pigs, party secretaries, and private lives in Hungary

Abstract

Studies of the agricultural second economy in Hungary have focused on the role of recent state policies. It will be argued here that the specific character of socialist planning and practice cannot be understood without exploring changes in the form of social value over the last hundred years. This process, the commodification of social life, is also analyzed as the basis of anthropological theories of meaning. An alternative view of social process and nonreferential meaning is offered. [meaning, commodification, work, agriculture, socialism, Hungary]

A Political Ethnography of Rural Communities under an Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Belarus

“…They sometimes explore specific spheres of activity such as consumption (Ragaru and Capelle-Pogăcean, 2010), cultural practices (Yurchak, 2006) such as rock music (Zaytseva, 2008), education (Droit, 2009), inhabited areas (Crowley and Reid, 2002), the relationship with time (Krakovský, 2014) and recreational activities (Giustino et al, 2013). These approaches to the social and political dynamics of Eastern European societies are echoed in the “anthropology of socialism” (Sampson, 1991) documented in areas situated well behind the Iron Curtain, as in Hungary (Hann, 1980; Lampland, 1991; Burawoy and Lukács, 1992), Poland (Hann, 1985; Wedel, 1986), Romania (Kideckel, 1993; Verdery, 1996), Bulgaria (Creed, 1998) and the USSR (Humphrey, 2001 [1983]; Ries, 1997).…”

After Communism: reflections on East European anthropology and the ‘transition’

“…Eventually new leadership structures emerged on the basis of professional qualifications, but here again we are a long way removed from the kind of hierarchies envisaged by totalitarian theories. Even those anthropologists who place more emphasis on the power exercised by the communist party in Hungary have also demonstrated the various ways in which villagers have been able to adapt to it, retaining key elements of their traditional farming practices and their traditional values (Sozan 1983;Lampland 1991).…”

"Your Eyes Are Green like Dollars": Counterfeit Cash, National Substance, and Currency Apartheid in 1990s Russia

“…Toppling statues of Lenin in fits of iconoclastic vandalism did not change the tactics of street commerce overnight, although it brought more market activity closer to the urban centers. I also resist sharply distinguishing "Soviet socialism" from "Western capitalism" in order to stress instead that the Soviet state and those it labeled the "capitalist countries" actually shared cash practices, tropes of economic efficiency, and ideals about civilized, future, cashless Utopias (see also Burawoy 1985;Lampland 1991 Lampland , 1996.Walter Benjamin, in his journal documenting a miserable visit to wintertime Moscow, wrote of a poster in a workers' club that read, "Lenin said, 'Time is money'," and mused on how Lenin had to be evoked to authorize what was taken for a truism back home (1986:47). Still, the flavor of the socialist, Stakhanovite work ethic recalled that of the Protestant variety.…”

“…Toppling statues of Lenin in fits of iconoclastic vandalism did not change the tactics of street commerce overnight, although it brought more market activity closer to the urban centers. I also resist sharply distinguishing "Soviet socialism" from "Western capitalism" in order to stress instead that the Soviet state and those it labeled the "capitalist countries" actually shared cash practices, tropes of economic efficiency, and ideals about civilized, future, cashless Utopias (see also Burawoy 1985;Lampland 1991 Lampland , 1996.…”