Schriften des Sorbischen Instituts

Spisy Serbskeho instituta

Gender and Identity Construction across Difference

Fen-fang Tsai Domowina-Verlag

Schriften des Sorbischen Instituts Spisy Serbskeho instituta 53

Fen-fang Tsai

Gender and Identity Construction across Difference Cultural Discourses and Everyday Practices among Sorbs in Germany

Domowina-Verlag

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

ISBN 978-3-7420-2278-3 1. Auflage 2010 © Domowina-Verlag GmbH Ludowe nakładnistwo Domowina Bautzen 2010 Gefördert von der Stiftung für das sorbische Volk, die jährlich Zuwendungen des Bundes, des Freistaates Sachsen und des Landes Brandenburg erhält. Lektorat: Michael Nuck Satz: Sorbisches Institut/Serbski institut Druck und Binden: Buch- und Kunstdruckerei Keßler GmbH, Weimar 1/1442/10 www.domowina-verlag.de

Table of Contents Preface .................................................................................................................

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Introduction ........................................................................................................ 10 1 1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4 1.2 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 1.2.4 1.3 1.4 1.4.1 1.4.2 1.5

Mapping the Field: Theory, Objectives, Method ............................... Gendered Ethnicity – Ethnicized Gender ................................................ Women as the Key Symbols in Ethnic and Nationalist Processes .......... Conceptualizing Gender .......................................................................... Conceptualizing Ethnicity ....................................................................... Intersections of Gender and Ethnicity ..................................................... Articulating and Changing Identities – Discussions on Identity Construction in the Sorbian Community ................................................. “Becoming” “Sorbian” Implicated in the Relation between Ethnicity and Nationalism ...................................................................................... Identification in Relation to the Other ..................................................... The Intertwined Relation between Identity and Difference .................... Identity as a Positioning Constructed through Sets of Differences ......... Objectives of This Study ......................................................................... Research and Fieldwork Approaches ...................................................... Participant Observation ........................................................................... Interviewing ............................................................................................ Encountering Myself and the Interconnection with Those Researched ..

16 16 17 22 25 32 36 36 42 46 48 51 56 59 61 63

2 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3

The Emergence of an Imagined Sorbian Community ........................ 71 On the History of the Sorbs ..................................................................... 73 Anthropologizing Sorbian History .......................................................... 73 The Sorbs as a Volk ................................................................................ 81 Staking off Lusatia as the Sorbian Heimat ............................................. 85 The Sorbian Language ............................................................................ 90 The Emergence of the Written Sorbian Language .................................. 90 The Written Sorbian Language in the Nationalist Projects ..................... 97 Sorbian Women as the Designated Repository of the Sorbian Culture and Language .......................................................................................... 101 2.2.3.1 Serbska mać – The Sorbian Mother ........................................................ 101 2.2.3.2 Sorbian Women as the Guardians of the Sorbian Language ................... 105 2.2.4 The Media Presence of the Sorbian Language ........................................ 108 2.2.5 A Closing Note ........................................................................................ 114

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2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3 2.4 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.4.2.1 2.4.2.2 2.5

Traditions of the Sorbs ............................................................................ 116 Tradition from the Sorbian Perspective ................................................... 118 Traditional Sorbian Costumes as an Expression of Gendered Tradition 122 Tradition as Social Life Practice ............................................................. 131 The Narrative of Sorbian-ness ................................................................. 133 An Internal Debate about the Definition of Sorbian-ness ....................... 135 So langsam wird’s Zeit: Cultural Perspectives of the Sorbs ................... 137 Promoting Sorbian Culture: Aims, Approaches and Measures ............... 137 Reviewing the Report .............................................................................. 153 Summary and Conclusion ....................................................................... 157

3 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4 3.2.5 3.3

A Dialectic Process of Ethnicization and Ethnicity ............................ 160 Ethnicization: Being Othered .................................................................. 162 “Sorbische Amme” and “Ammendasein” – The Sorbian Wet Nurse and Life as a Wet Nurse .......................................................................... 164 Experiences with Discrimination ............................................................ 167 “Being a Sorb Doesn’t Mean Being Different!” ..................................... 176 Ethnicity: The Mechanism of Inclusion and Exclusion .......................... 179 Types of Exclusion I: Between Sorbian and (Non-)Sorbian/German ..... 183 Types of Exclusion II: Between Sorbian and Sorbian ............................. 187 “I Cannot Say I am German…” .............................................................. 191 The Territorialization of Ethnic Identity ................................................. 196 A Dyad of Cohesion and Confinement ................................................... 199 Summary and Conclusion ....................................................................... 204

