It makes ethnicity into a category that refuses to go away because it is insisted on from two sides - from the psychological with the
automatic activation of racist stereotypes and from the structural in which an atavistic definition of nation is embedded. This latter is formed by a
unity which  consists
of reverse engineering construction of history derived from presently perceived political needs. In other words it often rests on the creation of ethnicity-based
nation myths. Present-day Austria insists that the country was always culturally (and linguistically) German. That was never the case. The people of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire spoke many languages - German, Czech, Hungarian, Slovenian, Serbo-Croat and so on. The situation was colonial. The ruling
class imposed its language and grammar on official business and education privileging one particular group and culture over others in the same way as
the Dutch in Java, the English in India and the French in Senegal. |
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Thus the dispute in Carinthia about the dual language signs-in Slovenian and German-for towns and villages is very much about the imposition
of one definition of identity as opposed to another. To illustrate another, similar aspect with an  anecdote - an
acquaintance, an Afro-Austrian who was born and has lived here all her life is often asked “Where are you from?” “Vienna,” she answers. “And when are
you going back?”
Thus dissonances, ambiguities and enigmas arise most strongly when the category in question is deals with ethnicity. When this is linked
with gender, the combination allows us to reflect on the inherent assumptions of those with an interest in maintaining that status quo. This is the heart
of my concern in the SCRAM/I.D. Entities project. |
