Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interethnic spaces
A village on the ethnic periphery 137 outside the community). During the analysis of our survey we did not find an answer to the question to what degree this process could be considered healthy and natural. Were we witnessing the formation of a multicultural community, or observing the reality of the assimilation and decrease of the Hungarian population (which is a general tendency currently) on the micro-level in the everyday life of a community? On the basis of the present survey it is very difficult to demonstrate, to measure and to assess those influences that nationalistic efforts (which are often elevated to the level of state politics, see for example language law) and fears, as a reaction to these nationalistic efforts, have on the behavioural patterns of individuals, families and households. Our survey did not examine the reaction of parents to those challenges that employment outside the local ethnic environment necessarily brings along. To what extent do these often negative experiences, which often leave deep psychic marks on a person, motivate the choosing of the Slovak school or the decision to change his/her own culture? We only grasped the momentary ethnic picture of Dlhá nad Váhom village and the phenomena which are hidden in the background and which, in our view, can have or do have an assimilation influence within the community. Summary In terms of language use and the number of households that can be considered Hungarian, the village as a whole still shows the picture of a traditional small village with the Hungarian population as a majority. However, when analysing the data obtained it becomes clear that: the village’s Hungarian population is extremely aged; it mainly consists of one-member families; the community has a low birth rate and a nearly three times higher death rate. Moreover, the high number of families with two children and the tendency towards a large-scale settling-in characterise the community. Therefore, intensive immigration, whose signs are noticeable already in present days, can be expected in the near future.
