Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Introduction
34 Davide Torsello and Melinda Pappová Chapter Five introduces a case study situated in southwestwern Slovakia. Tóth analyses the assimilation process of one village, where the ethnic Hungarians constitute the majority of its inhabitants. The use of language constitutes the main indicator of the assimilation process which is carefully mapped by the author through statistics and interviews in the community. The chapter emphasises how ethnic assimilation can result from diverse factors which range from housing policies, villagers’ choices in terms of education and aging. Chapter Six extends the findings of Chapter Five to the macro-level of analysis including the whole linguistic and ethnic border region between Hungarians and Slovaks in Slovakia. Szarka identifies the dynamics through which ethnic identity processes are constructed by those who influence public opinion and are later included in the ground-level cognitive processes. The author points out that language borders are increasingly mobile and it would be a mistake to identify them as conventional ethnic borders. Observation of local reality suggests that it is in the very realm of single communities, in the everyday social interaction and even within single households that ethnic differentiation becomes evident on the basis of language use. In Chapter Seven Liszka demonstrates that it is highly problematic to circumscribe a geo-historical region, such as that ethnographically termed as Mátyusföld, in southwestern Slovakia (the region including the case studies of Tóth, Torsello, Danter and partly Árendás). Drawing on historical and ethnographic literature, the author suggests that ethnographic boundaries are valid analytical constructions only when they leave space to critical questioning of their cultural and historical features. Chapter Eight analyses the institutional frameworks within which ethnic networks were established in the border region between Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. The large historical presence of ethnic Italians in this area has called for state and international organisations’ intervention on the issue of minority rights. Kappus demonstrates that the Italian community in this region, whose borders were established only
