Essentialism, historical construction, and social influence: Representations of Pomakness in majority talk in Western Thrace (Greece)

Abstract

Social psychological research has been particularly interested to study essentialism in the construction of social categories and to manifest its potential consequences in intergroup attitudes. Drawing upon this literature, the present study focuses on the argumentative resources employed to construct ethnic categories in a specific rhetorical context: focus group discussions between majority Greek educators about the minority group of Pomaks, historically residing in Western Thrace (Greece). Discussions were framed as an attempt to capture the particularities of minority education and data were analysed by the use of tools and concepts of discursive and rhetorical psychology. Analysis indicates that participants have multiple and complex recourses available to construct Pomakness. Representations of Pomakness as an essential a-historical entity coexist with conceptions of category membership and identification as a result of certain historical conditions and processes of social influence. Essential and de-essential category constructions are approached as rhetorically situated, oriented towards specific rhetorical ends in specific argumentative contexts. They are also considered, however, to be nested within a complex and dynamic intergroup context which reflects the ideological contradictions of the Greek policy towards the minority and which constitutes (but it is also reconstituted by) shifting group definitions and boundaries.

Essentialism in Social Representations of Citizenship: An Analysis of Greeks' and Migrants' Discourse

“…In our conceptualization, we concur with recent work that emphasizes the ideological content and function of essentialist beliefs in discourse (Augoustinos, Hanson‐Easey, & Due, ; Figgou, ; Verkuyten, ; Wagner et al, ). In this literature, essentialism is seen as an ideologically laden and discursively constituted resource, a representational tool (Raudsepp & Wagner, ) with important political implications that serves to justify action towards social groups and to legitimize or subvert existing social arrangements (Wagner et al, ; Yzerbyt, Rocher, & Schadron, ).…”

“…In our data, essentialism was a way of representing citizenship in ethnic and cultural (but not civic) terms. As we showed, essentialism was not straightforwardly associated with either inclusion or exclusion of migrants in our data; it had mainly oppressive but also liberating functions (Figgou, ; Verkuyten, ). Constructing citizenship in essentialist ethnic terms as something acquired through ancestry and blood relations had an exclusive function.…”

“…Equally, nonessentialist ideas may be used for both liberating and oppressive practices (Verkuyten, ). This strategic and variable use of essentialism (Figgou, ) highlights the different political interests that guide essentialist constructions and point to the sociopolitical implications that essentialist constructions can have.…”

Constructions of ‘Illegal’ Immigration and Entitlement to Citizenship: Debating an Immigration Law in Greece

“…Interestingly, the emphasis on the contingent nature of regularization processes has also served to question immigrants' entitlement to Greek citizenship. This can be considered to provide strength to arguments put forward in other contexts, according to which, both essential and de‐essential categorical constructions can be used to social exclusionary ends (Figgou, ; Verkuyten, ).…”

The strategic value of essentialism

“…In one study, essentialist beliefs were found to only weakly correlate with sexism and racism scales, though aspects of essentialism were found to correlate with anti-gay attitudes (Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2002). Increasingly, evidence suggested that essentialism may be a flexible conversational resource, rather than a cognitive style (Figgou, 2013;Morton, Hornsey, & Postmes, 2009a;Verkuyten, 2003;Verkuyten, 2006). In a sample of Australians, though essentializing race generally correlated with prejudice against Aboriginals, if race could be used to exclude the racial majority that the prejudiced participants belonged to, they no longer essentialized race (Morton, Hornsey, et al, 2009a).…”