The ethnic identity of the person in the context of traditional culture of the North-East part of Russia
A.A. Buchek, the Doctor of Psychology, the Professor of Theoretical and Applied Psychology of Kamchatka State University gave a report on the regular scientific seminar of ILSCR on 22d November. In the presentation “The ethnic identity of the person in the context of traditional culture of the North-East part of Russia” A.A. Buchek spoke about her study of different ethnic groups of Kamchatka, and its theoretical basis.
A.A. Buchek, the Doctor of Psychology, the Professor of Theoretical and Applied Psychology of Kamchatka State University gave a report on the regular scientific seminar of ILSCR on 22d November. In the presentation “The ethnic identity of the person in the context of traditional culture of the North-East part of Russia”. A.A. Buchek spoke about her study of different ethnic groups of Kamchatka, and its theoretical basis.A.A. Buchek, the Doctor of Psychology, the Professor of Theoretical and Applied Psychology of Kamchatka State University gave a report on the regular scientific seminar of ILSCR on 22d November. In the presentation “The ethnic identity of the person in the context of traditional culture of the North-East part of Russia” A.A. Buchek spoke about her study of different ethnic groups of Kamchatka, and its theoretical basis.A.A. Buchek is a head of the regular ethno-psychological expedition with its main purpose to study ethno-psychological characteristics of the population of Kamchatka region, particularly, the characteristics of ethnic identity. A.A. Buchek suggests that ethnic identity is a central feature of the ethnic group, which is always intact even if the language of the ethnic group and cultural traditions are lost. Thereby, it is necessary to study the psychological mechanisms of its functioning. Results of ethno-psychological research gave reason to state that ethnic identity is formed by the active ethnic construction – the process of creating a subjective image of an ethnic group. The structure of ethnic identity includes components such as the image of the objective ethnic space (in other words, the knowledge of the objective characteristics of one’s ethnic group, for example, national traditions and customs), the image of the subjective ethnic space (subjective feeling of belonging to an ethnic group). A.A. Buchek paid attention to the tendency of respondents to idealize the image of their ethnic group and identified a third component called "ideal image of ethnic group", which means that this image is never reached in reality and exists only in the mind of a person. Harmonious functioning of the ethnic identity of a person can be reached due to the compliance of all three components. In contradiction to this, misbalance means the prevalence of one of the components and corresponding ways of functioning of ethnic identity – trans-ethnical, ethnic-centered or ethnic-modeled. Psychological programs of improvement of intercultural competence, due to work with particular components, may contribute to the harmonization of ethnic identity and to establish compliance between its components.
Marina Lazutkina