Russian Dolls, Marble Cakes, or Taffeta Patterns ?

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Russian Dolls, Marble Cakes, or Taffeta Patterns
?

• Metaphors and their Implications for Constructing
  Regional Identities

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Structure of my talk

• Part 1 Metaphors of identity and how they affect
  our understanding of discursive identity
  construction
• Part 2 Extracts from a case study from the
  Border identities project, demonstrating
  similarities and differences in identity
  narratives across generations, socio-political
  context and gender
• Some conclusions

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Metaphors of multiple identities the regional in
relation to national and transnational
constructions

• Russian dolls (Risse 2004, Meinhof 2004)
• Marble cakes (Risse 2004)
• Volcanoes or earthquakes (Meinhof 2004)
• Taffeta patterns (borrowed from Joni Mitchell)

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Russian dolls

• Nested identities the smaller (local, regional)
  contained in the larger (national ,
  transnational)
• Clear-cut boundaries
• Consensual
• Static

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Marble cakes

• Overlapping and interrelating identities
• Less clear-cut boundaries, but still static
• Consensual

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Volcanoes and earthquakes

• Conflictual between layers
• The regional potentially destructive of the
  national/ transnational
• The regional/ national threatened by the
  transnational

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Taffeta patterns

• Joni Mitchell theres oil in the puddles in
  taffeta patterns that run down the drain.
• Flow, movement
• No clear-cut boundaries
• Consensual and/or conflictual

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Implications for conceptualising identities

• Emphasis on fluidity and dependency on
• - context of speaking
• - interlocutor relation
• - type of interaction
• - thematic choice
• - individual as well social and cultural
  construction

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Social and cultural construction

• Emphasis on restraint of choice
• - shared life experiences
• - shared socio-cultural repertoire
• - shared patterns of speech
• - shared meaning potential (Halliday
  1979)

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The Border Identities Project

• EU project (5th framework)
• Timescale of field work/ analysis 2000-3,
  I.e. after unification and collapse of Soviet
  Union, but before EU entry of Poland, Czech
  Republic, Hungary and Slovenia
• Locality and sample 3 generation families in
  border communities from Baltic to Adriatic Sea,
  but including former German-German border
• Aim to understand discursive identity
  construction of family members in relation to
  political upheavals in three time periods.
• Method Photographic triggers for narrative
  interviews in ethnographic setting plus discourse
  analysis of data
• For results visit www.borderidentities.com or
• Meinhof eds. 2002, 2003, Meinhof and Galasinski
  2005.

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Case Study 3 generations in Hirschberg in
Thuringia. Key narrative the Leather Factory of
phase 1 pre-WW2, phase 2 Cold War, phase 3
post-unification (see also Armbruster and Meinhof
in press)
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Significance of leather factory for region

• Since foundation in 18th century as family
  business increasingly important as regional
  employer
• In 1946 expropriated by GDR authorities and
  turned into a state-owned business Volkseigener
  Betrieb.
• During GDR years factory almost exclusive
  provider of employment in 5 kilometer exclusion
  zone.
• After unification survived only until 1993, first
  through Treuhand, then briefly under new
  private ownership . Closed down after bankruptcy
  in 92, demolished after 1993.
• Since 1996 empty fields and grassland.
• During our field work, factory had already
  disappeared, but remained a focal point for
  identity narratives on both sides of the river
  Saale.

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Pre-war memories the oldest generation

• No difference in types of narratives between
  eastern and western informants
• Narratives often foreground the harshness of
  working conditions, not just for their own
  generation but those of previous generations
• Narratives very colourful in detail set in the
  past, no longer affect the present
  prototypical stories

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Phase 1 Emma Meier (oldest generation)

• I know that way back, my father also worked in
  the leather factory. They came with their bikes
  or they walked. In the winter they walked and in
  the summer they biked and also the granddad of
  my husband, he lived over there in Mödlareuth and
  through wind and rain he started walking at 3 in
  the morning with wooden sandals and they went
  through the snow and to the leather factory, and
  then they walked back home again and in there
  they had to work real hard. How they managed, the
  old ones, one really has to wonder. Well my
  father he died 1968 when he was 67. He became
  very ill. He caught the Grubengrätz. Both arms
  infected with open wounds all the way up, and yes
  he had a terrilbe arm from all the tanning stuff,
  the tanning acid and all that. That was the
  Grubengrätz those were hard times that lie
  behind us

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Memories of GDR times

• Generational and gender differences in narration
• East-West perspective -us vs them becomes
  thematised and often implicitly affects forms of
  story telling more argumentative narratives than
  prototypical stories especially in middle
  generation
• Evidence of conflictual identities with
  self-contradictions across longer narratives

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Phase 2 Elfriede Tanne (oldest generation)

