Multivoicedness and ethnic identity in change processes in Roma culture

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology, based on Mikhail M. Bakhtin's approach to the study of narrative, as a tool to analyze the processes of cultural change in minority groups. In particular, we analyze the multiple voices that are present in the statements of members of Roma communities when they talk about and express their culture. Roma communities are displayed in a process of profound cultural shift and where different voices have a dialog, some voices come from cultural tradition, other voices come from models of the dominant social group, and other voices come from the attempt to compromise between them. This multivoicedness is the playing field between minority and majority groups, movements of dialogue happen, assimilations, resistances, creating new cultural differences and hybridization. So, a scene is developed in a constant process of change in which daily practices often must respond to different and even contradictory goals, and in which different voices are intertwined in the process of constructing new identities.