4 4.1 4.1.1 4.1.2 4.1.3 4.1.4 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.1.1 4.2.1.2 4.2.1.3 4.2.2 4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3

Identities Thrown Together – Everyday Life Experiences ................ 208 Work ........................................................................................................ 210 A Sense of Collectivity – A LPG Woman’s Life .................................... 212 Women in High Positions – Heads of Departments ................................ 215 “The First Priority is Work Now!” – Unemployed Women .................... 218 Unequal Pay for Equal Work .................................................................. 220 Children’s Education ............................................................................... 223 Value Orientation for Children ............................................................... 223 A Cosmopolitan Version ......................................................................... 223 A Multiplicity of Choices in Life ............................................................ 225 The “We-Feeling” and Solidarity ............................................................ 227 A WITAJ Parent’s Thoughts ................................................................... 231 Leisure Activities .................................................................................... 233 Definition: The Relationship between Work and Leisure ....................... 234 Involvement in Women’s Organizations ................................................. 235 Writing as the Textualization of Life ...................................................... 237

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4.3.4 4.3.4.1 4.3.4.2 4.3.4.3 4.3.4.4 4.4 4.4.1 4.4.1.1 4.4.1.2 4.4.1.3 4.4.2 4.5

Vacations ................................................................................................. 239 “It is Important to Get Away…” ............................................................. 239 “You Just Went from Rostock to Zittau…” ............................................ 240 “I Could Suddenly Go Everywhere, but I Could Not Go Anywhere…” ................................................................................................. 241 Traveling to Slavonic Countries: A Journey in Search of “Home” ......... 241 Cultural Consumption ............................................................................. 244 Mediated Experiences through Media Consumption .............................. 246 Newspapers ............................................................................................. 248 Radio and Television Broadcasting ......................................................... 250 Interaction with the Media ...................................................................... 252 Musical Practices .................................................................................... 254 Summary and Conclusion ....................................................................... 257

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Positionings and Repositionings across Cultures, Genders and Identities ......................................................................................... 259 5.1 Traditions Reinterpreted .......................................................................... 260 5.1.1 Easter Procession Rides: Continuity and Change ................................... 260 5.1.2 Women’s Experiences with Traditional Sorbian Costumes .................... 264 5.1.2.1 Between Being a Sorb and a Berliner ..................................................... 266 5.1.2.2 The Enjoyment of Wearing Traditional Costumes .................................. 267 5.2 Diasporic Belongings: Two Sorbian Organizations in Berlin and Dresden ............................................................................................. 270 5.2.1 SKI in Berlin ........................................................................................... 272 5.2.2 Sorbentreff in Dresden ............................................................................ 275 5.2.3 Some Concluding Remarks on SKI in Berlin and Sorbentreff in Dresden ............................................................................................... 279 5.3 Thinking Identities in the Play of Difference .......................................... 282 5.3.1 Difference Transformed .......................................................................... 283 5.3.2 A Deferral of Self .................................................................................... 289 5.3.3 Difference within Gender: Women in East and West Germany ............. 293 5.4 Summary and Conclusion ........................................................................ 300 6

Conclusion .............................................................................................. 303

Appendix ............................................................................................................. 315 References ............................................................................................................ 317 Internet References ............................................................................................... 337 Zusammenfassung .............................................................................................. 338