• The kids, they were hardly a year old that you
  had to drag them with you to the creche, and of
  course that was good, but we had to, yes, we were
  dependent on our earnings, alone it wouldnt have
  added up. Over there ltdrüben, I.e. in West
  Germany) the men were already earning enough that
  they could feed their family. It wasnt like this
  over here, for a simple worker. The women went to
  work.. But as a mother you really had to sort
  yourself out, that was hard, every morning to put
  out their stuff before school, their clothing and
  then the breakfast.. Then you waited at the bus
  station and no bus came and it was cold, well
  thats how it was. And in the end I even went to
  do shift work at night, 15 years I worked like
  that, and 15 years in three shifts

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Phase 2 Rudolf Tanne (her son) , middle
generation

• It was a huge complex with its own railway
  station and inside the leather factory we had
  everything, there was a cobbler , and when your
  shoes were torn you took them there. And there
  was a Konsum HO, HO, thats a sort of shop, and a
  florist for, for when you needed plants or
  something, you could even buy cucumbers, or a
  bunch of flowers, if you needed them, and a
  creche was in there, kindergarten, my children
  also went to the creche and the kindergarten. All
  that was actually really lovely and everything
  was well looked after . And they had their own
  welding shop, electricians, plumbers, and a
  gigantic refectory and a gigiantic factory
  kitchen with warm lunch, the cheapest lunch cost
  50 pfennings.. Very good food, yes, super food.
  And in the morning there were buses for the
  workers, and back again in the afternoon,
  everything was well regulated , there were no
  problems, better regulated than today, thats for
  sure, and a lot more was left over for the worker

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Phase 2 Franz Hauf, middle generation

• And generally speaking, it was the Collective
  that counted where one was dependent on the
  other, so that the whole thing really worked to
  perfection. There was no dawdling or lazing
  awayAnd it really was fun, truly, there were the
  barrels that had already been depilated, and the
  whole point was, the important thing was, who is
  there in the morning, and so we went in at 4 am
  and fetched the first barrels out so that the
  next group could get on with their work. And the
  the real work started until the next shift came
  along

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Post-Wende stories

• Deep disturbance about loss of factory across
  oldest and middle generations, even by those who
  had told very critical stories in phases 1 or 2.
• Demolition of factory seen as
• - Loss of identity (Lebensader collapse of
  ones home)
• - Loss of economic basis, social decline
• - Loss of well-regulated organised existence,
  loss of time-frame (the missing clock)
• Emotional disturbances pain, fear, dispair,
  desolution, resignation, anger

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Phase 3 Barbara Hagen (oldest generation)

• Well, it was as if one had cut our lifes artery
  (Lebensader)..Yes, for me personally, I miss
  something, it is the artery of Hirschberg thats
  gone. Well, the leather factory was, well
  everything started out from the leather factory.
  And everyone had worked in the leather factory.
  And whoever needed something went to the leather
  factory, and now its gone all of the sudden.
  Well, yes. That is as if my house collapses, and
  I stand in front of it and cant do anything
  about it

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Phase 3 Erika Leupold (oldest generation)

• The clock..Yes its all gone, all is gone. I
  dont know whether they they needed to have torn
  it down. It was so solid, it was good, solid,
  inside as well, lovely big rooms, the factory
  halls, the different levels and the lifts , that
  was all and and my son says that they invested a
  lot of money there during GDR times, it wasnt
  old-fashioned, not at all, it wasnt
  old-fashioned at all

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Phase 3 Frieda Findeiss (oldest) and Bernd Hase
(middle generation)

• FF Ah yes we really experienced this immediately
  (hautnah), ah well it really turns your stomach.
  I really must tell you, it gives you a cold sweat
  (kalt den Rücken runter laufen). I must tell you
• BH ah yes, yes yes, I must honestly tell you,
  not only when I look at these pictures now, but
  when you look at the vast empty space down there,
  it makes you shudder (eiskaltes Grausen)

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Phase 3 Elfi Lauf (oldest generation)

• And then ..it was.. All of the sudden it was
  gone. And now when one drives past, and that
  empty space is there, I could howl Well,
  especially theres no more work, that was
  predictable, my son had always said those
  Italian skins are cheaper than our finished
  leather. Well, it wouldnt have worked anymore,
  or would have collapsed in any case, but when
  one.. Well, it is a shame , isnt it

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Conclusion

• Strong significance of the regional identity
  marker of leather factory provides focal point
  for divergent, conflictual and contradictory
  narratives, yet with elements of an underlying or
  over-arching shared key story (the significance
  of work and work ethic).
• Same key story is used as in-grouping but also as
  out-grouping device between east and west
  (Armbruster and Meinhof 2003).
• Patterns within generation more frequent than
  within the same family across generation
• Emotional charge of narratives not related to
  aesthetic of photograph (e.g. the beautiful white
  pre-war factory photo or the shot of ugly
  disintegrating building do not trigger related
  positive / negative memories)