Reset Teaching Anthropology: Means and Meanings

ReSET Teaching Anthropology: Means and Meanings

2004-2005 Academic Year

Author: Janusz Mucha

Title: The dominant culture as a foreign culture. Cultural minorities and dominant group in contemporary Poland.

Name of the book: Ludzie i Instytucje, volume 2.

Under the direction of: Antoni Sulek, Jozef Styk and Irena Machaj

Year: 1995

Publication: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej

Place of publication: Lublin

Number of pages: 15

Language: Polish

REVIEW

Reviewed by Agnes Chetaille

4th year, Faculty of Anthropology and Sociology

Universite Lyon 2, France

Adviser: Kinga Sekerdej

The basic statement of this text is that researches about cultural minorities in their relation with the dominant group help to understand not only their own culture but also the dominant culture, which is, for them, the «other» culture. In that perspective, the author gives his definition of the terms : «culture», selectively understood as empirical patterns of behaviour, accepted and learned in a particular society, as well as a collective normative system, conscious for its members. He chooses to use a definition of «minority» from Louis Wirth: a group of people «who, because of their cultural or physical features, are distinguished from others in the society they live in, are treated in a different and unequal way, and for this reason consider themselves the object of social discrimination». He assumes that, whatever the reasons of their distinction, these minorities always have «systems of values, ideologies, traditions, specific ways of life», or are considered by others to have these attributes. The differences founding the status of minority are «conscious and dynamic». Such a feature can be present but «passive», and suddenly take an important social meaning which will create a collective consciousness in the group possessing this difference. At the contrary, a feature can loose its social meaning. Finally, the author describes social discrimination not only as physical aggressions, but also as attacks on collective symbols, labelling and social exclusion. He makes the hypothesis of the existence of a dominant group, different from the notion of majority. The dominant group is able to impose to other groups its own «patterns of behaviour and normative system as constitutive of the whole society». One of its way to describe itself is distinction from minorities.

According to Janusz Mucha, there were two main visions of the world in the Polish society during communist times. They were co-existing and each of them was aspiring to the dominant role. The first one was the socialist vision, based on political constraint but influencing strongly Polish mentalities. It had the control of all mass media and the whole educative system. It tried to impose its own interpretation as the only true and appropriate one. The other perceptions had to stay passive and to hide in the only acceptable places for them at the time: in homes and churches. The other vision is the «national-Christian» vision, seen by the majority as the only guard of national traditions. This vision treated communists, followers of other religions and unbelievers as cultural minorities. It was spreading through the Church’s actions and was influencing very much the primary socialisation of children. Some minorities were belonging to none of those visions. They were symbolically excluded by both of the dominant groups.

After 1989 and the fall of the socialist vision, according to Janusz Mucha only the majoritarian «national Christian» group stayed as a dominant group. He defines this group as an «imagined community, mainly defined by social roles, beliefs and ways of acting which are publicly approved by a significant part of Polish society». This group can impose its own definitions of situations to public life as the only true and legitimate ones, because it has the support of powerful social institutions, like the Roman Catholic Church. But in the new democratic system, although these views are seen as «natural», they can and do are questioned by various minoritarian groups. The author tries to construct an «ideal type» of the dominant group: it is the group of persons who describe themselves (without being asked) as «from Polish ethnic origin, of Roman Catholic denomination, having an average level of education and an average salary, as a man, of average age, in good health conditions and with heterosexual orientation». This is the core, which can be transferred to the ways of life connected with values and systems of thinking. The persons who don’t possess these features are symbolically distinguished from the dominant group and encouraged to follow its rules to be able to take part in public life.

The author tries to create an introductive and temporary typology of the minorities, and he distinguishes between two groups: the new minorities in the literal meaning and the new minorities in the metaphorical meaning (they are groups who existed before 1989 but didn’t have the opportunity to organise themselves and appear in public life at that time).

In the «new minorities in the literal meaning», Janusz Mucha considers four different groups: 1) the group of «business people», in which he distinguishes between the wealthy, with their own interests, ideology and way of life and the well-to-do owners of middle size companies; 2) the «new deficient groups», two large groups created by the new economical structure: unemployed people and homeless people. The author makes the hypothesis that these groups can create a kind of «culture of poverty» different from the dominant culture. 3) AIDS patients(and HIV carriers) and drug addicts and finally 4) immigrants, from Asia, Eastern Europe and Western Europe, coming legally or illegally, only passing through or staying for good... The author notices for each of these «new minorities in the literal meaning» that a real research about them, their vision of their own culture and their vision of the dominant culture is still needed.

In the «new minorities in the metaphorical meaning», Janusz Mucha places: 1) all the ethnic (including religious) and national minorities; 2) the disabled persons; 3) the active and visible homosexuals, usually in big cities; 4) women, specially because some of them since 1989 try to question the masculin dominated order and go out from their traditional roles and finally 5) unbelievers, who lately started to organise themselves into a group, even if they are still mostly defined from outside. Once again, the author stresses that we know very few about these minorities (except for the ethnic, national and religious minorities), and that their own image of the dominant culture is, for all of them, still to be studied. He makes the very large hypothesis that in the close future the dominant group will have to go through deep transformations and reorganisation, and that in the new social order ethnocentrism will co exist with a wider form of social tolerance.

Finally, Janusz Mucha proposes a kind of program for researching the dominant culture in Poland. He assumes that to know what is the dominant culture, two kinds of researches should be conducted: among the dominant group itself (its ideologists and its simple members) and about the cultural minorities and their own vision of dominant culture as an «other» culture. He lists four main issues:

-the dominant culture from its own point of view

-the cultural minoritiesand their own vision of themselves (do they feel excluded and if yes, how do they explain this exclusion?)

-the dominant culture in the consciousness of cultural minorities (what is its picture, to which extend is it considered as the «other» culture?)

-the transformations of the dominant culture in front of the cultural minorities (but also because of other factors)

In the end the author makes a very large proposal of researching program:

-systematic study of the sociological and anthropological literature about cultural minorities and/or the dominant culture in Poland

-study of the documents giving an auto-definition of the dominant culture or the cultural minorities

-fieldwork research about the dominant culture, cultural minorities and the conflicts between groups in Poland.

This article doesn’t really expound sociological theories neither empirical results about cultural minorities. It presents a very wide view of the situation and sometimes one can wonder what exactly founds, in the scientific meaning, the author’s assertions in this text. It can still be fruitfully used though, as it tries to apply the main outcomes of the «labelling theory» for example, to Polish reality. Especially interesting is for me the implied critic to the special interest of Polish researchers for the ethnic and national minorities, whereas Janusz Mucha postulates, in the tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology, that any kind of group is worth being studied. This article can therefore be a good basis for the cooperation of all sociologists or anthropologists willing to conduct researches in the field of cultural minorities and their relations to the dominant culture (or transformations of the social attitude towards minorities) in Poland.