Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
89
I do not wish to discuss the entire gamut of Hungarian studies related to urbanity here for that
would require a separate and substantial treatment on its own (see Kürti 2003). Instead, I want
to explain my own urban by providing a few ideas concerning my fieldwork experiences in
Hungary.
While the term urban anthropology (
városantropológia
) currently is in vogue in
Hungary, other terms such as ‘settlement study’ (
településkutatás
) and urban sociology have
been also utilized to make them distinctly up-to-date and different from the more traditional
rural or village studies (
falukutatás
) or ethnography (
néprajz
). This exciting tradition evolved
from a mixture of urban sociology, regional or urban geography, and urban planning with a
strong foundation in history and peasant ethnography connected to the names of such pioneers
as Robert Braun, Tibor Mendöl and Ferenc Erdei. Ethnographers of the twentieth-century
have studied the so-called Hungarian agro-towns (Cegléd, Debrecen, Hódmezővásárhely,
Kiskunhalas, Szeged, and so on) which are of considerable size in Hungary (ranging between
50,000 and 100,000 people), with their usual mixture of various classes, diverse economic,
industrial, religious and educational institutions (Hofer, Kisbán and Kaposvári eds 1974).
Smaller towns also have their ‘own’ ethnographers as well, but many of these studies do not
discuss anthropological (or urban anthropological) issues
per se
but remain within the
confines of standard local ethnographies about the changing nature of peasant society.
Already in the 1980s, some keen-eyed ethnographer-folklorists turned their attention to
‘ethnographies of towns’ but only scratched the surface of what anthropologists have been
doing in urban environments in the West and, what is more important, investigated how could
traditional ethnographic practice evolve into full-fledged urban anthropology (Fejős and
Niedermüller 1983; Niedermüller 1984a, 1984b). Aside from a few attempts to grasp the new
possibilities of research in urban context (Gergely 1993, Letenyei 2004), most of the recent
work published in Hungary under the heading urban anthropology are either translations of
Western, mostly English, urban studies or continue to be produced in the traditional
ethnographic-folkloristic style (see, for example, Jelinek, Bodnár, Czirfuszand and Gyimesi
eds 2013). Granted, both are necessary, especially for lower-level university teaching, but
neither can stand for real urban anthropology (Prato and Pardo, 2013, discuss current
concerns). However, it must be emphasized that many recent studies are conducted in an
urban environment, population and institutions —
for example, ethnic enclaves, migrant
camps, or hospitals —
without them being labelled urban anthropology or relating to
theoretical orientation(s) of that area (Lázár and Pikó eds 2012). While in history, sociology
and geography new trends have been the order of the day, ethnography has not developed
along the same lines and, sadly, in cultural anthropology there is no specialized degree
program in urban anthropology although some of the program allow urban-centred research to
be included in its orientation.
As part of my doctoral dissertation I decided to study Budapest, Hungary’s capital of
two millions (Kürti 2002a). This was not without the influence of John W. Cole at the
University of Massachusetts (Amherst) who was especially pleased because of my choice.
There were two main reasons for his decision to support my fieldwork. For one, American
and British anthropological interest in Eastern Europe concentrated on villages, an orientation
