Congratulations, Dr. Irwin!
Vera Irwin successfully defended her dissertation, “More than just ethnic. Negotiation of ethnicity through language among Russian German Re-settlers and Jewish Refugees from the former Soviet Union in Germany,” on Dec. 17.
Committee
Deborah Keller-Cohen, Robert Kyes, Robin Queen (chair), Sarah Thomason
Abstract
This dissertation examines processes of ethnic identity negotiation between two Russian-speaking migrant communities that share their linguistic background but differ in their understanding of their ethnicity. By analyzing reports of language use and language attitudes this ethnographically-based research investigates how ethnic identity can be negotiated even without speakers’ reliance on a designated “ethnic” language.
The analysis is based on sociolinguistic interviews with 38 Russian-German re-settlers (Spätaussiedler, SA) and 40 Jewish contingent refugees from the former Soviet Union (Kontingentflüchtlinge, KF), supplemented by a quantitative survey. The study demonstrates that in the absence of a distinct in-group code, the negotiation of ethnic positioning in a migrant environment is achieved by routinely utilizing contrasting ideologies about the linguistic resources shared by both communities.
This dissertation adds to an existing body of research on ethnic identity in migration (Bailey 2000; Giampapa 2001; Lo 1999; Zentella 1997) by uncovering rich dynamics of such negotiations not only with respect to the local majority, but even more so between migrant groups. The SA community is shown to negotiate its positioning towards the host majority, which becomes especially noteworthy due to this group’s historically German ethnic background. Simultaneously, as a minority within a minority, the KF community strives to situate itself not only in relation to the host community, but more so in relation to the “other” Russian-speaking migrant group. In doing so, KF migrants demonstrate an understanding of ethnicity that is tied to characteristics, which are not traditionally seen as ethnic (such as social and educational status), but obtain ethnic meaning in this community. In the process of identity negotiation, such understanding of ethnicity is applied by the KF minority to interpretation of observed and assumed linguistic behaviors and language attitudes of the SA group, particularly with respect to issues of language shift, language maintenance and code-mixing practices.
By uncovering ideologies that link beliefs about language to locally salient ethnic categorization, this dissertation demonstrates how ethnic distinctiveness is established through the use of subtle and arbitrary mechanisms, which are not universally tied to ethnicity, but acquire their “ethnic” meaning in local negotiations of social positioning.