Contemporary minority research stands as a transdisciplinary hinge connecting minority politics, legislation of minority rights and minority organisations of the civil society. It describes tendencies of harmonization, acculturation and assimiliation as well as different forms of cultural contacts in multiethnic and multilingual areas in the Alpine-Danube-Adriatic Region.
Papers will concentrate on the minorities' identity management. The special importance of this issue lies in the fact that the different identity managements are evidences of the different (legal) positions of minorities in Southeast-Central- and South-Eastern-Europe. Nonetheless, not only the identity construction of the individuals and the "we-collective" (identity management from inside) will be shown, but also the influence of "the others" (identity management from outside): the majority population, the other minorities living in the area and the minorities' institutions adopted from abroad.
This main focus of the research will be enlarged with other related topics. These are the following: gender roles assigned to women in and by the minorities' cultural societies; the role of minorities' cultural societies in building up civil society structures in above mentioned areas; "cultures of memory", the different approaches to memory and the relevance of "places of memory".
Section Languages: English, German
