Abstract
This article shows how collective, public, cultural acts, such as ritual reenactment and virtual discussions about traditional rituals on social media, can enact political subjectivity. The case study concerns the Pomaks, an ethnoreligious minority that is not officially recognized as such in contemporary Bulgaria. Pomaks’ stage performances of a particular moment of their traditional wedding ritual evoke their collective memory of a traumatic past, in which they were prevented from practicing this and other rituals that mark them as culturally distinctive. The goal of Pomak activists is counterhegemonic and transvaluative, aiming to have their group accepted on equal footing with the dominant group. Using the wedding ritual as proof of a historical link, Pomaks have connected with other Slavic speaking Muslims in the Balkans, enacting their belonging in new ways. Their acts on stage and online create a new identity/subjectivity that breaks with the officially accepted story of their culture and origins.
Keywords: enactment, counter-hegemony, Pomaks, Bulgarian Muslims, wedding ritual
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