A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Ethnographica 3. (Szeged, 2001)

Medgyesi Konstantin: „Mi nem tudunk élni a hagyma nélkül”. Adatok a Makó környéki hagymásvilág rendszerváltozás utáni társadalomrajzához

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We cannot live without onion" Data to the Sociography of the World Based on Onion in and around of Makó after the 1989 Political Transition The concepts of the onion and the region of Makó are inseparable from each other. As one of my interviewees put it: "In a wine region they produce wine. Fortunately, for us we have the onion that provides us with a bit of extra income." When one examines the micro and macro communities of Makó, he will inevitably observe the onion's effect on shaping the society. This present study's starting point is the concept of the rise of peasantry into the middle class, the concept of which was created by Ferenc Erdei from Makó. When drawing the map of Makó's peasant society and within that the onion producers' society, the young Erdei concluded that the problems of peasantry can be remedied by the emerging rise to the middle class. In view of the peasantry's rise to the middle class, I have examined who make up today's onion producers' society in and around Makó i.e. the group of people/families who in one way or another have connections with the onion, who have income from either growing the plant or processing it. I have studied where they come from, what their family background is, what life they have led, what type of economic strategy they follow, what business resources they can count on and what "cultural capital" they have. During my research in 1999 I interviewed 47 people. With the help of these interviews I have highlighted the farmers' struggles, the business resources of the traders and with the tools of sociography I portray the life of the onion producers. 186