COMPARATIVE CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES ON IDENTITY BORDERS IN THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA
COMPARATIVE CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES ON IDENTITY BORDERS IN THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

Summary/Abstract: The identity, be it that of an individual, a group or a community, can generate convergence, but also divergence in relation to the other. The other, dichotomous, acquires the expression of the "beyond"; beyond what is specific to one, to one’s identity. A frontier, be it symbolic or ideological, can thus be identified around identity constructions. Central and Eastern Europe does not only make no exception to this rule, but, in our assertion, it is the space that imposes, perhaps most in Europe, such identity borders. Methodologically, the focus of our analysis lies primarily on the identity boundaries generated by the specific ethno-religious, linguistic or cultural, but also by the nature of the mental specific to the area. This paper develops in a new methodological construction ideas and synthetic research contained in a previous paper on identity as a border in the space of Central and Eastern Europe. For the purpose of a conceptual clarification and to respond to the methodological desideratum already announced, this paper makes comparative references to the case of the states of Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro or to the case of the Albanians in the Balkans. At a comparative level, the reality of identity cleavages, which oftenly takes the shape of borders, is similar in the Republic of Moldova and in the Balkans. However, a particular note given by the context is kept, namely the specificity and the geopolitics of the former Soviet space in relation to the former Yugoslav one. Identity dilemmas and controversies in the Republic of Moldova, as well as others in Central and Eastern Europe, are determined / fueled by the geopolitical interests of some states / powers that have used them to expand or maintain influences. Here, the boundaries of identity took the form of ideological or symbolic boundaries.

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