Narrative boundaries and the dynamics of ethnic conflict and conciliation

Abstract Fiercely competing identity narratives provide the foundation for what often appear to be intractable ethnic conflicts. This article considers how an ethnically mixed group from the region of Istria, a site of violence between Italians and Slavs in the first half of the 1900s, has overcome persisting conflict through changes in their original identity narratives. I employ the network representation of life-stories to examine the relations among abstract elements located within the conceptual boundary between the narratives of Italian and Yugoslav Istrians who meet in New York. With their countervailing ties, boundary elements act as bridges to otherwise unconnected narratives. Their bridging ties transform the meaning of boundary elements, while their multiple ties to their original narratives open up opportunities for importing new meaning into existing narrative structures.

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