Abstrakt:
Sociology of knowledge does not enjoy, as a matter of fact, any good opinion. Sociologists
are discouraged and annoyed by its associations with philosophy, whereas philosophers blame it
for "empiricism" and "discarding" character. That is why it may seem not to be a suitable
theoretical instrument for the study of the ethnicity. My thesis, which I try to plead here is, that
sociology of knowledge may be quite useful in those studies. I am going support it by the
following arguments:
1. Theoretical pluralism requires a broad and differential knowledge;
2. Sociology of knowledge seems to be useful when there are difficulties in penetrating
a group from inside;
3. Sociology of knowledge is a suitable method for historical research on groups for which
only documents (in a broad sense) are left.
The paradigm presented here and the type of analysis connected with it would be liminted to
the study of discourse. That is why I am suggesting to refer to two traditions: the continuation
of the theory of Karl Mannheim and to structuralism (and post-structuralism). The concept
central to the paradigm which is at ще same time the central concept for the theory of ethnicity
is the notion of the Alien. Axiomatic are then the theories of the Alien created by Georg Simmel
and Zygmunt Bauman, which include the statements concerning self-confirmation and self-
-abrogation of the strangeness.
The main motifs distinguished in the discussed discourse (without any claims for the list to be full)
are: defining and protecting of the group's social boundaries, its relations with the dominating group,
identity both referring to the individual and the group, history, mythical narratives, the role of cultural
heroes, rhetorics of food. Other things that should be taked into consideration are: similarity of the
studied text to other texts constructed beyond the group, convergence of their concepts and aesthetics
as well as the "types of truth, i.e. reliability of the text".
