Our questionnaire usually takes around 40 to 60 minutes. It is semi-structured. I am also an anthropologist and we are doing ethnographic research.
Let us start with a couple of priming questions to warm up and get into the field of participation, democratic procedures, or democratizing processes.
When we think about “memory lane”: what is your earliest memory of politics?
My parents divorced when I was very young, so I never actually lived with my father. I did not have any siblings; it was just me and my mother. A couple of years later, when I was 11, my grandmother joined us.
I was ten when the revolution changed the regime in Romania. I was aware of what was happening, to some extent. My mother was really apolitical, so she did not care about politics. We did not talk about politics either.
I remember quite well what was happening the night when the dictator and his wife were shot in Romania on the 22nd of December 1989, but I do not consider that an early personal memory of politics.
I often recall another scene. I was with my mother in a butcher’s shop. I must have been around 14 or 15, still in high school. A group of Gypsy women entered; they were very loud. I do not know how familiar you are with this scene: they were still wearing traditional costumes, and there were five of them, really large women, standing in the middle of the shop.
I was convinced that the Romanian shop owner, the Romanian woman behind the counter, would not serve them because they were Gypsies. I was paying attention, ready to jump in if they experienced discrimination. I was ready to step in.
Actually, I was already at university then, I was a student. And of course, nothing like that happened. However, when I left the shop, I realized my phone had been stolen. My mobile phone was gone, and it was them who had taken it. I went back and made a scene, demanding my phone back.
I was really hoping it was not them, because then what would happen with my activism? Why did I think of intervening and helping someone who ended up stealing from me? But it was them. And my mother could not stop laughing about how idealistic and naive I was, that I kept wanting to help and “save” social groups that, in her words, do not deserve being saved because they are thieves. “They are just gypsies who do not want to work; they live on social help and social assistance, and they just keep stealing,” she said.
And you see, I still remember this, although it happened about 30 years ago. I often think about this scene, and I consider it one of my first moments of realizing that I have political thoughts. It is more than just empathy and wanting to help. It was a very early form of political action in which I made a fool of myself, maybe, but also a moment where I understood that I need to take care of these contradictions.
There are groups that are discriminated against, but they are not “black and white”. They are human beings. So this is my first memory of framing my thoughts and my actions in political terms.
Thank you very much for sharing this. It is very interesting and also intense as a first moment of political engagement.
You already mentioned that it was not only about feelings of empathy, but already something more political. I would love to know more about how you felt at that time. If you reimagine your emotions or affects, you already touched upon it, how did you feel? Maybe your beliefs were a bit shattered, or maybe you were restructuring them. Could you elaborate a bit on that?
Linked to that particular scene?
Well, I often say to my husband and close friends that sociologists have an advantage: we can bear contradictions. We are socialized and taught to integrate contradictory things within one image. It does not need to be black and white. We are patient enough to say there is not only one single solution or one short answer. Things are complicated; there are many sides to a problem.
This is an explanation I am giving you now, I am almost sure I was not able to give such a complex interpretation back then. But I think this is a “zero moment”: a situation where I started learning how difficult things are, and that there is no simple, one sentence explanation or solution to a complicated problem like racism or the relationship between minorities and the majority.
First, I felt like a hero. My first feeling was that of a hero who would jump in and go against the majority, because everyone hates gypsies in my hometown. There are ethnic Hungarians, I am an ethnic Hungarian living in Romania. Hungarians more or less hate Romanians, Romanians hate Hungarians, but they all agree on hating the gypsies.
So I felt that I was one of the very few people who could defend the gypsies. But then I had to deal with being humiliated by my mother, who just kept laughing at me. So I needed to work through that humiliation.
Thank you very much for these elaborations.
Next question: besides voting, what else comes to your mind when you hear the word “politics”? What are the most important political issues or topics for you?
Nowadays or in my past?
You can also make a memory lane and describe how it developed over time.
I have another memory. When I was in ninth grade, I was not very popular in my class. That caused quite deep suffering. I was longing for good friendships, but I just could not find them in my class.
In the early and mid 1990s in Romania, there was quite a lot of poverty, and the transition did not bring what we had hoped for. That happens often.
I think it was in 1996 when the old fashioned communist or post communist politician Iliescu participated in the elections together with a pro European politician, a researcher, Constantinescu. Everyone around me hoped that Constantinescu, the pro European, would win.
I remember having this feeling, I do not even know exactly what bothered me. I had doubts that he would bring us the “land of promises”. I remember having a heated discussion with a classmate who thought I was obviously supporting that old communist, that I wanted to preserve his power, while everyone knew the pro European guy was “the one”.
It turned out that the pro European guy was not good. He was elected, but he brought a very harsh version of neoliberalism to Romania: even more suffering, more poverty, more inequalities. Politically he was not able to contain corruption either. So he proved not to be a very good leader.
Afterwards I realized that I must have some kind of sense which I often cannot verbalize or define. I cannot always say exactly what I feel, but I do have a talent to judge not people, but political offers, political programs. I have an affinity for that.
So this is another memory.
Nowadays, my biggest political problem is that while I think I know some of the adequate answers that should be given to our current political problems, globally or at least in Europe, I do not see any political power that would take up this role and commit to doing the right thing.
