Идентичностни политики и културна съпротива в Еленския Балкан
Identity Politics and Cultural Resistance in the Elena Balkan

Summary/Abstract: According to local beliefs, the mountainous microregion of Elena once welcomed those seeking to escape the “valley state“. These people became known as Balkandzhii (singular: Balkandzhiya), supposedly virtuous and freedom-loving inhabitants of the hills, as opposed to the Balkantsi (singular: Balkanets) of the lowlands. The daily oscillations between these two identities reveal the cohabitation of two methods of resistance. The method of “hidden resistance“, described by J. C. Scott, in which the reappropriation of domination occurs through the acceptance of ascribed stigmatising identities (here that of the Balkanets) in order to take practical advantage of them. And the method of “circumventive resistance“, which consists in shifting to an alternative identity (that of the Balkandzhiya) to circumvent the stigmas assigned to the Balkanets. Applying F. Barth’s transactional approach, I consider the local Balkanets|Balkandzhiya identity shifts as social transactions of cultural resistance to state domination, but also to the international domination of “balkanism“, as coined by M. Todorova.

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