ABSTRACT
Paul Brass characterizes ethnicity as an identity source that is subjective, symbolic, and emblematic. Both the purpose and the process of Soviet research conducted on ethnicity and nationalism, as with all socio-political sciences within the Soviet academic system, differs dramatically from Western understandings of accepted academic practice. The Soviet experiment with Marxist-Leninist ideology was to provide a solution to the nationalist question. The gendered constructs of identity are consequential because the knowledge assists in explaining the “fraternal” and violent aspect of ethnicity and may relieve/prevent ethnic conflict. Ethnic identity, dissected by gender, demands a “reading of the silences”. Women can be mobilized to violence, but female ethnic violence, when it happens, occurs within and because of dominant power relations and decisions that are male. The female of the ethnic group not only represents the place of male honor but also personifies the weak link in ethnic boundary markers.
