Minority Ethnic Identity and Discrimination Experience in a Context of Social Transformations

Social transformation is always a diverse and ubiquitous process. In Lithuania social changes were related with gaining independence after a long period of occupation, when a lot of people experienced various traumatic events. Changes in the social context raises a lot of questions about ethnic identities, particularly in minority groups. These people experience various challenges: change of national language, political views and sometimes have to cope with discrimination experience as well. To explore these themes we conducted qualitative research. Objective: to analyse how minority groups reveal their ethnic identity, experience and cope with ethnic discrimination in the context of social transformations. Research participants: 60 Lithuanian citizens from ethnic minority groups: 30 participants of Jewish nationality and 30 of Polish nationality. Research methods: Semi-structured interview: 10 main open questions about ethnic identity, discrimination experience in context of social transformations. Thematic analysis was used for narrative data analysis. Results: Social transformations brought more freedom, particularly freedom to speak. With that minority groups claim that in independent Lithuania they experience more open discrimination mostly from politics and anonymous comments on the Internet. Polish minority participants tend to show their ethnic identity, but worry that discrimination can influence their social achievements. Though participants of Jews nationality sometimes fear to reveal their ethnic identity because of threats to health and life. These differences can be related with the experience of historical discrimination. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.