Does Repression Politicize Minority Identities or Promote Majority Assimilation – or Both?

Why does literature on identity and repression report seemingly conflicting findings? Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Albania and a century’s worth of data on individual identity choices made by ethnic minorities (1905–2004), this paper develops a new theory that explains how ancestral knowledge of repression can produce dual outcomes of identity transmission. Specifically, the same families may engage simultaneously in practices of cultural maintenance—such as celebrating minority holidays and using their mother tongue—and integration—such as encouraging their children to participate in majority social clubs. This dual process of identity-making, I argue, results in a transnational cultural identity akin to Zahra’s (2011) notion of “national indifference,” wherein both minority and majority cultural markers become salient depending on the political context. To establish these findings, I employ a novel measurement strategy that pairs first names with ancestral data, as well as an additional source of evidence drawn from local cemetery records. Taken together, the theory, empirical results, and innovative methods offer new insights into the mechanisms behind nationalism, identity formation, and cultural adaptation, shedding light on how historically repressive conditions shape both the preservation and transformation of minority identities.