Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Introduction
32 Davide Torsello and Melinda Pappová ent lives, it makes still sense to deal with "postsocialism" as a framework of social analysis. Structure of the book The volume is divided into four sections on the basis of common themes and problems within the treatment of social networks. The prefaces introduce the problem from two different viewpoints. Giordano demonstrates that anthropological focus on social networks has been profoundly shaped by the theoretical developments in the discipline with the zenith in the late 1960s and the nadir in the mid-1980s. Wallace, in the second preface, agrees with Giordano that the analysis of social networks can provide a fruitful approach to the understanding of postsocialist societies after, as she points out, adequate attention is paid to the nature and functioning of networks in society. Section One deals expressively with history and the way in which networks and patterns of social interaction change and demonstrate continuity over time and space. In Chapter One Árendás deals with the resettlement process of Hungarian families from Slovakia to Hungary in the years following the end of World War Two. The incoming settlers were in the peculiar situation of being accommodated in houses where the original owners (ethnic Germans) were still resident. The author points out that no serious conflict arose between the two groups because they shared the similar fate of being settlers on a foreign land. On the other hand, the networks between resettled Hungarians and local Hungarians were much weaker. The chapter explains the different degrees of social interaction focusing on the problem of the use of memory as an element creating identity. Chapter Two proposes a space-temporal approach to trust in a southern Slovakian village. Trust and mistrust are strategically constructed by villagers in the course of their everyday interaction with different social institutions. The family and the community are the spatial layers within which
