ABSTRACT

This article evaluates Andreas Wimmer’s theory of ethnic boundary making by applying it to the maintenance of Jewish ethnic identification in Sweden, as expressed in interviews with Swedish Jews. Wimmer proposes that ethnic conflict routinizes and entrenches perceptions of ethnic difference; we argue that the antisemitic persecutions of the twentieth century have entrenched the perception of the ethnic distinctiveness of Jews among Jews themselves. These persecutions also contribute to alienation from Swedish society, which does not share the same frames of understanding. These factors motivate the interviewees to maintain the ethnic boundary between Swedes and Jews and guard it against assimilation. We propose a nuancing of the debate between instrumentalist and primordialist conceptions of ethnic identity by arguing that while our interviewees express a taken-for-granted view of their ethnic identities, they advance ethnic discourse strategically in order to protect the Jewish community from losing its distinctness, especially through assimilation.

摘要

正如在对瑞典犹太人的采访中所表达的那样，本文通过将安德烈亚斯·维默 (Andreas Wimmer) 的种族边界制定理论应用于瑞典维持犹太民族认同来评估。Wimmer 提出种族冲突使种族差异的观念变得常规化和根深蒂固；我们认为，20 世纪的反犹迫害使犹太人自己对犹太人种族独特性的看法根深蒂固。这些迫害也导致与瑞典社会的疏远，瑞典社会的理解框架并不相同。这些因素促使受访者维护瑞典人和犹太人之间的种族界限，并防止其被同化。