The ethnical otherness and the interethnic imaginary among the contact areas between the Roma and Romanians

Abstract

The social dialogue between the majority and an ethnical minority depends on how a thinking pattern or a map of collective representations crystallized in the "we and the others" relationship. The personality of an ethnic group isn't as simple as thought. Pride, fear of being labeled, uncertainty, depression, fear of the other, self-esteem, self-image, sense of justice, of belonging and other individual manifestations are reproducing on a group level through the up taking of mutual perceptions. In this article I noticed that the individual tendency is adhering to beliefs and experiences which do not belong to them, quietly inheriting a group doctrine without filtering the area of specific values. The research of group thinking from the cultural contact zone compelled me to shed light upon an imaginary theory as a both knowledge and interpretation instrument for interethnic psyche. The methodological contribution belongs to several disciplines: psycho-sociology, social anthropology, social care and cultural anthropology, followed by the uses of specific terms from image science with specific methods: symbolic interaction, analogy and the convergence method applied on the obtained answers from an interview guide. The deepening of collective imaginary can substantially improve the knowledge and objectifying of a real civic and political culture.