The Brother of the Other

Immigration from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to the Czech Republic and the boundaries of belonging

Radka Klvaňová

• Publisher: Masarykova univerzita
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9788021085770
• eBook ISBN:
  9788021085787
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Émigration et immigration

The book explores the cultural processes of negotiation of the symbolic boundaries of belonging in the Czech immigration context. Conducting the qualitative analysis of biographical interviews with immigrants from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, the author examines how symbolic boundaries of belonging are constituted in everyday encounters in the social and cultural context of immigration. The book unpacks an ambiguous cultural representation of this group of migrants in the Czech space of ethnicized relations - a peculiar tension between the position of the 'Other' and the 'Brother' of the Czechs that reflects past and present nation-building processes in Central and Eastern Europe, historical political links between socialist Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union and post-1989 migratory processes. The book provides novel insight into the cultural repertoire of the Czech immigration context and the boundaries of Czechness.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• Chapter 1 CONTEXTUALIZING POST-1989 MIGRATIONFROM BELARUS, RUSSIA AND UKRAINETO THE CZECH REPUBLIC
• Chapter 2 NEGOTIATING IMMIGRANT STIGMA:PERFORMING ALTERNATIVE VISIBILITIES
• Chapter 3“ THE RETURN OF THE RUSSIANS”:NEGOTIATING THE CULTURAL TRAUMA OF “1968”
• Time heals all wounds?
• Rejection of the stigma of the perpetrators
• Final reflection: Immigration from the former Soviet Union to post-1989 Czech Republic, the cultural trauma of “1968” and a postcolonial perspective on migration
• CONCLUSION
• APPENDIX A: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY – DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
• APPENDIX B: SEVERAL MEANSTO AVOID INCONVENIENCE ABROAD
• FIGURES AND TABLES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX