Can you think of a time when you became more active or outspoken politically?
Yes, this five year period. And especially in the last year, when we saw far right populism rising, we established a movement, the Movement for a More Equal Transylvania. That was a major turning point. Now I try to help sustain and run this expert and activist movement.
Were there any idols, actions, or persons that influenced or inspired you?
A lot. In anti-racism, for instance, Frantz Fanon is one of my idols, with his concept of the colonized subject, the internalization of the dominant perspective.
He is the first that comes to mind, but there are others.
Have there been moments when your political involvement slowed down or changed direction?
It fluctuates, of course, because I also have to do my academic work. I work as a researcher. For instance, now we are conducting a large scale representative survey on politics, on why this right wing party is supported in Romania. We are conducting focus group interviews throughout the country.
This is more my academic part. When I have such projects, I have to slow down political activism.
Fortunately, the two are interconnected: the results of this publicly funded research will also be used to modify the political agenda in an activist way.
As for changes: there was a period when minority rights advocacy was my primary way of making politics, along with making public policy proposals. For example, I wrote a long public policy paper on Roma inclusion.
That was clearly a policy paper, not civic or political activism. Now I have discovered more and more direct political activism.
Do you sometimes think activism hinders your academic work? I know from my own research that this discourse has changed over time, especially in anthropology, with involved or engaged anthropology, applied anthropology, participatory approaches.
Participatory research, yes. I do not think these are in opposition. It depends on how you perceive your scientific activity. Earlier in my career I was influenced by Max Weber, who thought politics and social science were different things. But now I do not see opposition between these directions.
I have never seen myself as a researcher in an ivory tower. I do research to make society function better. In this sense, I do not see an opposition between these aspirations.
I also think I can separate describing society from what I think should be done. I hope my convictions do not influence what I see as reality in society. I do not want wishful thinking when I conduct research. I hope I do not make that mistake.
Without this engagement I think I would lose my interest in conducting research, or my “why”.
And I think if one reflects on their own positionality constantly then it is not a problem. I think it is important that we are engaged, otherwise.
Absolutely. And on the other hand, we are engaged even if we do not recognize that we are engaged.
True. We already touched on the Covid era, but I still have some questions, because the project revolves around the pandemic, from 2019 onwards.
We do not consider Covid the only catalyst or reason why things developed, but it created turning points.
Would you say the Covid 19 pandemic changed how you thought about what counts as political or how you participate?
I think I already answered this: indirectly, because it was a cause of the rise of right wing, far right populism, a kind of post fascism in Romania. Then I felt that I must be more engaged in activism. I cannot wait until post fascist, far right populists become the governing force of my country.
But not directly because of Covid. During Covid, especially the second part, after the vaccine, I did a lot of field research. I did not stay in my office, as it was “compulsory”, at least not after the vaccine.
Would you say Covid made you more connected or more isolated?
Paradoxically, more connected. For a period, it also slowed me down, which was great at that moment, because the year before Covid I was close to burnout.
That slowdown was fantastic for me.
It allowed me to reconceptualize my vision of how research should be done and to rethink what I want to do with my professional career.
In my case, paradoxically, it was positive. But more generally, in Romania it had devastating consequences for less privileged strata.
Since our project is called “Interfaces”, we are interested in new interfaces, especially in this period. Would you say that during that time you saw politics in new places, like healthcare, work, or schools? Did things become more political, become new “interfaces” of politics?
For example, in Germany or Switzerland, inequalities became visible through digital schooling: everything moved online, but some children did not have access to a computer, a tablet or stable internet. Or in healthcare, people were more exposed through their work. Did you see something similar, politics appearing in new places, or inequalities becoming more visible, more politicized?
Do you mean how Covid changed things concerning inequalities, or how politics appeared, how things became less consensual?
From the second perspective, yes. Educational inequalities increased, for sure. There were huge differences, also because of different levels of digital competence in different social segments. Schools and segments of society had very different capacities to deal with education moving onto digital platforms.
As for things becoming more politicized: maybe in the sense that some issues that were previously consensual became less consensual and turned into matters of political debate. That means a collapse of a certain consensus or hegemony.
In Romania, I think there was a consensus about the direction in which society should develop, basically a neoliberal and pro European consensus. This collapsed in the post Covid period. When such a consensus collapses, issues that were not politicized become politicized and debated. In that respect, yes, Covid had an effect, as an indirect cause.
Great answer. Were there other events, local, national, or global, that shifted your political focus or involvement?
Yes. The war in Ukraine, definitely.
More generally, this new far right hegemony is developing in Eastern Europe, the Eastern European periphery: beginning with Orban’s Hungary, then similar developments in Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania, which is currently an outlier, but moving in that direction.
This new and dangerous far right or post fascist hegemony, and the need for more organized resistance against it, is the more general turning point. It is not one moment, but an ongoing process. It is not unidirectional, for instance, in Hungary there is hope that Orban will lose the elections, but overall, the process in the region is moving in that direction.
I recall from my last interview that Simona said she somehow misses political representation of her ideas. Would you agree?
Of course, unfortunately. My ideas are not represented in the Romanian Parliament. There are extra parliamentary groups, but not even one party that can function in the political arena right now.
Progressive or left wing forces that would represent my ideals are very fragmented. These are pre-political or pre-party political groups in this phase, in Romania and basically throughout Eastern Europe.