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Preface This book is a subtle revised version of my PhD thesis, which was submitted to the Faculty of Languages and Cultures of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany in 2009. It deals with the Sorbs – an indigenous minority in modern German society, with a focus on how the women who identify themselves as/with Sorbs studied here construct their identities in the modern world. Despite several trailblazing studies concerning Sorbian women and gender in the Sorbian academic community, theoretical and empirical research has still been scant, let alone handling women as the acting agents in academic works. Therefore I wish that this work could make a contribution in this field. Along with this, the interrelations of gender and ethnicity also call our attention. For the Sorbs, as an ethnic minority in a nation-state, the very means with which they have strived for their social existence and maintained ethnic assertiveness relies on the nationalist and ethnic projects. In these projects, Sorbian women are usually naturalized as guardians of cultural heritage and symbolized as carriers of ethnic identity, thereby Sorbian women are disfavored in the interlockings of gender and ethnicity and their agency is veiled in the name of the Sorbian people. Looking at the intersections of these two social categories is of much help in revealing how women studied here in this book are twofold subordinated. Investigating women’s double subordination serves the departure point for this study. However, the essentialist stance on gender and ethnicity in nationalist and ethnic discourses renders women studied as a mere object. The dimensions of everyday life yet illustrate that the research subjects in this book are acting agents who actively construct their identities from their life experiences and social practices. Importantly, as the research progresses, women studied show how they variously identify themselves as/with Sorbs. Moreover, women’s everyday practices reveal a construction of miscellaneous and compound identifications across differences of gender, ethnicity, culture, religion and class. The results of research inspire us not only to rethink about the conceptions of gender and ethnicity, but also to envisage identity construction as a dynamic, never-ending and open-ended articulation of one’s positionings. The notions of Sorbian culture, identity, ethnicity and gender are therefore crafted anew. This work is a result of my research on the Sorbian people during my PhD study in Germany. However, this is not all. It additionally incases my being as a minority researcher and a member of an ethnic group in my homeland at the same time. To put it more accurately, reflexivity referring to achieving perspective scope for being aware of cultures in comparative contexts (Sorbian/Hakka; German/Taiwan) channel my thought throughout the whole study implicitly. Studying the Sorbs will definitely leave a deep impact on my further research on other ethnic minority. Now is the moment to express my sincere gratitude to people who helped me along the way in finishing this book. First and foremost, I am greatly indebted to Gisela Welz for guiding me into the world of cultural anthropology and helping me 8

through intellectual problems I encountered in my research, and also for the longterm encouragement throughout the entire time I have been studying in Germany. My special thanks also go to Kira Kosnick, whose invaluable comments, questions and criticism regarding my study helped me to further travel down the road of anthropology. I am particularly grateful to Dietrich Scholze, Elka Tschernokoshewa, Ines Keller and Susanne Hose for smoothing the way for me while I was conducting my fieldwork in Lusatia. Without their intellectual support and friendliness, I could not have embarked upon this study. I also thank the Sorbian Institute in Bautzen for giving me access to research materials and references and for granting me financial support for one of my research stays in Lusatia. Genuine thanks are also due to Cordula Ratajczak and Regina Römhild for their important and helpful advice regarding my research. For this book, I sincerely appreciate Michelle Miles for her careful and effective proofreading. Finally, I am most obliged to my entire family and above all to my parents and my husband for their love for me and for the warmest support in my life. Last but not least, a debt must be acknowledged to the above institutions and persons for letting this book see the light. To the Stiftung für das sorbische Volk for the financial support for publishing this book I am more grateful than I can say. I must thank the Director of the Sorbian Institute, Dietrich Scholze, for his interest in this book and arranging it in the renowned series of the Sorbian Institute “Spisy Serbskeho instituta”. It would be impossible to find a more supportive, encouraging and interested publisher than the Domowina-Verlag. I am very grateful for their help throughout the editorial process, among others, Michael Nuck for his editing this book. This book is dedicated to all my informants who shared their life experiences with me. Without them, it could not have been written. Taipei, Taiwan March 2010 Fen-fang Tsai

