Noi culturi, noi antropologii - Humanitas

07.
THINKING ABOUT ETHNICITY
IN ROMANIA: SOME METHODOLOGICAL
AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
Claudia N. Câmpeanu 120
Institutul pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităţilor Naţionale
Where do we locate ethnicity? What kind of ethnographic
sites and moments, and what kind of analytical approaches
are most appropriate? This is a question that many of us,
anthropologists, ask ourselves. The purpose of this paper
is to walk you, very briefly, through my journey from one
approach to another, then propose some suggestions for a
productive and honest approach to studying ethnicity in Romania.
My initial orientation, in my dissertation research project
about Sighişoara, was informed by historical-materialist
approaches to ethnicity. While keeping the nationalist projects
in Transylvania as important contexts and frames of
reference, I followed John L. Comaroff’s and Eric Wolf’s approaches
to the study of ethnicity (Comaroff, 1987; Wolf,
1982) and translated them into an analysis of historical
and current arrangements in access to and control over the
means of production. This is nothing new, nor revolutionary,
120. Claudia N. Câmpeanu este cercetător postdoctoral în programul
Migraţie, Identitate Etnică şi Cetăţenie în cadrul Academiei Române şi
al Institutului pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităţilor Naţionale. Programul
este finanţat prin proiectul „Ştiinţele socio-umaniste în contextul
evoluţiei globalizate – dezvoltarea şi implementarea programului de studii
şi cercetare postdoctorală“, cod contract: POSDRU/89/1.5/S/61104,
proiect cofinanţat din Fondul Social European prin Programul Operaţional
Sectorial Dezvoltarea Resurselor Umane 2007–2013.
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