METHOD

As an international relations scholar working in the constructivist tradition, I take language very seriously. I focus on discourse, on how meaning is mediated through language, speech acts, and text (Checkel Reference Checkel2004). I believe in the social effects of texts, in their ability to bring changes to our knowledge and our actions (Fairclough Reference Fairclough2003), in the intrinsic connection between textual and social processes (George Reference George1994). To this end, I use textual analysis to empirically examine language practices to get at structures of meaning that order and systematize knowledge (Milliken Reference Milliken1999). Methodologically, textual analysis is particularly well suited for uncovering narrative themes and framing blocs. To get at a more robust discursive structure, textual analysis should be based on as many different texts by different authors who are presumed to be “authorized speakers of a dominant discourse” (Milliken Reference Milliken1999, 233).

The textual analysis that follows is the systematic examination of 56 e-mail messages and more than a hundred Web postings from 10 different blogs and online journals. Of the e-mail messages I received, 51 were explicitly negative in tone, while five were positive. Of the five positive messages, three were sent by self-identified Albanians, and two by self-identified Serbs, both of whom do not live in Serbia. Of the hundred or so Web postings, the overwhelming majority was negative; I have identified a total of three positive postings about my CNN appearance—all three from my personal acquaintances. Almost all e-mail messages (7 of 56 were in English) were written in Serbian, as well as virtually all of the Web postings.

I translated all messages and postings into English and read them for coherence, narrative consistency, and intent. I first read the data set to ascertain if there is a difference in the content of messages sent directly to me and the Web postings intended for other readers. To my surprise, I determined that the tone, character, and message consistency did not differ significantly in the two groups—what was said about me to third parties was also said to me directly. I concluded that the two data sources could be merged into one data set. I then began the qualitative textual analysis, which differs from its quantitative version in that it does not produce coding categories, but instead extracts critical cases and concepts for examination (Fursich and Lester Reference Fursich and Lester1996).

I began by first extracting the overarching “level one” concept of the text data set. I identified as the underlying theme of the text the relationship between the researcher's ethnicity and analysis (specifically, the relationship between my ethnic origin and the “ethnic inappropriateness” of my analysis). I named the level-one concept “ethnic identity.” I then read the data set again, to extract “level two,” or sub-concepts. Multiple readings of the same messages identified the following level-two concepts: ethnic membership, research motivation, ethnic responsibility, and gender/sexuality. I then created themes that relate the level-one concept to the level-two concepts. Clustering the text in such a thematic way allows us to uncover areas where shared understandings emerge. It is way for us to gather information about how people conceptualize ethnic identity and what it means to them, insights we can build on as we develop further theories about ethnicity and its political use.

ETHNIC IDENTITY: IN AND OUT

Theories of ethnic identity have traditionally fallen into three major camps—primordialist (Isaacs Reference Isaacs1975; Shaw and Wong Reference Shaw and Wong1989), instrumentalist (Olzak and Nagel Reference Olzak and Nagel1986; Haas Reference Haas1993), and constructivist (Weber Reference Weber1976; Anderson Reference Anderson1991). And while the literature has been steadily moving away from primordialist explanations of ethnicity towards understanding ethnic behavior as being rationally used for instrumental purposes (Kuran Reference Kuran1998), as an identity constructed on behalf of the state for reasons of power and control (Marx Reference Marx1998), or used for nationalist political mobilization (Beissinger Reference Beissinger2002), empirical researchers often face a paradox: since people we study view ethnicity in a primordial way, who are we as researches to superimpose constructivism onto our subjects (Gil-White Reference Gil-White1999)?

The data I constructed from all the messages and postings show that my correspondents clearly internalized ethnicity in a primordial fashion. The overwhelming theme in all the comments I have received had to do with the issue of my ethnic identity, understood as organic “roots” and shared common ancestry. The main complaint is as follows: how could I, as a Serb, be critical of the Serbian position on Kosovo? As a Serb, I must understand the importance of Kosovo for “our nation,” and should never support “the other side” on international television.

Furthermore, the language in which the messages were written matters. While my CNN interview was in English without subtitles, my correspondents wrote back in Serbian. This is significant in two ways: practically, my correspondents assumed I would read Serbian even though the only evidence of that would be my name, which they construed to be of Serbian descent and my accent, which indicated that I am not a native English speaker. More importantly, however, writing in Serbian indicates that my correspondents wanted to use a “private language,” a language we could presumably share, but which no “outsider” speaks, to threaten and insult me, instead of the “public language” of English, in which my comments, my “ethnic betrayal” were initially made. The choice of language then further reinforces the construction of insider/outsider identities that my correspondents engaged in.

The fact that I provided political analysis that was incongruent with the Serbian position on Kosovo (keeping the province at all cost for reasons of territorial integrity, but also history, nation, and tradition) perplexed the viewers who wrote me. Many of them concluded that I, in fact, cannot be of Serbian origin:

However, what is even more interesting is that my correspondents were ready to revoke my ethnicity, even to deconstruct my identity because of my analysis of the Kosovo crisis:

In other words, my “approval” of Kosovo independence makes me no longer Serb. This move is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it indicates that, even for primordialists, ethnicity is more than thickness of blood. Ethnicity is determined not only by ancestry, but by a totalizing ideology. It is not enough for ethnic subjects to be of a shared group origin, but they need to share the ethnic group's political outlook as well to maintain their ethnic identity. Departure from an ethnic worldview can strip one of ethnicity as easily as if it were a club membership. Second, if ethnicity is something that can be revoked and deconstructed, then it was not that sticky to begin with. What this implies is that the primordial notion of ethnicity is much more elastic and all encompassing than our traditional understanding that revolves around beliefs in shared origin and common lineage. In fact, it might be more fruitful to conceive of a primordial view of ethnicity as much more political than purely cultural.

