https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7888-4836
![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
The article examines the correspondence between the notion of non-territorial autonomy for ethnic groups (NTA) and its empirical referents and seeks to evaluate the expediency of employing the concept as a descriptive term. The concept applies primarily for normative purposes and as such has lost clarity. The author discusses the ways of overcoming conceptual inflation. Working definitions not duplicating other concepts are possible, but they relate to a marginal and heterogeneous phenomenon and turn out to be optional. The author suggests that NTA shall be regarded as a practical rather than analytical category and studied as discursive and performative exercises.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Below I use ‘ethnic’ and its derivative as a catchall concept denoting compatible distinctions on the grounds of language, culture, and origin.
2 There is no consent even in this area. For some ‘functional autonomy’ means a transfer of functions and related authority from public bodies (Suksi, Citation2008); for some it is a performance of publicly relevant functions by organizations independent of state bodies (Malloy, Citation2009).
3 For example, Domowina – the umbrella organization of Lusatian Serbs (Sorbs) in South-Eastern Germany (see Rein, Citation2015).
4 See Self-government. Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100032275/1529354547314; U.S. Department of the Interior
Indian Affairs. Frequently Asked Questions. https://www.bia.gov/frequently-asked-questions.
5 Amazingly, this does not preclude the local scholars from naming the Macedonian model as a case of NTA (Andeva, Citation2013; Pendarovski et al., Citation2017).
6 Here I do not consider most self-governing arrangements of and for aboriginal populations such as tribal entities or indigenous corporations in North America; formally they are based on personal membership or qualifications and independent of territory but basically function for the purposed of territorial governance (see Catt & Murphy, Citation2002, pp. 31–33, 39–47, 54–57).
7 Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein.
8 In formal sense numerous bodies of indigenous self-government rest on personal principle and are not bound to a distinct territory, but in fact set up territorial jurisdictions; here they are not put on the list.
9 The New Zealand Māori Council. https://www.maoricouncil.org/.
10 The coexistence of Anglophones and Francophones in Canada emerged and reproduced itself basically notwithstanding state action; over the last years ‘institutional completeness’ has been judicially recognized as a policy principle necessary for the protection of Francophones’ linguistic rights (Chouinard, Citation2014).
11 Bošnjačko nacionalno vijeće. O Vijeću [Bosniak National Council. About the Council] https://www.bnv.org.rs/onama.php.
12 Serb national council in Сroatia. Српскo нaрoднo виjeћe. https://www.fuen.org/en/members/Serb-National-Council-in-Croatia.
13 To some extent, it resembles the resistance movement of Poles in Prussia in the 19th – early 20th centuries (Hagen, Citation1972).
14 Die Stiftung für das Sorbische Volk. https://stiftung.sorben.com/deutsch/stiftung/.
15 National Urban Maori Authorities. http://numa.co.nz/.