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Introduction Speaking from the position of author of my dissertation, I wholeheartedly agree with American anthropologist Jane Cowan’s perception when she interprets various stages evolving during her study of Greek dance (1990) by having noted “every work bears the imprint of its author”. However, for me, every work additionally involves the author’s life trajectory which occurs at various moments and in a variety of loci at which the author interconnects and intersects with those he or she writes about. Taking myself as an example, the very point of interconnection between me and the people under study takes place in the identity construction of an ethnic minority. Writing the ethnography of the Sorbian women with whom I interacted during and after fieldwork can, in a way, be defined as an ongoing journey in which I look for my own identity as a member of the Hakka ethnic minority in my country, Taiwan. The Hakka population of Taiwan is roughly 4,600,000 (ca. 20% of the total population) and is concentrated in northwest counties of Taoyouan, Hsinchu and Miaoli as well as in a southwest municipality of Liouduai. This is also the initial point of departure for my study on the identity construction of the Sorbs. By relating the various layers of myself which have been partly constituted in the life narrations of those studied, a reconsideration of my identity as Hakka has been required. At the same time, to the best of my belief, people with whom I talked have surely begun to rethink what Sorbian identity means to them after reflecting on my questions. In this study, the main argument focuses on how Sorbian women, as acting agents, construct their identities in their everyday lives which are interwoven in Sorbian and German cultures. The research subjects, the Sorbs (Serbja/Serby/die Sorben), also known as the Wends (die Wenden), are considered to be a social construction whose members ascribe themselves as Sorbs. Their identities are engendered through social interactions, communication and commonalities of experiences while also retaining their particularity at the same time. However, as a given fact in the historiography of the Sorbs and in the variety of brochures and books on the Sorbs, the Sorbs are seen as a West-Slavonic minority living in the region of Lusatia, in the eastern part of Germany. The Sorbian population is usually estimated as numbering approximately 60,000. They are the remaining descendants of a Slavonic people who settled in the areas between the rivers Elbe and Saale and the Oder and Neiße around 600 A.D. The subjugation of the German king, Henry the First (Heinrich I., 919~936 A.D.), brought Christianization in its wake in the 10th century. Since that time, the Sorbs have been under German rule. Throughout the vicissitudes of Sorbian history, conquest and assimilation by the Germans pervades and is inextricably linked with the suppression and banning of the Sorbian languages (Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian, also known as Wendish) and Sorbian cultures, the partition of Lusatia into different ruling lordships (Saxony and Prussia) as the result of the Congress of Vienna 1815 and into two administrative territories 10

(Saxony and Brandenburg), as well as the “dredging of Sorbian culture” caused by the opencast mining for brown coal since early industrialization in the mid-19th century. Sorbian historiography emphasizes recurring cycles of German oppression and Sorbian revolt. In their fight against assimilation and Germanization, Sorbs have persistently fought for the preservation and promotion of the Sorbian culture and languages, which has become very essential resistance. On this, Sorbian identity is thus founded. In this context, the Sorbs are unified as a whole. Furthermore, Sorbian nationalist projects channel the development of the Sorbian culture, which is fixed into a solid oneness established in a unity of origin, family, language, customs, traditions and religion. Moreover, in the Sorbian discourse, the Sorbs, Sorbian culture, Sorbian ethnicity, Sorbian identity and Lusatia are hemmed in the conterminous congruence of group, culture and territory within authenticity as a consequence of being regarded as a bounded homogeneous culture. In this sense, Sorbian culture is rendered static, timeless and coherent, and the Sorbian people are thus only seen as bearers and representatives of the Sorbian culture in a Sorbian discourse where nationalist projects are accorded primacy. In the nationalist and ethnic processes, keeping the group’s longevity and maintaining its ethnic boundaries constitute the core of the assignment to be achieved. Women are easily obliged to bear the role of representatives of the ethnic group to which they belong and they are “naturally” regarded as the persons who are held responsible for the transferal of cultural value because they are seen as “nationalist wombs” by being regarded as the biological and cultural reproducers of their ethnic collectivity. In this sense, women are constructed as the symbolic carriers of collective identity and are embodied in the overarching rubric of the nationalist schemes inherent in “authenticity” which is fixed in the cultural fabric of symbols, values, artifacts and modes of behavior. Concretely put, these are, for example, national costumes, behaviors, customs, traditions, cuisine, songs, stories and languages. Under the banner of nationalist and ethnic plans, the fact that women are naturalized and symbolized as cultural guardians actually implies that women are simultaneously excluded as “others”. They are figured in certain cultural codes which monopolize the definition of what a “proper woman” should be and do. Moreover, cultural regulations that are vital to the identities of group members overpower women’s way of living. Women are “Othered” in the essential framing of culture; meanwhile, their competence as subjects who shape their own lives is veiled. Furthermore, difference among women is rendered invisible in the static understanding of womanhood. The emergence of the figure of “serbska mać” (Sorbian mother) in the context of Sorbian “national rebirth” in the 19th century manifests that Sorbian women are integrated in Sorbian nationalist maneuvers. They are assigned the function of fulfilling imposed regulations and carrying out tasks for the sake of the Sorbs as a collectivity, be these tasks keeping the virtue and health of the family, educating children who are seen as the future of the Sorbian people, passing on traditions, or fostering and preserving the Sorbian language, tradition and culture. The notion of

