The politics of culture: Folk critique and transformation of the state in Hungary.
Item
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Title
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The politics of culture: Folk critique and transformation of the state in Hungary.
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Identifier
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AAI3296977
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identifier
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3296977
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Creator
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Taylor, Mary N.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Gerald W. Creed
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural | Sociology, Social Structure and Development | Dance
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Abstract
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In the 1970's, a folk revival movement---tanchaz ---emerged in the capital city of Hungary, Budapest, that gained wide popularity and has continued to flourish for over thirty years, due partly to its focus on the participatory practices of folk dance as social dance; as an associative activity. By examining tanchaz in relation to a populist movement, or "folk critique" of the interwar period, the cultural politics of the socialist period, patterns of liberalization in late socialist and post socialist periods, and the broadening webs of governance focused on heritage in the post socialist period, I show that the content of the revival is contingent on historical circumstances.;Arguing that associative forms and state forms are mutually constitutive, this study examines why ethnonationalist expression is pervasive in revivalist settings today by viewing it through historical and political economic lenses. The study shows that while folk revival is not always and necessarily ethnonationalistic, the "folk critique" that preceded tanchaz, was focused on the cultivation of citizens, as is tanchaz , today. By viewing the revival as an associative activity concerned with the cultivation of the "volk" (nep), the study challenges the claim made by participants that, as a voluntary leisure activity, tanchaz lies outside the political sphere. It shows both how the aesthetic practices of tanchaz work to "cultivate" participants as particular kinds of Hungarians, and how such cultivation is related their behavior in the political sphere.;Civic cultivation ensues from the interaction of nation making and state formation, and the study elucidates the revival's relationship with state formation in the late socialist and postsocialist periods. A rollback of social citizenship has coincided with a "cultural turn", the origins of which can be traced to the late socialist period and connected to webs of governance focussed on civil society and cultural citizenship. Examining these processes in relation to tanchaz "nationalism", I offer one perspective on the "rise of ethnonationalism" and the "rising tide of populism" in the Post Socialist era, suggesting not only that we attend to historical nuance, but that we consider the "state functions" of supranational agencies as implicated in nation making and ethnonationalism.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