These are not ideas I came up with myself. They are ideas I read, ideas I consider to be the best answers. I know the world is complicated, but I think we should at least take first steps on that path.
From tiny examples to larger, world level examples of how these problems should be tackled, I do not see any political actors taking them up.
For example, in my hometown, where I travel a lot, or even in {city name}, we are suffering because of the traffic, there are too many cars. Specialists keep saying that giving up cars is the only solution, not enlarging streets, not building more roads for cars, but giving up cars.
I feel so isolated. The few people around me and I know that adding 20 minutes to your journey, taking the bus or cycling, is not such a big sacrifice. We should support our mayor, who keeps separating bike lanes, because that is the future. There is no other solution.
And this is just a tiny problem compared to ecological problems and the rise of the far right. I pretend I know, or I think I know, the solutions: state redistribution. But while I keep looking for trustworthy political parties or representatives with such an agenda, I am not able to find them. This gives me a powerful feeling of hopelessness.
Besides voting, politics means what, for you? You mentioned disillusionment, how would you frame what politics is when you think about it?
It is our communities’ shared problems that require engagement. It is time for my involvement, even though I am not the ideal person to participate in politics. I am not “good at politics” as a personality type.
But crises can be so deep that even my participation is required.
So politics, for me, is all the topics from parenting to ecology. It is not just political parties. It is activism, activism of researchers, mothers, all social actors.
And politics is also about not forgetting how to participate. I am aware we are often useless or helpless; our activity does not really have an impact. But we must not forget what it entails to be an active citizen. For that, we need constant practice. We need to organize our workplace, organize, participate.
At some point this nightmare will end. And then we will need to know how to make communities work. We will need these skills and this knowledge.
That is a very interesting point.
You gave me the perfect hint for the next question: how would you describe your own involvement in politics over the course of your life? You already touched on it nicely, but maybe you can add a few things.
I think I kept hoping that politics would work without me, because I am really happy being a researcher and a university teacher. These are the two things that make me the happiest. And being a mother is also very time demanding.
Once, while I was a student, there was an internship offered by the Hungarian party working in Romania. I could have joined the party, not as a member but through an internship program, hoping that I might build a career in politics.
I was there for about two weeks and realized that is not a field for me. As a professional politician, there is not much room for what you personally believe in. You need to be loyal and defend whatever the party tells you to defend, and fight for whatever the party tells you to fight for. Giving up that freedom is not something I would wish for.
So the decades passed. I got married, and I tried to build a research career as a woman in sociology. In Romania that is really difficult; it is much easier here in Hungary. Time passed, and after I joined this research institute in Hungary, I ended up in a small group that is very active politically. This was my first encounter with people who, while working as researchers, dedicate a significant amount of time to their communities as trade union members and leaders.
This amazed me. They are much younger than me, and I keep being surprised by their commitment, and by the contradiction of doing something that seems completely hopeless.
Yet they still do all the small, tedious work: writing emails, trying to convince people to join the union, making sure an organization works. That is a huge amount of work.
This experience made me feel guilty for not joining them, but I did not really join them. I started our shared activism back in Romania, because my heart is still there. I am a poor migrant in that sense; I did not enjoy moving here and I did not want to move. I am in love with Romania, that is my home country, that is where my heart lives. So we started doing something there with my friends.
Now we are shifting to the theme of political engagement over time.
What kinds of political or civic actions have you taken in your life that were not about voting? Public actions like protests, but also quieter actions like conversations, helping neighbors, or community communication. I think trade union membership is also an action like that. Can you tell me more about these actions?
I remember when I was a student, we had a course on political sociology. Each year we had a small research exercise. I remember a scale that went from participating in a street demonstration to being a member of a political party. While I was a student, I always felt this was far from me. I thought I would never go to a protest, never sign a petition. I could not remember ever doing anything beyond trying to “save” the Gypsy women who ended up stealing my phone.
So as a student I thought: never in my lifetime would I join something like that.
Things turned out differently. It started in 2010, when I moved to Hungary and the Orban regime began. We were aware this would not be an easy period; he had already given signs that he was drawn to autocracy.
I was pregnant with my son, in the 40th week, just about to give birth, and I had just got my driver’s license. My first car trip as a driver, while pregnant, was to a protest. So I participated in protests here in {city name}. I signed petitions, I do not remember writing one, but I signed them.
Last year was my most active form of participation, when I founded that movement back in Romania.
You already mentioned this, but can you think of a time when you became more active or outspoken politically? You said 2010.
Yes, 2010.
And from then?
From 2010 to 2023, my main “activity” was reading the news and becoming more and more desperate, and talking a lot about politics. In my environment there are people who are very knowledgeable about politics, so I have partners to talk to.
I often say this partly jokingly, but it is not really a joke: my husband is very interested in politics, so whenever something comes up that I might miss, he brings me back to politics. I remember one morning: both kids were young, I was half asleep, making coffee, and he came home from jogging and told me that Trump had been elected. That was one moment when I was not paying enough attention, and he pulled me back into politics.
So I talk a lot about politics. But activism came with my job here in {city name}, and with last year’s active participation in this movement.
Have there been moments when your political involvement slowed down or changed direction? Maybe because of life circumstances, burnout, disillusionment, or something else?
No. My political activism is really young, so it has not had enough time to “burn out”. I have been active for about a year now, so there has not been a period where I skipped it.