The Wendish Research Exchange - Keller, Ines and Theresa Jacobs: The Sorbs in Germany: Cultural Practices and Cultural Security

Lětopis Abstract 2017 2: Keller, Ines and Theresa Jacobs: The Sorbs in Germany: Cultural Practices and Cultural Security

Cultural practices of ethnic minorities provide great potential for self-reassurance and identity constructs. People look for strategies to overcome crises, especially in times of social upheaval. Transformation of cultural practices can then be seen just as much in personal lives as in the staging of collective cultural practices, which not uncommonly have an ambivalent character. They are capable equally of generating cultural security and creating insecurity. Using the staging of Sorbian folk dances and access to the biographies of women who wear folk costumes, the following questions are pursued: which strategies in dealing with new social conditions were developed by the performers? How do changes in the interpretation of "traditional“ patterns come about? How do such culturally interpreted references find legitimization? We show how coming closer to the cultural heritage of a minority can foster cultural security.