Abstract

The paper is an analytic retrospective of the author’s work during the preceding research period, involving the study of role, meaning and place of stereotypes in identity discourses. In order to explain the reasons for and ways of dealing with stereotypes, she reviews the evolution of her own research approach and the alternative approaches to the topic from the perspective of various scholarly disciplines. Seeking to avoid the trap of “interpreting stereotypes stereotypically”, the author chooses not to follow the usual method whereby ethnic stereotypes are “deconstructed” as false and generalizing image of oneself and others, and exposed to social-psychological and political-anthropological critique. Instead, the author looks at stereotypes primarily in terms of their linguistic and social “semiotics” and their theoretical and practical usability. Stressing the necessity of relativizing the binary structure of discourse, the author argues that stereotypes, though indispensable as elements of the “economy” of language and thought, should be socially conceptualized and historicized in analysis.