Re-configuring East-West identities: cross-generational discourses in German and Polish border communities

Description/Abstract

This article takes its data from one of two sets of communities studied as part of a British ESRC project into discursive constructions of identity. In this paper we argue three interrelated points. Firstly, we show the ways in which different elicitation formats of interviewee responses foreground variable aspects in people's identification. Secondly, we show how similar elicitation methods produced different criss-crossings of identification which render summary generalisations about identities in these communities problematic. Thirdly, we highlight the fluid and often paradoxical nature of multiple identifications across the different layers with which people choose to engage.