Изток, Запад и балканският фолк: Парадокси на самосъзнанието
East, West and Balkan Folk: Paradoxes of Identity

Summary/Abstract: Taking the field of popular music as a source of anthropological reflections on the construction of particular cultural identities, the article explores ideological reasons of ambivalent attitudes within Bulgaria towards the Balkan touch in music, traditionally conceptualized by local cultural elites as the unwanted other in the national discourse. It is argued that a) stereotyped negative images of Balkan traces in recently emerged musical practices, criticized by local elites and eagerly celebrated by “ordinary people”, may be seen as a consequent product of the Western European essentialism; b) late modernity questions essentialisms in general and new paradigms emerge within the Western European discourse itself - ones which promote the policy of complementary alternatives, postethnic perspectives, pluralistic views and non-centric ideas capable to take free-of-biases approaches in understanding and appreciating Western Others’ cultural values.

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