Ethnic stereotypes in the field of intercultural interaction. Case Study: Republic of Tatarstan

Abstract

The article presents the results of the field ethno-sociological research conducted in Kazan and the villages of the Republic of Tatarstan in 2017–2018, as part of an inter-regional study of the process of identifying Tatars in the Project of the State Program “Preserving the National Identity of the Tatar People”. Ethnic stereotypes constituted one of the significant blocks of the research program due to their important role in the process of ethnic identification of an ethnic group. Tatars, being a mobile ethnic group, are widely settled throughout the territory of the Russian Federation and coexist with numerous peoples of the country. At the same time, the Russians, being the dominant group of the state, are associated with the Tatars political history and close ties of everyday life. Under the conditions of long-term close contact and cultural interaction between those ethnic groups, ideas and images of peoples about themselves and their neighboring people were formed. Ethnic stereotypes, despite their stability, change over time and largely depend on a) the political situation, which assigns to the ethnic groups either a system of "domination-subordination" or a system of equilibrium statuses; b) the realization of their interests that form the climate of coexistence of neighboring peoples. The content of ethnic stereotypes, the predominance of positive or negative stereotypes, the comparability or incompatibility of peoples' ideas about themselves and their neighboring people can serve as a sensitive indicator of the interethnic climate in the multicultural community of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Keywords

• ethnic identity
• identification process
• ethnic stereotypes
• autostereotypes
• heterostereotypes
• interethnic relations.