Final Report Summary - WOGYMARKET (Workers, Gypsies, and the Market: The Anthropology of New Fascism in Eastern Europe)
The research goal of the project Marie Curie Actions Project, International Outgoing Fellowships for Career Development (IOF) Workers, Gypsies, and the Market: The Anthropology of New Fascism in Eastern Europe has been to conceptualize new patterns of politics that in post-communist part of European Union emerge as new fascism. The research has benefited from an innovative perspective on the topic of social and political movement, combining the approach of US tradition of cultural anthropology with the original training of the researcher in European (British) social anthropology and in political science. The major goal to acquire and utilize new knowledge has been successfully achieved.
The project concludes that since the enlargement of European Union in 2004 in countries of Central and Eastern Europe – in the project especially Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia -- have been developing patterns of reactionary politics growing out of what is characterized as post-peasant populism. The bulk of citizens who are connected to the countryside and feel that real power in society shall be defined and based there makes good sense of life in technologically and institutionally advanced European Union along with process of reactionary radicalization. The key for understanding this politics, especially of the growth of its extreme form analytically defined as ‘village fascism’, must be analyzed particularly in relation to legacy of socialist modernization and specific effects of ‘great transformation’ under EU integration, while using tools of social and cultural analysis.
After successful data analysis, conceptualizations of theories, and several stages of manuscript preparations, the monograph is going to be submitted for publication. The submission date and form is negotiated with the renowned publisher. The book will serve as the key fulfillment of the requirement for advancing into the position of full professor of social anthropology at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. The goal to proceed with prepartions of researcher's career development has been succesfully achieved.
Articles in leading journals and edited volumes have been submitted and/or are under review (see the dissemination list below). Several other academic and non-academic texts have been prepared, submitted and/or published that are either after review process or in the non-academic presses.
The researcher learned about the organization of studies in US universities with particular focus on cultural anthropology, applying his acquired expertise in research (economy, anthropology of globalization and social movements etc.) and educational (political anthropology and cultural economy) processes. Syllabus improvements, particularly in the course Anthropology of Politics have been made and teaching begun immediately after the beginning of returning phase. New syllabus on cultural economy has been prepared and is ready to be introduced to the class.
The researcher used the opportunity and presented his findings at conferences and other academic meetings. The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Annual Conference that took place in November 2015 in Philadelphia, PA. Other conferences included 16th Czech Studies Workshop at National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The researcher gave a lecture at Grinnell College, Liberal Arts College in Iowa, and at Graduate Conference at Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The academic climax of his stay in SUNY Binghamton University was the orgnization of workshop „Is Contemporary Europe moving towards Fascism?” (co-organized with Douglas Holmes in 6. Apríl 2016). He has also had a chance to present his findings at The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES-MAG) Summer Convention that took place in June 2017 at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, Biannual conference of European Association of Social Anthropology in Milano (20.-23. 7. 2016). The researcher also begun to participate in the project Rooms for Maneuver in State Socialism: Between Adaptation and Experiment led by Uniwersytet Warszawski and Universität Siegen and as a principal investigator he leads the Slovak Research and Development Agency Project “The Anthropology of Exclusion and Integration: Slovakia in the Context of European Transformations“. Both of the projects are particularly related to the theme of the MCA-IOF project. The researcher also presented his findings at AGH Krakow, Poland and at 2016 Annual Convention of The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies in Washigton, DC, USA. The presentation at conferences ‘Transnationalization of the Far Right: the Case of Interwar and Present-Day Europe‘ in Vienna, Austria and ‘Populism in Theory: Towards an Anthropological Frame’ at University of Barcelona were also part of dissemination activities.
In collaboration with Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, an independent policy think-tank, the researcher organized in December 2016 the conference at the incoming Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences ‘Border Memory and Security: What and How Shall We Commemorate at Schengen Frontier?’ Additionally, the researcher took part in several other academic as well as policy events throughout the year, published a policy paper on extremism in Slovakia and various articles in periodic press.
Juraj Buzalka, Associate Professor, Institute of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynské luhy 4, 821 05 Bratislava, Slovakia, E-mail: buzalka@fses.uniba.sk
The project concludes that since the enlargement of European Union in 2004 in countries of Central and Eastern Europe – in the project especially Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia -- have been developing patterns of reactionary politics growing out of what is characterized as post-peasant populism. The bulk of citizens who are connected to the countryside and feel that real power in society shall be defined and based there makes good sense of life in technologically and institutionally advanced European Union along with process of reactionary radicalization. The key for understanding this politics, especially of the growth of its extreme form analytically defined as ‘village fascism’, must be analyzed particularly in relation to legacy of socialist modernization and specific effects of ‘great transformation’ under EU integration, while using tools of social and cultural analysis.
After successful data analysis, conceptualizations of theories, and several stages of manuscript preparations, the monograph is going to be submitted for publication. The submission date and form is negotiated with the renowned publisher. The book will serve as the key fulfillment of the requirement for advancing into the position of full professor of social anthropology at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. The goal to proceed with prepartions of researcher's career development has been succesfully achieved.
Articles in leading journals and edited volumes have been submitted and/or are under review (see the dissemination list below). Several other academic and non-academic texts have been prepared, submitted and/or published that are either after review process or in the non-academic presses.
The researcher learned about the organization of studies in US universities with particular focus on cultural anthropology, applying his acquired expertise in research (economy, anthropology of globalization and social movements etc.) and educational (political anthropology and cultural economy) processes. Syllabus improvements, particularly in the course Anthropology of Politics have been made and teaching begun immediately after the beginning of returning phase. New syllabus on cultural economy has been prepared and is ready to be introduced to the class.
The researcher used the opportunity and presented his findings at conferences and other academic meetings. The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Annual Conference that took place in November 2015 in Philadelphia, PA. Other conferences included 16th Czech Studies Workshop at National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The researcher gave a lecture at Grinnell College, Liberal Arts College in Iowa, and at Graduate Conference at Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The academic climax of his stay in SUNY Binghamton University was the orgnization of workshop „Is Contemporary Europe moving towards Fascism?” (co-organized with Douglas Holmes in 6. Apríl 2016). He has also had a chance to present his findings at The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES-MAG) Summer Convention that took place in June 2017 at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, Biannual conference of European Association of Social Anthropology in Milano (20.-23. 7. 2016). The researcher also begun to participate in the project Rooms for Maneuver in State Socialism: Between Adaptation and Experiment led by Uniwersytet Warszawski and Universität Siegen and as a principal investigator he leads the Slovak Research and Development Agency Project “The Anthropology of Exclusion and Integration: Slovakia in the Context of European Transformations“. Both of the projects are particularly related to the theme of the MCA-IOF project. The researcher also presented his findings at AGH Krakow, Poland and at 2016 Annual Convention of The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies in Washigton, DC, USA. The presentation at conferences ‘Transnationalization of the Far Right: the Case of Interwar and Present-Day Europe‘ in Vienna, Austria and ‘Populism in Theory: Towards an Anthropological Frame’ at University of Barcelona were also part of dissemination activities.
In collaboration with Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, an independent policy think-tank, the researcher organized in December 2016 the conference at the incoming Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences ‘Border Memory and Security: What and How Shall We Commemorate at Schengen Frontier?’ Additionally, the researcher took part in several other academic as well as policy events throughout the year, published a policy paper on extremism in Slovakia and various articles in periodic press.
Juraj Buzalka, Associate Professor, Institute of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynské luhy 4, 821 05 Bratislava, Slovakia, E-mail: buzalka@fses.uniba.sk