Ethnic and class membership assignments: Slovak workers are a kind of people

Abstract

Drawing upon Rita Astuti, this paper shows that Czech identification is unavailable in many contexts of the contemporary Czech Republic for migrant workers as alternative identification is not allowed by the official discourse. The notion of Czechoslovak identity, or any larger umbrella category, that would enable workers escape the stigma trap lack elites that would mobilize people into “imagined communities”. This article suggests that the reason for this is that the definitions are short of essential aspects, leaving migrant factory workers symbolically and often socially outside the “Czech community”.

Keywords

• slovak workers
• ethnicity
• ethnic theory
• identity
• czech nationalism