Rola emocji w tworzeniu przynależności etnicznej

The article points to the significance of emotion and nostalgia for the place of origin, which is passed on from generation to generation, in reinterpreting group identity within caste-based communities of the Konkani-speaking people in Kochi, South India. Konkanis came to Kochi from Goa in the sixteenth century. When they settled in Kochi, they established traditional communities localised around their temples. Nowadays, through formal and intentional actions of activists belonging to the Konkanis, the concept of their own identity has changed from understanding it on a local level — as a community of people they know from direct, everyday interactions to seeing it as an imagined community of people associated with Goa and speaking the Konkani language. On the one hand, these actions are based on an imaginary past and an alleged connection with the place which they came from five hundred years ago; on the other hand, they constitute an attempt to regain respect and social status among the local Malayalees, with whom Konkanis never fully assimilated. Emotions associated with the past are re-evoked, re-lived and internalized. They have a double function. Firstly, they serve as a strategy for achieving certain political objectives, that is, having the Konkani speaking people recognized as significant political actors. Secondly, they help determine what is important for the community. Understanding the nature of these intergroup relations as well as identity issues turns out to be possible by drawing on the emotional landscape in the field of research.