ETHNIC IDENTITY AND RESEARCH MOTIVATION

In line with this more politicized primordial view of ethnicity, my correspondents had a difficult time processing my apparent anti-Serbian bias. So they offered some original ideas about why a Serbian-born researcher would not support the Serbian cause:

Many writers assumed that I provided political analysis that was anti-Serbian in exchange for monetary benefits:Footnote ²

Some writers concluded that my analysis is the result of pathological ethnic self-hatred, a phenomenon written about in the context of Jewish dissent and Israeli politics (Finlay Reference Finlay2005):

These messages provide many interesting starting points for future research about ethnic identity. First, a primordial view of ethnicity sees ethnic subjects as fully controlled, guided, defined, and constrained by their ethnicity. There is no departure from ethnicity, no exit from its confines. Allegiance to the ethnic group is total, unquestionable, and complete. However, it is not just ethnic membership that is locked. Ethnicity is also political. Ethnic subjects are expected to support, even promote politicization of ethnicity, such as nationalist mobilization, entitlement, and ethnic “justice.” This instrumentalization of ethnicity then becomes an intrinsic aspect of ethnic identity. If you are one of us, you better be on message. Claims against specific ethnic policies become inseparable from claims against the entire ethnic group (my criticism of Serbian Kosovo policy equals my hatred of Serbs). Because political claims are inalienable to ethnic identity, an ethnic subject's departure from ethnic politics creates cognitive dissonance; it seems impossible and nonsensical. This is why it is necessary to invoke ulterior motives to justify “exit from ethnicity,” to make it legible, understandable, and meaningful.

ETHNIC RESPONSIBILITY AND SHAME

Many of the correspondents were upset that I made what they considered to be disparaging remarks against Serbia on foreign soil. It is not only the content of what I said, but where I said it that made it so unacceptable and offensive:

So, my correspondents argued that my criticisms of Serbian Kosovo policy contributed to Serbia's further embarrassment and decreasing international standing, that my statements amounted to a form of international shaming. However, the issue of shame was also directed at me, as the subject who should be ashamed of herself:

Shaming, however, is not enough. Some of my correspondents went a step further, charging that I, in fact, had committed treason by legitimating Kosovo's independence. The argument for this accusation is that, since independence of Kosovo is against Serbia's constitution (in preparation for the final showdown over the status of Kosovo, Serbia changed its constitution in November 2007 to claim Kosovo as an “inalienable part of Serbia”), proclaiming it legitimate is itself an unconstitutional act, equal to treason.

ETHNICITY, GENDER AND VIOLENCE

Some of the threatening e-mail was specifically sexual in nature, which introduces a new, gendered dimension to this correspondence:

The gendered messages attempted to sexualize me and my political analysis. This serves two purposes: first, to dismiss me as a whore, a prostitute who has sold her opinion for material benefit and, second, to introduce a level of violence to the discourse. While it is clear that I did not receive hate mail because I was a woman, the nature of the comments was gendered and qualitatively different from correspondence male scholars received. For example, a textual analysis of hate mail Michael Dear (Reference Dear2001) received after the publication of his book identifies attacks on his competency, politics, and writing style (un-American trash, eco-freaky New Age naturalist, academic charlatanism, self-indulgent pompous pontification, evangelical zealot, postmodern dementia, quasi-colonial[ist]), but he is never called a whore or threatened with rape. A male colleague who has written op-ed pieces in a local newspaper about excesses of patriotism in the United States after September 11, 2001, received an avalanche of hate mail that questioned his competency, patriotism, morality, and national pride. The difference in content, however, does not mean that comments to men were not gendered; instead the construction of gender was different. Sunera Thobani analyzed the hate mail she had received after publicly arguing against the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and noted that her correspondents constructed her as an “angry lunatic woman of color,” a “woman with a chip on her shoulder” (Thobani Reference Thobani2003). So, female researchers are assaulted on the basis of what “makes them women”—not competence or expertise—but gender, sexuality, appearance, and emotions (hate, anger, lunacy). Men, on the other hand, are attacked for what “makes them men”—competence, knowledge, and politics.

Much research has been done on the relationship between nationalism, masculinity, and violence (Yuval-Davis Reference Yuval-Davis1997), especially in the former Yugoslavia (Wilmer Reference Wilmer2002). To the extent that my so-called anti-Serbian/pro-Kosovo analysis was perceived threatening to the Serbian national cause, the violence became transferred to the dimension of gender. For Serbian nationalists, it is offensive to hear commentary deemed unsupportive of Serbs and their cause. That the commentary comes from a woman is that much more upsetting and demeaning for nationalist masculinity. My identity as a (Serbian) mother and (Serbian) daughter is very important.Footnote ³ In Serbian nationalist discourse, Serbian women have an obligation to create and nurture strong and “good” Serbs (Shiffman, Skrabalo, and Subotic Reference Shiffman, Skrabalo and Subotic2002). When a woman becomes the source of national betrayal, it is not just one person betraying Serbia, but a whole lineage. My correspondents, then, become outraged that as a mother, a “bearer” of Serbian identity, I choose to offend or even disavow that identity. At the same time, they behave paternalistically, scolding me as a wayward daughter for having the audacity to disrespect the nation I belong to.Footnote ⁴

Finally, I also received the straightforward threatening hate mail: