Since ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity characterizes the great majority of countries in the world, adequately managing these phenomena is a serious challenge almost everywhere. Little wonder that the general public, the political arena as well as the academia also show a growing interest in understanding diversity issues and possible social, economic and political outcomes. My paper aims to contribute to this topic by its quantitative methodology.
The novelty of the study originates in the approach that diversification is interpreted as a dynamic process which can change not only in its ‘extent’ but also in its ‘direction’, moreover, the dimensions of diversities (in this study: ethnicity and language) can be ‘layered’ on one another. From this viewpoint, the Baltic region – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – can be considered a perfect area for investigation, since it allows for the simultaneous study of different ideal types of multiethnicity and multilingualism: ‘old’ diversities with the ‘new’ ones; highly fragmented ethnic compositions along with polarized ones.
The aims of the paper can be summarized as follows: (1) propose a new methodological framework for modeling the dynamics of ethnic and/or linguistic diversification, a notion implying all possible alterations, either heterogenization or homogenization, (2) analyze temporal (1989 – 2011) and spatial patterns of ethnic and/or linguistic diversification, i.e. typify and classify settlements in the Baltic region where different ‘subtypes’ of diversity and different ‘directions’ of its change have typically been emerging since the regained independence; (3) elucidate the main causes and circumstances of these alterations.
The field of research is three European countries where surmounting ethnic fault lines and the successful integration of minority groups (first of all, the Russian minority) today rank first on the agenda of national strategies. In the face of current conflict in Ukraine, the relevance of the topic can, perhaps, hardly be doubted.
The research is supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office – NKFIH, PD 115951.
