Ethnicity without ethnicity: ‘I'm beyond that story’ state arrangements, re-education and (new) ethnicity in Israel

ABSTRACT

This article examines the connection between state ethnic classifications and the way they are perceived by individuals in everyday life. Using the case of the Boarding School for the Gifted Disadvantaged in Israel which is open to immigrants, an attempt was made to reach an understanding of how individuals who have experienced deliberate state intervention in the ethnic component of their selfhood, experience this intervention years after the (re)construction. The main findings illuminate how boarding school graduates transformed the governmental intervention into a unique ethnic identity for everyday life: ‘ethnicity without ethnicity'. This identity rejects any overt engagement with the ethnic component of the concept of self. This identity even relies on the subject's constant reminders to himself that ‘he is beyond the ethnic story' and that meritocratic identity (devoid of ethnic consciousness) is preferable to ascriptive identity. The findings also show that ethnic identity is not necessarily expressed in everyday practices (language, food consumption, music, festivals) but rather in ongoing cognitive engagement of the agent distanced from the available official ethnic classifications. The discussion section tracks the state-organizational sources of this ethnic identity and its relation to the unmarked ethnicity amongst the upper-middle classes.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnicity
• middle class
• boarding schools
• classification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The informal activities included cultural enrichment activities (music appreciation, sculpture, drawing, and drama); social activities (discussion groups on contemporary problems of Israeli society, social ethics, and problems of adolescence); and volunteer work (Israeli Red Cross, tutoring elementary school children) (Smilansky & Nevo, 1979).

2. One group of six interviewees expressed a completely different position. This group criticized the boarding school and the State of Israel in the spirit of the post-colonial discourse in Israel (Shohat, 1999). This group described the boarding school authorities as having forced them to deny their families and ethnic roots. These interviewees describe how when they grew up they reconnected with their ethnic identity. Because this viewpoint was not widespread, I chose not to take it into account in this article.