided focus on either stucture or culture can hide the complex
relationship between the two.I' Hence, "ethnicity" expresses a complex relationship
between cultural groups and the economic and political structures of
society as a whole. Our point here is to give a more accurate picture of
distinctions which all too often are simplistically lumped together under the
terms "culture" or "class" (see Schein 1972).
"Culture" is particularly emphasized in definitions of ethnicity. Culture can
come to represent a sociological dumping ground. Emptied of its dynamic
content, "culture" becomes a static "tradition" rather than a vector of transition.
Ethnic groups and "society" both continuously influence each other.
However, the character of this interrelationship is assymetrical. Overarching
structures of society set the general "rules" for the development of ethnic
differentiation. The "horizontal" dimension of class is increasingly differentiated
and stratified. Working classes in Western Europe are crosscut in a
hierarchical sense by ethnicstratification of the labour force. In the interaction
between structural factors in society and individual immigrant groups,
ethnicity may appear more or less salient, and itmay manifest itself in political,
religious or cultural terms, depending on how the platform of interests is
defined. Among the once atomized and easily manipulated "birds ofpassage"
of Western Europe we now find that ethnicity and emerging immigrant cultures
are beginning to evolve into politically conscious "coullter-cultures". We
also see different groups ofimmigrants developing broadercommon identities,
and fusing into wider communities of interest. They have become social
moveme/lts questioning and challenging the premises of the ethnic stratification.
Migrancy
Yugoslavs' patterns of integration range from their almost complete assimilation
into the economic, social and cultural systems of the immigration countries
to the formation of relatively isolated ethnic enclaves.
Although this study focuses on processes of integration among Yugoslav
labour migrants in Scandinavia, the socio-cultural "hinterland" remains an
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