Mantener las raíces y costumbres de nuestros antepasados: las ceremonias conmemorativas lituanas en la construcción de identidad étnica

Abstract

This paper is part of a broader research focused on the memory and representations ofthe past in the Lithuanian Community. It intends to demonstrate that the past constitutes a privileged symbolic domain for the construction and reconstruction of identity as well as sense of belonging based in a common origin. Specifically in this work we analyze how the Lithuanian ethnic associations take part in the construction of an ethnic identity from the appropriation of certain memories and speeches, understood like cultural diacritics. We study which "framed" interpretation arises from the Lithuanian ethnic institutions through the commemorative ceremonies that take place there, that is to say, the ritualistic practices through which the Lithuanian community evokes a selected past to recreate a sense of belonging. Therefore, this paper intends to contribute to the migration studies analizyng different topics at the same time, such as ethnicity, identity, memory, uses of the past, incorporating specifically the notion of ritual in its commemorative variant.