The Falling Rain Will Stop, The Guest Who Arrived Will Leave: Once Again on “Insider” and “Outsider” Positions in the Buryat Field

Abstract

Searching for identity has never been straightforward -not at any time nor at any place. Our doctoral program "Searching for Identity: Global Challenges, Local Traditions" did not defi ne a priori the concept of identity, nor the meaning of searching for it. Despite these doubts, our joints eff orts and searches, discussions and disputes, proved to be helpful in building our research project. That is why for the topic of my fi nal refl ection I chose my own experience in searching for the identity of a nation, specifi cally the Polish nation. I wish to explain how I have reached a systemic conceptualization of the matter -and what results from it.National identity is sometimes understood as belonging -that is, a feeling of participation within a community that is a nation. Members would thus accept their national identity from the community -regardless of whether ethnic-natural roots are posited for the nation's identity, or if the community was simply imagined. These identities are accepted and imagined in diverse ways, depending on the changing circumstances, and scientifi c disciplines have developed diff ering approaches to the matter 1 According to Edgar Morin, "Le terme de dialogique veut dire que deux ou plusieurs logique, deux principes sont unis sans que la dualité se perde dans cette unite."