Identity,Identity, Health Health and and Health Health Capital: Capital: TheThe Case Case of of Macedonians Macedonians in in Australia Australia I.C.I.C. Veljanova Veljanova DoctorDoctor of of Philosophy Philosophy 20102010 UniversityUniversity of of Western Western Sydney Sydney IDENTITY, HEALTH AND HEALTH CAPITAL: THE CASE OF MACEDONIANS IN AUSTRALIA By IRENA C. VELJANOVA Doctor of Philosophy University of Western Sydney Sydney, Australia 2010 Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. ................................................................................... (Signature) © Irena C. Veljanova For my father Trajche Blagoj Cholakov (За мојот татко Трајче Благој Чолаков) Contents List of Tables v List of Images/Figures vi Acknowledgements vii Abstract viii Introduction ix CHAPTER I 1. The Matter of Moral Entity: Group Particularity versus Universalist Particularity 2 2. The Drift to Particularity: The Inescapable and the Desired Outcome 3 3. Brief Historical Account of the Macedonian People 4 3.1. Ottoman rule and the Macedonian People 4 3.1.1. The Historical Context 4 3.1.2. The Macedonian Collective 6 3.2. Macedonian people amidst Balkan early 20th century political turbulence and warfare 7 3.2.1. The Historical Context 7 3.2.2. The Macedonian Collective: Homeland Diasporic Existence 8 3.3. Post-WWII history and the Macedonian people 10 3.3.1. The Historical Context 10 3.3.2. The Macedonian Collective 11 3.4. Post-independence history and the Macedonian people 12 3.4.1. Economic hardships 12 3.4.2. Political hardships 13 3.4.2.1. Indefinite temporality: FYROM 13 3.4.2.2. The ‘Orient’ in the Balkans 14 4. The problem of validation of ‘a people’ 16 5. Discussion of the ‘Hard Data’ on Macedonians 17 5.1. The mysterious disappearance of the Macedonians in the Bulgarian Census Data 18 5.2. Macedonians in the Australian Census Data 18 5.2.1. Ethnic Category and measurement techniques 18 5.2.2. Problems with reliability of the available data in accounting for the Macedonian presence in Australia 20 i | Page CHAPTER II 1. Ways of conceptualising ‘a people’: Macedonian nation and/or ethnicity? 26 1.1. Nation as a distinct collective 27 1.1.1. Amid paradoxes: Conceptualising ‘nation’ 27 1.1.1.1. First paradox 27 1.1.1.2. Second paradox 30 1.1.1.3. Third paradox 32 1.1.2. The definition 34 1.2. The relations between ethnicity and nationality 35 1.3. Imagining a nation-Macedonian collective identity 37 2. Genetic Structuralism 42 2.1. Modi Operandi 44 2.2. Genetic structuralism: some theoretical assumptions and concepts 44 2.2.1. Society 44 2.2.2. Fields 45 2.2.3. Capital 46 2.2.4. The locus of genetic structuring-habitus 46 2.2.5. Doxa and the doxic experience 47 2.2.6. Symbolic power and symbolic violence 47 3. Relevance of Bourdieu to the study of the identity and health of Macedonians in Australia 48 3.1. Habitus and ethno-collective 48 3.2. Macedonian ethnocultural field 48 3.3. Further development of the theory of capital 49 CHAPTER III 1. Researching Macedonians living in Australia: The available literature 52 2. Australia via the USA: The beginnings of Macedonian migration to Australia 53 3. Macedonian migration waves and Australia 56 3.1. The first wave 56 3.2. The second wave 56 3.3. The third wave 57 3.4. The fourth wave 57 3.5. The fifth wave 58 4. Fortunes ‘Found’: The Macedonian ethno-collective in a symbolically violent environment in Australia 59 4.1. Macedonian ‘threat’ to Australian universalism 59 4.1.1. The Monopolisation of Monopoly: The Australian Case 59 4.1.2. The Universalisation of Greekness: The Australian Case 62 4.2. Rewriting biographies: In-effect dissociative policies in Australia 65 CHAPTER IV 1. Informing ideologies within the field of health 70 1.1. Pre-Hippocratic Corpus Period 70 1.2. The legacy of the Hippocratic Corpus 71 1.3. Cartesian era: Dualistic solution of the Psycho-physical problem 71 2. Positioning practices of medical dominance 73 2.1. Pre-biotechnology and positioning practices within the field of health 73 2.2. Biotechnology and positioning practices within the field of health 75 2.2.1. The business with disease 76 2.2.2. Reasoning the ‘business with disease’ 78 2.2.2.1. Just Medicine 78 2.2.2.1.1. Medicine and evidence-based medical remedies 79 2.2.2.1.2. Medicine and ethics 80 2.2.2.1.3. The Nocebo effect 80 2.2.2.1.4. Pricing policies and medicines 81 2.2.2.2. Medicine and the Darwinian Left 81 3. Doxic experiences of Health 83 4. Defining health 84 ii | Page CHAPTER V 1. Community participatory research 88 2. Doing community participatory research 89 2.1. Familiarisation with and the establishing of collaborative partnerships 89 2.2. Qualitative stage: Focus groups 90 2.3. Quantitative stage: Australiawide survey 91 2.4. Document