What kinds of platforms, technologies or tools have you used to engage politically, regarding the pandemic, but also daily life, digital platforms?
I think one beneficial effect of Covid is that digital platforms became more familiar. In our organization, an informal organization we are starting to formalize as an association, we constantly use Zoom. We have plenary Zoom meetings every two weeks; people join from different towns and different countries.
We also have a Slack channel. We organize ourselves in thematic Slack groups.
For instance, I am engaged in a working group for public or participatory sociology, and we have a Slack channel for that. I like Slack because it is more open: everyone in the movement can enter any channel, see what we are doing, and leave. It is not like a closed WhatsApp group. Of course, it is closed to those outside the platform, but inside, it is open. So we use these tools.
Are there in person spaces or informal networks that have been especially important for your political activity?
Yes, of course. I think political activism happens to a great degree through informal channels and informal networks. But we try to formalize this, because informality makes it less accessible for outsiders. That is why we think things should be constantly formalized somehow, not necessarily bureaucratized, but made transparent and accountable.
Many important things happen informally, but it is better not to keep everything too informal if you want to develop something sustainable.
This is a constant problem. Even in formal party structures, many things happen informally. In Romanian political culture, informality plays a big role, and I do not think that is very beneficial if there is not a constant move towards formalization, making things transparent and accountable. Informality is always unaccountable. That is a problem. It is more flexible and less bureaucratic, which is great, but also unaccountable and intransparent.
That is a constant problem with politics: it has these two faces.
Also for organizations, non profits or civil society, this is an issue: you want to remain informal, but at some point you need structures to attract funding and donors.
Right. But I think informality does not mean more democratic decision making. It is not more democratic if it is informal. On the contrary, it is less democratic if some informal channels are kept constantly, because they are not accessible or accountable to outsiders. And anyone not in the core group can be an outsider.
In terms of online or offline engagement: have you been involved in forms of activism that combine online and in person elements? There are groups that exist because they are online. What is your take or experience?
Our experience is that online should be kept because it can be translocal. But we try to make more and more offline events and meetings. We organize offline meetings in different localities and many offline events.
I think the two should go in parallel. You cannot build a community only through online tools, but online should definitely be kept. Only online does not work, personal, in person contact is needed.
Especially when you debate or discuss things.
Right. The dynamic is totally different. It is a bit annoying, also in my professional life, that investigations and research become more and more online, and offline research has become very costly. We do not do online surveys, but at least telephone surveys. Before Covid, we did a lot of face to face representative surveys in Romania. Now the prices for face to face are too high, so we decided to make telephone surveys, not online, because online is not representative.
We kept offline focus groups next to the surveys, and of course field research and interviews. We try to combine these elements and also use social media analysis, Facebook and Meta applications, to investigate political opinions and currents. Social media is very useful, but we must keep offline tools too. Online is not the whole social reality, although it is helpful.
So in both political activism and research, you have to go with offline and online in parallel, very strictly.
When you have these three different interfaces, digital, face to face, and institutional, how do they shape your sense of what it means to be politically active? Do they make participation feel easier, riskier, more personal, more distant, more harmful?
I try to be very cautious with online participation, because at the end of the day it is similar: if I make mistakes or do crazy things on an online platform, it harms me, even if I do not feel it immediately.
In face to face communication, if you do something wrong or hurt a person, you feel it right away. You may not feel that in an online platform, but your personality and your public personality will be harmed if you do crazy things online, because it is easier to do so.
I try to be very cautious in online political participation. I use Facebook for communicating, but very carefully. I am not very engaged in comments; if I am, then in a planned and calculated manner, not just spontaneously.
You are right. And even liking things, I do not have Instagram, for example. I have TikTok though.
Neither do I. I have a TikTok account because I investigated what happened during presidential elections on TikTok in Romania, but it is not for me.
It is not our generation, but I have a TikTok account and it somehow helped me during Covid. I felt it connected me, everyone was going through similar things. But I am surprised how people comment, and you have to be careful what you like.
People forget that because it is so easily accessible.
For sure.
It is a public space.
Even though it seems to be private, it is not.
What kinds of relationships or communities have grown out of your political involvement?
Also, since we are now talking about political subjectivity, emotions and meaning: has participating in political action affected your understanding of yourself? Do you identify with a movement or political identity now in a way you did not before?
To respond to the first question, the movement, and for sure friendships.
And I think I have an answer for the second question. We operate on democratic principles, on deliberative and basic democracy. We try to make each decision through deliberation. That affected me. I realized I have to be less vehement in deliberation processes and, in some instances, leave others to speak.
I think I became better at listening to people. This is part of a more complex process that also comes from my research with members of vulnerable communities. But trying to build a democratic movement also helped me listen more, take into account status differences inside the group, try to be balanced, and make the deliberative space as equal as possible.
That had a robust effect on how I perceived myself.
How would you describe a moment when your political engagement felt especially meaningful, or especially frustrating?
Especially meaningful: at the second round of the presidential elections, when the far right candidate ultimately lost.
I participated on a YouTube channel with a very high audience as an analyst. That was a great moment.
A frustrating moment: I participated in a debate with the official speaker of a Transylvanian Hungarian ethnic party.
It was an open online and offline debate. It was very frustrating because he was not engaged in deliberation at all; he behaved in a very populist manner.
I was unprepared for that debate as a social scientist trying to deliberate. I did not realize it was not about deliberation, but about winning more supporters for his party and himself. That was very frustrating.