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the “serbska mać” reveals that Sorbian women are involved in these projects in the name of the Sorbian people, while their national duty in turn objectifies women by putting them in a cultural straitjacket. The embodiment of Sorbian-ness and the Sorbian culture in this gendered label “serbska mać” suggests that Sorbian women represent the Sorbian collectivity, both ethnically and culturally. In addition to “serbska mać”, the construction of womanhood in the public discourse and in widespread views centers on equating women with tradition, language and religion. Pictures in the press and brochures on the Sorbs, in which girls and women dressed in traditional Sorbian costumes participate in religious ceremonies, are telling examples of this. The way that Sorbian women become cooped up in the framework of Sorbian collectivity as noted above explicates that the concepts of gender and ethnicity are imbued with essentialist ideas: Women are homogenized as the guardians of Sorbian culture and identity, while at the same time, Sorbian culture and identity are frozen in an objective distinction that performs Sorbian-ness, e.g. language, dress, customs, general life styles or fundamental value orientation. In this way, Sorbian women’s life experiences, skills and intentions are made oblique and veiled. In the same vein, views on the Sorbs and Sorbian culture become very easily trapped in a static state in which the Sorbs and their culture become petrified as “such-and-such”. This linear way of comprehending the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the case of the Sorbs hints at the research subjects in this study, the women who identify themselves as/with the Sorbs, and how they live with an undifferentiated culture and have coherent ways of living with a unitary structure. For me, attempting to get out of the cul-de-sac caused by an essentialist stance on gender and ethnicity is therefore the main concern of exploration in this study. But this is not my only goal. This study also focuses on why gender and ethnicity are substantialized and essentialized in the case of the Sorbs. However, we should not forget that this question is not merely limited to the case of the Sorbs, but should rather be examined in the broader context of nationalism. A complex set of preliminary inquiries have to be taken into consideration here, such as why are women assigned the biological, cultural and ideological reproduction of the collectivity they belong to? How are women allied with ethnic and nationalist processes? Notwithstanding the focus on women as the main group in question, it would be misleading to claim that this study only centers on women because these questions should also be investigated in the context of gender construction in nationalism. Therefore looking at gender and nationalism will be of help when exploring the above questions. Not only the analysis of gender and nationalism, but also ethnicity and nationalism is crucial for answering the central question here because this will aid us in understanding why, how, in which context and in which process ethnicity emerges. Furthermore, it will provide insight into which nationalist strategies are employed in the creation of an ethnic group as the dominant national central agent, while other groups of people are designated as marginal in the process of nationbuilding. Does this simultaneously influence our perception of identity, letting us think of it as ethnic or national? These fundamental questions are useful as a point of departure for deconstructing an essentialist standpoint on gender and ethnicity. 12