Analysis 92 2.5. Post-research collaboration 92 3. Epistemological potential of reflexivity in research 92 3.1. Epistemological potential of reflexivity and my research 93 3.2. Difficulties with bilingual research 94 CHAPTER VI 1. Description of the surveyed population 97 1.1. Migrant Generational Status 99 1.2. Age and Migrant Generational Status 100 1.3. Gender 101 1.4. Adherence to Macedonian ethnic customs 102 1.5. English Language Proficiency 104 2. Feeling and Identifying as Macedonian in Australia 105 2.1. Ethno-Identity Attributes 105 2.2. Genetic structuring of Macedonian-ness 107 2.2.1. Symbolically and affectively differentiated performance ethno-identity attributes 107 2.2.1.1. Communal Activity 107 2.2.1.2. Macedonian Cuisine 108 2.2.1.3. Macedonian Music 109 2.2.1.4. Macedonian Language 109 2.2.1.5. Respecting and following Macedonian customs 110 2.2.1.6. Macedonian Orthodoxy (performance and symbolic) 111 2.2.2. Symbolically and affectively differentiated symbolic ethno-identity attributes 111 2.2.2.1. Macedonian History 111 2.2.3. ‘Factual’, passive ethno-identity attribute 111 2.2.3.1. Ancestry 111 2.2.3.2. Place of birth 112 2.3. Sharing a habitus: Macedonian habitual settings in Australia 113 3. Ethno-collective identity at stake 116 3.1. Exclusive Ethno-belonging 116 3.2. Socialising is OK 118 3.3. Ethno-belonging, communal activity and ‘exemption’ 118 3.4. Inclusiveness and Openness 119 4. Ethno-sanctioning mechanisms 119 4.1. Foods and Sanctioning Mechanisms 120 4.1.1. Embeddedness of eating practices in Macedonian Custom 121 4.1.2. Sanctioning of embodied Macedonian-ness 121 CHAPTER VII 1. Macedonian Folk Medicine: At the turn of the 20 century up until today 133 1.1. The works of the English anthropologist George Frederick Abbott (1874-1947) and Macedonian folk medicine 133 1.2. The works of the Polish anthropologist Joseph Obrebski (1905-1967) and Macedonian folk medicine 136 1.2.1. The Medicine Woman 136 1.2.2. The Holy Woman 137 1.3. Following Obrebski in the Field: 21st century Macedonian Spiritual Healing 137 1.4. Doxic Experiences of Health and Modernisation 138 iii | Page 2. Health Capital Volume of Ethno-Macedonians in Australia 139 2.1. Health capital: objectified state of health 139 2.2. Health Capital: The embodied state 142 2.2.1. Macedonian Traditional Medicine 143 2.2.1.1. Macedonian ‘home made’ cures 145 2.2.1.1.1. ‘Home made’ remedy: caramelised sugar and red wine 146 2.2.1.1.2. ‘Home made’ remedy: Elder flowers 146 2.2.1.1.3. ‘Home made’ remedy: St. John’s Wort 146 2.2.1.1.4. ‘Home made’ remedy: Vinigar 146 2.2.1.1.5. Non-medication therapies: Chiropractice 146 2.2.1.1.6. Non-medication therapies: Cupping 147 2.2.2. Macedonian Spiritual healing 147 2.2.2.1. Macedonian spiritual healing: Basnaritsite in Australia 148 2.2.3. Ethno-Macedonian network and quality of life 149 2.2.4. Beyond the ethno-Macedonian network and quality of life 151 2.2.5. Family and health capital 153 2.2.6. Belief in God’s foreknowledge 155 3. Non-integrative doctors and un-branded medicine 156 3.1. The natural and non-toxic Macedonian ethno-remedies 157 3.2. Macedonian Traditional Medicine vis-à-vis Scientific Medicine 157 3.3. Non-discriminative, efficacy based use of remedies/medicines 157 3.4. Indulging the SMD: ‘I would tell him that I do not practice ethnomedicine’ 158 Conclusion 160 Notes 164 References 175 Appendix list 188 iv| Page List of Tables Table I.1. Estimates of resident population in the Macedonian region in 1912 .....................................7 Table I. 2. List of Macedonian name changes of people and places: Greece 1920s.............................203 Table I.3. Last family meetings of refugee Macedonians from Greece..............................................204 Table I.4. Unsuccessful efforts for gaining entry visas of Macedonians of Greece.............................205 Table VI.1. Sample Size Statistics.........................................................................................................98 Table VI.2. Sample Size Statistics: Migration Generational Status N(mgs)=761...............................100 Table VI.3. Duration of Residence in Australia...................................................................................100 Table VI.4. Sample Size Statistics: Age N(a)=778.............................................................................101 Table VI.5. Pearson Chi-Square at α=.05. Gender..............................................................................102 Table VI.6. Macedonian Customs Adherence.....................................................................................103 Table VI.7. Pearson Chi-Square at α=.05. Macedonian Customs Adherence.....................................103 Table VI.8.