Sociologie Românească (Jul 2011)
Pentru un continuum conceptual în vocabularul antropologic al variabilităţii etno-culturale din România
Abstract
Among other phenomena of epistemological relevance, the Romanian anthropological literature is currently characterized by a research orientation to the study of minority or ethno-cultural groups, which, due to the continuous development of thematic working themes and objectives, reveals an important theoretical resource for the scientific horizon of cultural anthropology. In this paper, I shall discuss first the categories of analysis in the Romanian anthropological documentation and interpretation of ethnicity, in an attempt to concretize the conceptual vocabulary specific to such a disciplinary approach. Afterwards, I shall identify some thematic correspondences (as represented by terminological series) between ethnographic accounts that belong to local communities of Szeklers, Saxons, Căldărars, Rudars, and Lipovans. My article is intended to contribute to the clarifying of anthropological criteria in the study of ethnicity, to the extent to which language, ethno-history, territoriality, sociality, economy, ethos, and worldview might be accounted for conceptual landmarks within a comparative investigation on the ethno-cultural variability. As will be argued, establishing some correlations between theoretical categories and ethnographic accounts is to develop perspectives of a conceptual continuum with a heuristic potential for the understanding of the ethnic facts, and of the critical reflection upon them, as well.