The perspective of viewing cultural practices as constructed by experiences in everyday life will be helpful for composing an alternative, renewed scope of the women and their cultures, both gendered and ethnic. This approach of practice relieves people from being conceived as the mere passive objects that carry out the agenda of transmitting cultural values, norms and behaviors, while it also rehabilitates them as actors who produce, reproduce and imbue culture in new terms in their day-to-day lives. By focusing on quotidian life experiences, the ambivalence, conflict, contradiction, difference, inconsistency, diversity and multiplicity involved in women’s actions, choices, strategies and negotiation are thus made evident and perceptible. Actors’ everyday life experiences achieve vitality in the understanding of them, Sorbian women, and their life worlds because such an approach dismantles the idea of the “cultural whole” and the isolated oneness rooted in the conventional narrative of Sorbian-ness. The notion of Sorbian identity that is commonly perceived in the “natural composites” of certain fixed criteria, such as origin, family, mother tongue, customs and tradition, village community and history, will accordingly be rendered dynamic. Communication, interaction and relationships with others will play a crucial role in grappling with the construction of Sorbian identity. This is also to suggest that identity construction involves positionings that locate the actors in relations to others. It is a restless process because the actors’ subject position varies every single situation, in every single scene of communication with different counterparts, and also reaches across a variety of differences – gender, ethnicity, class etc. – in each spot of interaction. What is more, identity is then verbalized as identification that not only denotes a standing in relation to others, but also signifies a power of redefining. In this sense, Sorbian culture, identity and ethnicity will be re-described in new terms that encompass an active and transformative reconfiguration of different meanings and discourses. If we employ such a view in our understanding of the Sorbs, meaning different groups within the Sorbian community such as women, we will never expect them to act within the framework of Sorbian culture and thus to correspond with their ethnic ascription. Instead, we will see how they incessantly oscillate between positionings and repositionings in a variety of situations and contexts associated with personal biographies, collective histories, cultural experiences, political conjunctures and social relations. The leading focus of this paper aims to investigate how Sorbian women construct their identities in their everyday lives, which are considered to be a domain where those being researched, as acting agents, consciously and deliberately fashion their lives between and in Sorbian and German cultural contexts. Meanwhile, it is also my purpose to probe into the question of how Sorbian women move across and live with and through differences in this study. In addition to these intentions, there is still a central concern that motivates me to embark on this study: a wish to contribute to studies on the intersection of gender and ethnicity as well as gender studies in the Sorbian academic community. As noted earlier, the organic vision of Sorbian culture and identity has saturated and pervaded Sorbian discourse as the very object of Sorbian nationalist schemes and strategies that focuses on inwardly unifying the Sorbs as a whole and outwardly marking a clear-cut boundary from the

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Germans so that Sorbian culture can be warded off from destruction and disappearance. Under such circumstances, discussions of internal difference within the Sorbs are scarcely taken into account. So far, theoretical and empirical research concerning Sorbian women and gender studies has been scant. Sorbian folklore researcher Susanne Hose, who is a member of the academic staff in the Department of Empirical Cultural Research/Ethnography of The Sorbian Institute in Bautzen, provides us with a basis for understanding the question why women’s studies has occupied such a marginal space in the Sorbian community in her study “Frauenforschung – kein sorbisches Thema” (Women’s Studies – Not a Sorbian Subject) from 1995. According to Hose, there are four reasons as follows: 1) Investigation of the Sorbs, who are defined as an ethnic minority, must retain and reflect their image as a complete unity and collectivity and therefore women’s and gender studies are perceived as an incitement and irritation to their research; 2) Male Sorbs dominate the research regarding their ethnic groups, i.e. “Sorabistik” (Sorbian Studies on philology and literary studies), and this therefore has much to do with power relations regarding resources for conducting and distributing research, especially financial resources; 3) In Sorbian ethnological studies, female Sorbs are regarded as “objects”, for example women are shown in traditional costumes and their names are not revealed, nor is it explained why they wear such costumes and what the connection is between the costumes and the wearers’ lives; 4) Within the social structure of the Sorbs, the role of preserving and practicing customs is ascribed to women, and they are held responsible for promoting and passing on their ethnic identity to the young generations. In recent years, new visions have begun to make a difference. Hose not only focuses on Sorbian narrative and proverbs research, she also dedicates herself to exploring the life stories of women, chiefly mothers, in Lusatia. She shows us how female Sorbs, as subjects, reconstruct their own lives through narratives and how they relate their individual life performances to life drafts that influence the expectations of their communities and other patterns of society in Lusatia. These life stories are not representative, but they are nonetheless presented as various ways of perceiving the world. Hose’s studies are as follows: “Mythos ‘Serbska mać’” (The Myth of the ‘Sorbian Mother’) (2000), “The Meaning of Work in Life Stories of Women” (2004), and “Das Mutterbild bei den Sorben” (The Image of the Mother in the Sorbian Community) (2004). The Head of the Department of Empirical Cultural Research/Ethnography of The Sorbian Institute in Bautzen, Elka Tschernokoshewa, who is a Bulgarian native educated in the arts and humanities in Germany and who specializes in the research fields of everyday culture, comparative minorities studies, gender studies, media and communication, has endeavored to bring new perspectives into studies on the Sorbs by advocating that Sorbian culture, ethnicity, and identity should be seen from the perspective of hybridity and difference. She casts a critical eye on homogeneous, coherent and ahistorical views toward understanding the Sorbs. She attempts to unsettle and dislodge the pre-modern images of and primitive associations 14