Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interaction, migration and change
242 Maruška Svašek a powerful aristocracy was reinforced when the future king of the Netherlands, Prince Willem Alexander, came to shoot pheasants in Vesnice in 1999. He was an acquaintance of Hulshoff’s brother, a banker, and although the crown prince’s presence was "secret”, the whole village soon knew about it. In Hedrlin’s view, the capitalist free market ideology and its approach to ownership formed the centre of the problem: The question is: "who owns the means of production?” We are now being transformed into a developing country. We will work hard but somebody else will export our products, and God knows who will get the profits. Whichever way you turn it, capitalism is relentless. The only criterion is profit. Evidently, we haven’t been prepared for that, and the governments which came to power after 1989 have not shown much interest in our region. By selling out through privatisation we have survived the last decade, and may possibly further survive but the situation will only become worse. Hedrlin felt threatened by the fact that more and more houses and plots of land in and around Vesnice were falling into the hands of one powerful foreigner. "We’re becoming strangers in our own house”, he noted, and admitted that he felt threatened. "I used to think that this was my home, but now we’re confronted with something we never wanted to be confronted with.” Gossip as a form of resistance One way in which the villagers criticized the changing property relations in the village and expressed their resentment towards Hulshoff was through gossip. Elsewhere, I argued that gossip is a communicative practice which both shapes and is shaped by changing power relations, and helps people to make emotional judgements and respond to rapid change (cf Svašek 1997: 115; see also TVIüller 2002). To most of the villagers in Vesnice, the transformation from state-socialism to democracy meant economic insecurity, changing working conditions, and the confrontation with new socio-economic hierarchies. Gossip provided a subjective, emotional account
