Paper short abstract:

The problems of minorities, ethnicity and cultural diversity of society are areas that are highly politicized. This entangles the anthropologist in the issues of nationalism which we will present on the example of changes in the approach changes in Polish research on this issue from the 1990s.

Paper long abstract:

The problems of minorities, ethnicity and cultural diversity are highly politicised areas that entangle the anthropologist in the issue of nationalism.

The presentation will analyse the approach evolution to cultural diversity among ethnicity researchers in Poland. The change in describing ethnic diversity of Polish society after the 1990s transformation seems particularly interesting. During the communist period, due to the entanglement of science in the official nationalistic discourse promoting Polish society visions as ethnically homogeneous, but also the state monopoly on the creation and dissemination of this vision provided by censorship, researchers of ethnicity usually followed the message postulated by the authorities. In their work on minorities, researchers showed ethnic diversity in terms of assimilation, integration and differences disappearance. The political system transformation has resulted in a shift in a description to emphasizing differences and a more pluralistic approach.

Our speech, based on the analysis of the work on ethnic groups in Poland, including an auto-ethnographic reflection, will analyze the reasons for the turn in research on ethnic diversity after 1989. Main points will include 1) the paradigm shift in science - from the assimilation theory towards approaches emphasizing cultural difference; 2) the replacement of an objective approach with an interpretative one; 3) the very social transformation that triggered ethnic revival in minority communities in the public sphere; 4) the axionormative changes in a democratizing society valuing the difference. These factors influenced the researchers' decisions which began to propose conceptualizations weakening the dominant nationalist discourse.