NEGOTIATING ETHNIC IDENTITY - WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A SERBIAN STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA?
Abstract
This paper explores the strategies employed by Serbian students studying in Vienna in negotiating their ethnic identity. Negotiation strategies are defined as the processes through which individuals reconcile their internal understanding of ethnicity with external definitions. This involves examining the extent of alignment between these two perceptions and the mechanisms immigrants employ to bridge potential disparities. The study places particular emphasis on the interactions of Serbian students with the majority ethnic group in both informal and formal settings, contextualized within contemporary Austrian society. The research employs a mixed methods approach. In the initial phase, data collection was executed through an online focus group interview, involving the participation of six students with diverse socio-demographic characteristics. This preparatory phase laid the groundwork for the subsequent stage, which revolved around the development and deployment of an online questionnaire. The online questionnaire was completed by 287 students from various universities in Vienna, spanning different levels of study. Based on the collected data, the paper concludes that Serbian students in Vienna are faced with an external definition of ethnicity that does not match their internal one, and that they resolve this discrepancy through various mechanisms of adapting their own ethnic identity to the requirements of the new social context.
References
Antonijević, Dragana. 2013. Stranac ovde, stranac tamo. Beograd: Srpski genealoški centar i Odeljenje za etnologiju i antropologiju Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu.
Barth, Fredrik. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Douglas, Mary. 1966/1984. Purity and Danger. London: Routledge.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 1993. Ethnicity and Nationalism. London: Pluto Press.
Fenton, Steve. 1999. Ethnicity. London: Macmillan Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1956. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
Goffman, Erving. 1967/1982. Interaction Ritual. New York: Pantheon Books.
Goffman, Erving. 1974/1986. Frame Analysis. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Grečić, Vladimir. 2019. Srpska stvaralačka inteligencija u rasejanju. Novi Sad: Matica srpska.
Hall, Stuart. 1996. „The new ethnicities”. In Ethnicity, (eds.) John Hutchinson & Anthony D. Smith, pp. 161-164. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ivanović, Vladimir. 2012. Geburtstag pišeš normalno: jugoslovenski gastarbajteri u SR Nemačkoj i Austriji 1965-1973. Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju.
Jenkins, Richard. 2008. Rethinking Ethnicity. Los Angeles: Sage.
Kuckartz, Udo. 2014. Qualitative Text Analysis. London: SAGE.
Malešević, Siniša. 2004. The Sociology of Ethnicity. London: Sage Publications.
Matić, Svetlana i Lopušina Marko. 2019. Srbi u Austriji. Novi Sad: Prometej i EUPROGRESS.
Peoples, James & Garrick Bailey. 2012. Humanity – An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.
Roosens, Eugeen 1989. Creating Ethnicity. London: Sage.
Ryan, Louise 2010. „Becoming Polish in London: negotiating ethnicity through migration”. Social Identities, 16(3): 359-376. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2010.482425.
Smith, Anthony D. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin Books.
Statistik Austria. 2021a. Bevölkerung am 1.1.2021 nach detailliertem Geburtsland und Bundesland. Vienna: Statistik Austria.
Statistik Austria. 2021b. Bevölkerung zu Jahresbeginn 2002-2021 nach detaillierter Staatsangehörigkeit. Vienna: Statistik Austria.
Stayman, Douglas M. and Rohit Deshpande. 1989. „Situational ethnicity and consumer behavior.” Journal of Consumer Research, 16 (3): 361-371.
Vidicki, Vladan. 2023. „Značaj socijalnog kapitala, mreža i resursa etničke grupe za preduzetništvo srpskih imigranata u Beču”. Doktorska disertacija. Univerzitet u Novom Sadu: Filozofski fakultet.
