Were there moments when you felt excluded from political or public processes? And moments when you felt particularly included?
As a sociologist with strong leftist ideas and beliefs, I keep feeling excluded from political life, because I feel no one represents me. There is no genuine left political actor, neither in Romania nor in Hungary. That is one side.
On the other side, I feel really included by the group with whom we founded the movement.
Now to Covid and other turning points. Covid had a huge impact on our lives and on politics, and our project looks specifically at the pandemic and post pandemic developments.
Do you think the Covid pandemic changed how you thought about what counts as political, or how you participate? Digital platforms and fora became new ways of engaging with politics, especially for younger generations. Did that change anything for you?
Yes, it did have an impact, but not because of technology itself. As a researcher, I was among the few who already knew Zoom; it was not new for me in the pandemic. I remember helping colleagues with written instructions on how to use Zoom, because we had already used it for previous projects and meetings.
So technology itself did not change much for me. What changed was being faced with inequality.
I was already aware of how unequal our societies are, both Hungarian and Romanian. But I remember reading a statistic that in Romania, only 20 percent of those who kept their jobs were able to work from home. Our feeling was that everyone was forced to stay within four walls, working from home. But it turned out that 80 percent of those still working were doing it at their workplaces, being compelled to face the virus, even risking death.
That showed me how limited our impressions are, how much we fail to see beyond our own entourage.
Another thing was how unequal the impact of Covid was. In Hungary, for example, the government refused to extend unemployment benefits from three months, already the shortest period in the EU, even in the context of the pandemic.
So it was a period when I experienced strongly how unjust the pandemic was.
We also did research with my colleagues in {city name}. Romania was a laggard in taking up the vaccine; a large segment of the population resisted and did not want to get vaccinated. We ran a survey to understand why. It turned out it was not primarily about education. It was about the lack of confidence and trust in state institutions. How deprived and unequal must a society be for a large part of the population to say: “I do not trust you enough to take the vaccine”?
I think Covid was a catalyst for my political activism, in the sense of realizing there is no political will and no political action that really wants to address these problems.
Did you see politics in new places, such as health care, work, or schools? Did the pandemic change how you defined politics?
No. My mindset had already included all fields of social life within the terrain of politics. From that point of view, there was no shift related to the pandemic.
Were there other events, local, national, or global, that shifted your political focus or involvement? Events that felt similar to or different from the pandemic in terms of impact?
No, I could not recall anything beyond the ones I already mentioned.
Since our project is about interfaces, we now move from turning points to spaces and infrastructures.
What kinds of platforms, technologies, or tools have you used to engage politically?
I often join the groups I am a member of online. Most of the time I am in {city name}, so this is how I participate.
Do you join digitally or in person?
Digitally, online.
Would you say that Covid made it more acceptable to meet online, even for politics?
Yes. From this perspective, Covid probably made things easier. I was already familiar with these platforms, but the fact that it is now much more acceptable to meet online, not just in one physical room, is probably something Covid contributed to.
Are there in person spaces or informal networks that have been especially important for you and your political activities?
Yes. There are very concrete people. For example, there is an online show in Hungary called Partizan. It is a YouTube platform with interviews and thematic episodes on political issues. The person who founded it is someone I respect a lot. He is clearly a leftist and often underlines his beliefs, but he managed to become very popular and respected across political parties and opinions. He is one of the people I look up to.
Then there is the mayor of {city name}, another figure I strongly support. And I have some friends back in {city name}.
I also thought about the group you joined and the trade union, that is also an important network, I guess.
Yes.
Have you been involved in forms of activism that blend online and in person elements? How do those hybrid forms compare to purely online or purely in person engagement?
When my friends and colleagues from {city name}, most of them social scientists, wrote to me last October, they said they would have an in person event one weekend in November and wanted me to join. I replied that I could not be there in person. They were disappointed, and I came up with the idea of joining online.
It was my idea. I think I was the only one online; all the others, about 40 people, were in the same room. I joined via Zoom, and my contribution was really valued. I received several very positive comments about what I had said. The geographical distance did not hinder my participation.
That was in November. Starting in January, we had meetings once every two weeks, and they were entirely online, even for those living in the same city. We decided to meet online. Maybe this was because I had expressed the wish to join but could not be physically present. In any case, it allowed us to negotiate my presence and the tools we use.