They’re different, but I cannot see how

In the week before the trip, one thing about Plovdiv quickly became very apparent; the population is divided. Not only did this come up in our own class discussions, but people from Bulgaria that visited our class emphasized it too. Bulgaria is a country inhabited by different people and ethnicities; from Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, and Armenian to Roma people. These ethnicities are one of the things in people’s lives that determine social status and economic opportunity, and lay a foundation on which people from certain ethnicities are discriminated or excluded from participating in wider society. As Alex discussed in one of the classes of our first week, this segregation and internalized discrimination became apparent when he, a Bulgarian, reflected on the interactions he has had with Roma people: they were nonexistent. The segregation of ethnicities comes with group membership and corresponding rules for insiders, but thus also has a determining role in social interaction. It regulates not only the way in which people interact with each other, but whether people interact with each other at all.

Besides the Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, and Armenian to Roma people, there are also the visitors, such as our groups of students from Amsterdam and the other (Dutch, English, American, French?) people that stay in our hostel. In the conversations we had prior to the trip to Plovdiv, it also came up how we, as a group, would stand out as non-locals (tourists? travellers?) immediately. To locals, we are yet another category, defined by something that makes us significantly different from them and from the other ethnic groups in Plovdiv.

The categories seem to be defined by signs that signify ethnicity and differentiate between an insider and outsider. As it was emphasized over and over that these signs exist and are very apparent, I was curious to see for myself what they were and what they looked like. Coming from the Netherlands, I am aware of most stereotypes there, I know different ethnic groups, I roughly know signs and what they refer to. During our first few days in Plovdiv, however, signs very clear to others (locals, insiders) were not that clear to me (an outsider) at all.

Where do I look?

Do I look at the diamonds on t-shirts and faux fur on slides of the 20-something hair-straightened flocks walking through the main street? The workers in dusty dungarees, smoking at the side of the road? The tanned men with half undone blouses? The shop-owner’s frowning heavily plucked eyebrows when she looked at my leg hair with a weird look on her face? The tattooed smoker with a big silver chain necklace on the stairs or the dozens of children playing in the park? The eyebrow slits and oversized hoodie of the ‘cool girl’ near the school?

I simply do not know who belongs to what group here. Surely, to locals, a certain kind of appearance says Roma, and another says Turk. I can speculate, but I do not truly know which appearance says what. People look different than I do and, of course, people here do not all look the same. I know differences are seen, felt, and acted upon all around me, but I do not know how to interpret the many social markers around me. Consequently, I could not differentiate between and discriminate certain social groups in the same way as locals, even if I tried to. I can only speculate, but the internalized discrimination as described to exist in Plovdiv works differently for me as I simply do not read cultural markers here. As such, the distinctions between Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, Armenian, and Roma people in Plovdiv are not what defines my experience here. What does is the fact that they all, in some way or another, seem different than I am – both in their and in my eyes.